‘Safest’ phone option for preteen?

[violetcuriosity]

Fully aware this is a hugely divisive topic but I think the time has come to start considering a phone for my preteen. At the moment she has no independence bar a short walk (with me somewhere behind with the younger DC) with friends from school to the car and I now leave her at home when I pop out. The next step for her is to go to the park for half an hour or so or walk to the shops, however, I just don’t feel confident doing this if she has no means of contacting me.

Much as she would like it, she is not ready for any form of social media. Ideally, I would like the phone to basically function the same way as her iPad- allows her to message her friends and play games with the added call function. I don’t want to buy her a brick but, a slightly cooler looking brick would be good 😂.

What have others done/bought? I am due an upgrade on my iPhone and my partner thinks we should buy a safe sim and give her this, I’m more leaning towards one of the phones designed for kids E.g. the Motorola.

Thank you in advance. Again, aware this is divisive and personal preference/down to the kids. Mine is still needing down time away from her friends in the evenings watching a film with us, for example, but I know this may change over the next year too.

How old is she? DS is 10 and has an XPlora watch.

DS has a VERY addictive personality. Extremely so. He is completely neutral to the watch and that’s exactly how I like it. He walks to and from school by himself and the last few months he walks through the neighbourhood to his friends’ houses and it’s so nice. Half the time he’ll forget to wear his watch but when he does we can see where he is, he can text and call numbers I add to his watch via the app, the app notified us whenever he calls or texts someone. He can call or text me, his dad, grandma and his best friend’s mum and that’s it.

They’re WAY safer let loose in the world than they are let loose in the internet.

A basic iPhone would make sense so it syncs with her iPad. You can use ‘find my’ on your iPhone to check where she is. With the parental controls and screen time settings you can block or restrict every app/website you want to e.g. allow a certain amount of time per day on specific apps or ban altogether. Turn on ‘ask to buy’ so she has to get your approval for downloading apps.

DS1 (in year 5) will be getting a brick phone when he starts secondary school. I will buy him an annual bus saver ticket to keep in his wallet.

He's very scatterbrained and will have a complicated journey of 2 buses or a bus and a walk to school and I hate seeing all the secondary school kids looking at their phones while crossing the road when i do the school run.

Does she really need a phone for those activities?

A significant number of kids at my DC’s secondary have dumb Nokia bricks - calls and SMS only. I wouldn’t give a primary school kid anything else tbh.

For Orimary, I would get a "brick", but not call it her phone as such. But its available as a device if needed.

She’s just turned 11 so secondary is looming. Quite liking the idea of it just being a device to take out if she needs it and sticking to the iPad for social time.

When DS goes to secondary we’re going to get some sort of phone that stays in the hallway and he can take it out with him if he wants. It’s a family device that anyone can use. So not his. I’d get a landline if any of his friends had one! I like the idea of the phone being a destination in the hallway rather than something you carry around with you.

We got one of these for our 11 year old.
https://thephone.fr/
Looks like a smartphone and has a touch screen, but is a dumbphone which can only call or text.

We initially got a Nokia dumbphone, but texting was painful on the number pad.

Phone is pretty basic, it has literally no other features other than SMS and calls. No Internet, No camera. And as it's made by a French company, despite being able to change the language to English, sometimes it does pop up with random messages in French! Although I thought this wasn't a terrible thing with a DC learning French at school!

Also the onscreen keypad is AZERTY not QWERTY, which you can't seem to change. But other than that, it's literally the only dumbphone I've found with a proper touchscreen, and works well for DC.

Can you get an iPhone but only have calls and SMS package so no data package? So they can only use it on WiFi?

Just in case anyone comes across this thread, someone has recommended the EE safe sim which looks good as it has recommended ages E.g. the most secure is for ages 9-11 and gets progressively more relaxed as the ages increase.

Incase people have not heard of this ’Smartphone Free Childhood’ campaign. The idea is that the more parents there are who sign up to this, the more children without one won’t feel singled out.

www.smartphonefreechildhood.org/