Will you be getting your child a smartphone?

[Fandangles]

….if you haven’t already?

DS is 11 and DD is 9. They knew about 6 months ago that they won’t have a smartphone til much later. I joined the smartphone free childhood movement and have recently watched the Swiped documentary on channel 4. I can’t see any good that can come out of giving a child a smartphone, but still worry about mine being the odd ones out.

I couldn’t see much discussion on it here and wondered if people are still considering smartphones over non smartphones for their children?

@GrazeConcern apologies, I see from your pp that you see bad parenting as the issue.

This. DC3 will get a phone in Y6/7 the same as her older siblings did, and will have the same rules and expectations in place (phones charge downstairs overnight, appropriate restrictions on it, no social media until 13-ish).

And modelling good phone habits at home - reading in the evenings, concentrating on a film/ series, having outside interests.

Phones are here to stay and are useful tools and I'd rather my children learn to use them appropriately and with parental guidance.

My 9 year old wants a dog, so I said dog or a phone and she picked dog.... I wasn't expecting that response if I am being honest, we will get her a phone in year 6/7, but not a smartphone and see how we go. Even WhatsApp bothers me with the disappearing messages feature, hoping all schools ban them

Whats the best phone to get? I would like one when my son is going to secondary with a tracker, what's app but no apps. I hate phones!

DS1 is in yr 4 - I will get him a dumb phone for secondary school, and then hold out as long as I can before getting him a smart phone. Hopefully by the time he is 13ish they'll have banned social media for under 16s.

I gave my ds a smart phone when he started senior school, but found he very soon left it at home. When asked why, he said people just used them for bullying or sending dick pics and he wasn't interested so it was best not to have a phone.

He started using his phone daily when he was 15, and I assume his class mates had matured a bit.

No, not goady, and I saw your other post about acknowledging I see bad parenting as the main problem.

For me, a smartphone is better than a dumb phone for the 12-15 age group as it gives them: maps (my ds is a scout and we pay for os maps for him as he plans local hikes, also very educational), calculator, the ability to set himself alarms and reminders, a camera, and music via our family Spotify. The school homework is on an app, and sometimes he’ll do some
maths homework when we’re stuck at a boring relatives as it’s all online too. Obviously all that could be done on a non phone device, but I personally think laptops are harder to lock down browsing wise.

I do see the main problem as bad parenting. I don’t understand how there hasn’t been a government campaign telling parents not to allow installation of social media for under 14s for example, and awareness of how you can set time limits etc. It’s not hard to find out how to apply some controls and the way they get around them, and there are lots of resources about how to talk to kids about technology and how it affects them etc.

My child’s in Y5 age 11. Probably one of the only children in his peer group who doesn’t have one. He hasn’t asked for one and expressed he doesn’t want one because all he hears is ‘drama’.

There’s been kids being mean through WhatsApp, kids editing and sending videos for others to laugh at, kids making rediculose videos and uploading to TikTok/youtube and one child even sent a group of teenagers photos of his private parts! Police were involved with that one.

If we have his friends over or take them out, they are glued to their phone.

He walks to school alone and manages just fine just like children did before phones. Once his front bike wheel fell of on his way to school and he kindly got help form a school mum also on route.

I find it bizarre that other parents in his year group will not allow their child to walk alone to school as they don’t deem them responsible but allow them a smart phone!

Im not a strict parent but smart phones I just don’t see the benefit.

We did try a brick phone but my son soon gave it up as his friends were calling/texting continuously and at crazy times. He hasn’t used it or charged it in months.

I dont think removing social media is the whole solution as there are two other major problems i see (working with young people)

1: failure to develop resilience and social skills due to total relience on the phone, eg texting parents/friends to ask what to do because the bus hasn’t come. Young adults who cant ask a question of a stranger.

2: inability to pay attention as they are constantly distracted by messages, and whenever they feel worried/anxious they text a parent or boyfriend.

These problems are essentially lack of independence because wherever they are they are never self reliant they are still hanging on to the apron strings or relying on friends.

Our kids get phones six months before secondary school. Phones are banned within the school, which I agree with.

We use parental controls, time limits and 'bedtimes' phones are not allowed in bedrooms. We use the same practical rules use with gaming eg

• you are not allowed to game online with anyone you do not know in person translates to you cannot be in a WhatsApp group with anyone you do not know in person.
• If someone says something that makes you uncomfortable you immediately quit/leave and tell an adult. etc

I view learning responsible phone use to be a life skill on par with learning good manners in other social contexts. This is a thing we as parents have a duty to teach our children how to navigate, and it's a lot easier to teach a preteen that still hangs on your every word than a young adult or teen!

Honestly..... sometimes I wish I'd never got one!

I have the problem that dd had theirs at 11 so son will want to follow but I'm dreading it. The anxiety, the doom scrolling, the mental health issues - so much of it imo is because of these damn phones!

10 and 11 year old here and no smartphone-and no plans to get one.
They can use a travel card on the bus, and I'm curious to all these maps pp have mentioned, maybe I'll buy my children an A-Z!

We have a dumb phone at phone as we don't have a landline, but they already walk to and from school alone (in London), and don't take the phone, as what is it preventing exactly? If they don't arrive school will call me, there's no need, and seeing the children who have smart phones coming out gormlessly staring at them immediately is enough to confirm my decision. I think schools will ban them anyway.

@FumingTRex excellent points about the possible over-reliance on using them to contact parents etc. I read somewhere (maybe here?) that someone’s school had banned smartphones, but the mum had said to her daughter to hide it anyway in case she needed to text her from the toilets during the day. I don’t think that should be encouraged.

in terms of bad parenting, yes, there will be definite cases of this. But I also think there will be parents who think they’ve done enough in terms of control/monitoring but haven’t - and they just haven’t realised. I don’t trust that I would be totally on top of it the whole time and that my son wouldn’t find ways around the controls if he really wanted to.