Didn't see this one coming - 8yo dd and mobile phone....

[Whatsername177]

My lovely little girl has just sat me down and asked me if we can talk about when she will be allowed a mobile phone of her own. She was really polite and respectful, but stated that lots of her friends have phones of their own and use YouTube and Tick Tock and she is starting to feel left out. I praised her for being so grown up and stalled her by saying I'd talk to her dad. However, I just can't get my head around her classmates already having mobile phones. She is 8! Surely that is too young? I know dh will say absolutely no way and I agree with him. However, I do worry she is feeling left behind her peers because dh and I are fairly anti social media for young kids. Are we just old fashioned? I am 99.99% certain she is too young, however, I want to know how out of touch I am with the rest of the world, which is why I'm asking her. Her friends and their parents are lovely and they are happy for their kids to have a phone. What am I missing?
YABU - 8 is old enough for a phone and SM. YANBU - you are a completely correct old fashioned fuddy duddy.

We did 11th birthday for ds1 and will be doing the same for dd who is almost 10. Ds1 is now 12 and is allowed some social media that I check every day. He thinks my checking is excessive but it's part of the deal of having a phone, that I'm allowed to check when I like. I think 8 is too young but I do see many young children with phones.

Too young. Maybe you can let her use Tik Tok on your phone but keep the account private so she can't post her videos and you are aware or the content she is making and she can get half an hour or an hour over the weekend. I also think senior school is the best time, but my eldest is 4 so not a problem yet. My friend has a 9 year old DD and came to that compromise, own phone at 11 and can use Tik Tok on her phone only and account is private, no messages. She says her DD really enjoys making the videos hence the compromise.

So sweet your DD sat you down for a talk.

My 9.5 year old has a mobile phone. He got it during the summer holidays as started to give him more independence, seek his friends to play, pop to the shop for us. He started to walk to school by himself in september. No social media and his phone is linked to ours so we can see exactly what hes doing with it. So far he has been sensible and only uses it to contact me or his dad and occasionally a friend to arrange a meet up.

I have told dd she can have a phone when she is responsible enough to be trusted to get the bus by herself as then she will need one to be in touch.

We home ed so didn’t make sense to tie it to school landmarks but if she was at school o would probably have said when she started high school.

DS is getting a phone for Christmas - he’s 10 (11 in Feb). He knows there will be strict rules about usage of phone and that I will be installing parental software.

He is probably one of the last few without a phone in his class though.

My kids got them the summer before senior school so age almost 12. they absolutely do not need them before then. They had them at this age due to walking to station/catching train to and from school.

I vote start of high school / end of primary school. Only to meet peer pressure, id much rather not!

Children don't need phones to go ut by themselves, although of course having one can sometimes be helpful. But I think that saying to a child that they need one when they go out y themselves can cause unneccesary anxiety and over reliance on phones.

Have a look at the nspcc guide to tiktok etc.
Talk to her about why you are uncomfortable with them.
We told them that until there was a clear need for them to be able to contact us they didn't need one.
They actually got one the Christmas they started year 6.

They are Y7&8 now and quite anti social media in their own way, don't want WhatsApp because they want to control who has their number etc.
We have armed them with knowledge and allowed them to make the right choices.