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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be unhappy my child's phone was confiscated?

487 replies

Phoneproblems · 04/06/2018 16:23

I have no issues with the phone itself being confiscated but apparently it is only to be returned on Friday - surely this cannot be right?

OP posts:
BarbarianMum · 05/06/2018 09:48

At our school the choice is phone confiscation or internal exclusion. Amazingly, when presented with this choice, most parents and kids pick phone confiscation and no one has yet died as a result. Repeat offending is really rare.

Lethaldrizzle · 05/06/2018 09:53

Of course the school are right. I am not looking forward to my kids having phones. I am going to put it off for as long as possible.

RaymondHolt · 05/06/2018 10:52

Urgh! At the school where I work the phone is confiscated until the end of that half term unless a parent comes to collect it. It is a good deterrent and most parents leave it a few days to inconvenience their child! There are some extenuating circumstances when it will be given back.

OP - By going in and getting the phone before Friday you are undermining the school rules and teaching your child that what you say is more important. Will you do this every time they get in trouble?

I can imagine them being one of those kids that get to high school and say 'I'll complain to my mum and she'll cancel my detention', 'Get your parents to call the school and change the punishment - my mum did'.

Back the school up - you both knew the policy.

IIIustriousIyIIlogical · 05/06/2018 11:02

How is this affecting you OP?

If it was one of my kids I'd be quite happy for them to keep the phone until Friday.

I think that'd teach them a better lesson than Mum rushing into school to demand preshusses phone back....

Omega1 · 05/06/2018 11:10

All these children who NEED a phone at all times. All these disasters looming on the school journey. All the anxious parents who NEED to be able to convey serious messages to their children during the school day. All these sudden and life-altering changes of plans at pickup time.

How did any of us ever manage to get there and back in one piece?!

Pengggwn · 05/06/2018 11:12

Do you know what 75% of the students who take their phones out at inappropriate times at school say?

"It's my mum."

I don't care if it's Cleopatra, the Queen of the Nike.

Pengggwn · 05/06/2018 11:12

*Nile!

Bloody phone.

SoupDragon · 05/06/2018 11:18

Cleopatra, the Queen of the Nike.

A queen for the youth of today. Your phone knows what it’s talking about.

Pengggwn · 05/06/2018 11:24

😂

Waggingmyginger · 05/06/2018 11:28

It's only a few days. Long enough to be a lesson. Not so long a back up is necessary. Confiscating until the end of the same day when using a phone in school is flaunting a rule isn't anything out of how students should behave.
Taking photos at a school without consent is taken very seriously.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 05/06/2018 11:34

I'll say it again ... at least in school, the whole thing around needing to contact kids / phone obsession / safeguarding / confiscation arguments could be solved by providing the cheapest non-smartphone, knowing that they'd still have their latest gadget to look forward to once the school day was over

I wonder why more parents don't do this and save everyone the angst

Goodasgoldilox · 05/06/2018 11:39

The punishment for breaking the no-phone- rule is 'no phone till Friday and a detention' - it seems pretty mild to me.

Not all phone use is innocent and banning them does reduce many serious problems. Your DC might not have been taking photos of anything really awful - but she knew that she was breaking the rules. If phones are gradually allowed again, other rule-breakers might well go much further (upskirting etc.) Much bullying can be based on in-school phone use.

If you are worried about the safety of the phone - you could go and collect it - but please don't undermine things by giving it back to your DC.

Pengggwn · 05/06/2018 11:44

It really doesn't matter what she was using the phone to do. The rule protects her as much as it does other students from all inappropriate use of phones, and the only means of doing that is to ban the use of phones full stop. They did that, you agreed to it, not step up and parent.

GoldilocksAndTheThreePears · 05/06/2018 11:58

For me, the most important thing is- did the child know they were breaking a rule. This goes right back to me as a child being told off for doing a cartwheel and inadvertently showing my knickers, I had absolutely no idea why this was so terrible and why I was being punished. If child knows the rule, punishment is obviously needed, but also a conversation. This rule is in place because of safeguarding, because you could be doing other things, etc. At that age it wouldn't connect in my head, taking photos is wrong because of potential safeguarding issues, or bullying, or anything like that. Kids now grow up seeing adults taking out a phone to snap a selfie, taking pictures with friends, it's a normal everyday occurrence and it just wouldn't occur to me it could be bad unless I was told.

I personally would go and pick up the phone but keep to the punishment the school set out, not giving it to the child, because there is no way I'd see the item again otherwise! Anything I or anyone else at school had confiscated was never seen again, still irks me to this day that a mouse that fell out of my bag was taken and I was told to pick it up after school was mysteriously gone by the end of the day! If the school has form for actually returning items fine but I wouldn't trust them.

Sixgeese · 05/06/2018 12:10

My DS's school takes phones until Friday too, he has had his confiscated a couple of times. I am hoping he will learn!

As he has a 5 mile and a 2/3 bus journey home, I do like him to be able to contact me in case of problems, but it is important to follow the schools rules. To get around this, I bought him a really cheap (£10) PAYG phone from Argos to use in this situation. He hates it, we are supporting the school and can still contact me if he needs me. It's win win!

SalemBlackCat · 05/06/2018 12:34

You were asked several times if this was a first offence ie first time she had it confiscated. You didn't answer. Why not? I am in Australia and the rule is confiscated and returned at the end of the day. For the second time, it is confiscated til the end of the week (Presuming it wasn't confiscated on a Friday that is). So it seems standard, regardless of country. Yeah, taking photos of hair seems innocuous - though taking photos of hair seems rather - random and odd, and I can't imagine any child even bothering, so I think your daughter may not be giving you the full story here. I mean, taking photos of hair? Sorry, but....I don't think so. That makes no sense.

karyatide · 05/06/2018 12:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Pengggwn · 05/06/2018 12:52

karyatide

Then they need to take some responsibility. If the phone is essential to them, they should not
be so irresponsible as to risk losing it by taking it out at school.

mountainfalls · 05/06/2018 12:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

IIIustriousIyIIlogical · 05/06/2018 13:13

What's a pupil supposed to do in those situations? Or a high school student who's a teen mum?

The school has a landline manned by a Secretary. Give that number out as a contact number....

Simple eh!! Wink

SalemBlackCat · 05/06/2018 13:18

karyatide most 16 year olds are still living with their parents at that age, so you are the exception and rules do need to be made for the majority taken in mind. Regarding that, you had your phone on during a test? How was that even allowed? If it kept ringing, as the person supervising the test, I would be livid and I would either make you remove it from the room, or you would have to leave. Boiler exploding or not, surely you had a parent or sibling or neighbour or friend that could have been there? And if it exploded before the test, why did you bother to go to the test in the first place? Sorry that the boiler exploded, but that isn't the fault of the rest of the class and they shouldn't have had to have their exam interrupted.

As to contacting parents etc, it is called a school office. Where they get messages to you. I think it is exactly opposite. You are the one acting like you live in a privileged bubble where you need to be contactable 24/7. That is not reality. I am not that old, and my generation didn't have mobiles and some were teen mums, they had no problems! We all coped. It never occurred to us otherwise. I think you are being too precious and first world with all this technology and 'needs' when a school office exists for a reason and there is no need to have a phone at all during school. Its just excuses and it seems you are so middle class privileged that you cannot imagine that us lower classes and older generations didn't have all the frills you have.

Kokeshi123 · 05/06/2018 13:22

"Honestly it's like MN exists in a privileged bubble where everyone is middle class and teen mums, child carers, and teens who have adult responsibilities don't exist. "

No, we know that they exist.

We also know that

a) the vast majority of kids mucking about with phones at school don't fall under these categories
b) smartphones with internet access and cameras are not essential for making highly necessary calls
c) if someone really really needs a phone then why would they jeopardize it by using it to take hair-do photos when this is not allowed?
d) even schools with very strict policies on phone invariably make some special accommodations for exceptional situations like young carers

SalemBlackCat · 05/06/2018 13:23

IIIustriousIyIIlogical "The school has a landline manned by a Secretary. Give that number out as a contact number...."
Exactly! How on earth would these people cope if they went to school in the '90s? It is simply middle-upper class privileged bs. No one 'needs' a mobile phone at school. We got by perfectly without one. It was not necessary for any of us. It is a want. Not a need.

Pengggwn · 05/06/2018 13:24

I had a student (16) trying to take calls from thee doctor in the middle of my lesson. I told them to put the phone away. The student said, "But it's my doctor!"

I told the student that if the doctor is calling someone still in Year 11 at 11 in the morning, then that is very unprofessional. They need to call the parent or guardian, or call outside school hours. In an emergency, they can call the school.

It really is very strange.

Kokeshi123 · 05/06/2018 13:30

Also amused at people who don't have landlines.

Isn't the lack of a landline something that you should, like, deal with? What if your child lost or smashed their phone, how would they make a necessary phone call then?