To think parents should NOT let primary aged children on messaging/social media?

[SocialMediaPITA]

I'm a primary school teacher in year 6. I spend lots of time having to deal with pupils falling out with each other on messaging apps/social media outside of school hours. They then bring these issues into school the next day, and there are tears, tantrums and, on some occasions, fights. And staff have to give up lunch hours, break time and learning/lesson time to deal with the fall out. Children can't learn if they are brewing on what's happened the night before, eg falling out with their peers.

Why do parents let their children on social media? The min age for WhatsApp is 16 - it's 16 for a reason! Many primary aged children are not emotionally able to deal with issues via messaging - even as adults we can recognise that tone and body language can play a huge part in communicating - social media and messaging removes that important aspect and if we as adults can get it wrong, why do we expect children to be able to deal with it? It's affecting their mental health.

I've mopped too many tears this week and much of it can be avoided.

I agree it is worse because of covid lockdowns, some children were very isolated, others not so much. Some schools did no online teaching so no social opportunities. A child in year 2 or 3 doesn’t have the same need for interaction with friends as a year 6 which is when many kids get a phone to start collecting numbers prior to the end of school. Unfortunately the reality is that secondary school socialising revolves around the phone

You’re completely right. Could never understand why parents did this.

All of this! Rightly or wrongly, like it or not, Phones, FaceTime and messaging are literally their social life now.

😱

I know there is much worse porn on the net but some things did exist prior to phones. I can remember being in infants and putting down newspapers for painting, including page 3. And various porn mags found at home being passed round

Whilst in an ideal world I don’t disagree with your sentiment it’s completely unrealistic. Our local high school expect all children to have smart phones from year 7- all homework, timetables and learning resources are set via an app. Kids are asked to use their phones for research. My eldest got his first smart phone when he turned 11- seemed to be the norm. Luckily for us he wasn’t 11 until he’d finished the academic year so practically year 7. My youngest however is in year 5 and I don’t know many other kids who don’t have their own smart phone. Because needing a smart phone at 11/year 7 is inevitable I know a lot of parents view year 6 as a sort of ‘training ground’ of social media communication where they can keep a close eye on them. Not close enough though because something was always kicking off! That said my eldest had WhatsApp when he got his phone and I check it all the time. His WhatsApp inbox is an absolute snore-fest of random gifs, memes and gaming chat.

I run a what’s app group for a sport which includes juniors and seniors. We don’t allow any child under 16 as per the law and safeguarding in uk to post or to register on the what’s app group

the parents have to be posting on the what’s app group. Just to ask about matches or practices.

I have had pushback but just say you want me to agisnt the law or safeguarding ?

I didn't suggest you said anything. Only pointing out that some parents feel that setting up certain programs solves a problem.

For instance, my virgin Internet allows for a restricted mode so certain websites can't be accessed.

Eg I can't access the love honey website because it sells sex toys. So a parent could reasonably think, this is working my children are protected.

They may not realise it will allow twitter which contains hardcore porn.

🤷🏻

Ok, given the age of the children, do you think parents should be monitoring those online interactions? Or at the very least, having parental controls/blocks on which numbers to add or interact with?

I spoke to someone at school about this and she said those kinds of things give parents a false sense of security and most kids are so tech savvy they can get round them anyway. It's much better to supervise your children and teach them how to protect themselves. You can show your children how to make it so they don't get added to groups on WhatsApp.

UndertheCedartree

How did you explain to your child that you are letting them do something that they aren't old enough for? Presumably you or your child had to lie about their age when you signed up. Aren't you concerned about what this is teaching them?

Does the local High School ask the pupils to download social media apps that are age restricted? (Because it sounds from your post that it's an age appropriate app they school have asked them to download in order to access their learning. And those interactions are monitored by the school.)

Unfortunately the reality is that secondary school socialising revolves around the phone

Only because parents are giving their children smart phones and permitting it!

My daughter is year 5, she has what’s app and has several class chats… I find most of thier group drama actually happens in the classroom over pencil cases , seating etc, if any drama does occur online my daughter is not usually at the forefront and leaves as soon as it gets ugly… we have rule s regarding social media and I check her phone every night ( she doesn’t know because I can only imagine she’d delete stuff, but so far she’s followed the rules and that’s all I can ask for.

This is why my son has his phone. It was used to keep in contact with his friends during lockdown. He does have WhatsApp and I check his messages regularly. He's been saying that 'everyone' has TikTok and asked for it but I've said no. Him and his friends play roblox while video calling each other.
He doesn't have a tv in his room (he'd be upstairs all the time) and sits in the kitchen to speak to people! I'm not sure if he's already have a phone if it wasn't for lockdown. I'd always said secondary school.

Online learning isn’t socialising though. They couldn’t talk to their friends without talking to the whole class. It was incredibly isolating and lonely for children and if parents didn’t allow social media, the children couldn’t interact with their friends.

Completely agree with the OP. There is no decent reason why parents should allow young children to be on any social media. It's unnecessary and opening them up to a world that they just don't need access to at such a young age.

My boys (9 and 11) both have WhatsApp. They have fun texting their friends. They r sensible with it. There's never been any falling outs or anything over it. No tantrums or arguments. Can't see the harm. Please don't tarnish all kids as the same. There are plenty of kids who use social media responsibly and have fun with it in a safe way.

"It was incredibly isolating and lonely for children and if parents didn’t allow social media, the children couldn’t interact with their friends*

They could have made actual phone calls, chatted on Teams or similar, written letters! All of those things could have been done on a parent ' s device and account and could have been supervised.

Yes, but they are under age. Do you also allow other things that they are too young for if they "have fun with it in a safe way"?

OK, but that's done now and has been for a while so...?

My DD is in Year 2 and she told me her classmates are using Tiktok - even worse than whatsapp with loads of stupid challenges that young kids cannot judge if it's life threatening. I wonder what kind of parents would allow child of 7 years old using Tiktok

My boys, and their friends, all seem to use WhatsApp responsibly. Maybe we r fortunate with the kids in our school, but there don't seem to have been any issues with WhatsApp in either of my boys classes. They enjoying texting friends on WhatsApp and I check their phones regularly and can see the threads of conversation which are all quite sweet and harmless. They sometimes use WhatsApp video call to chat to friends while playing Roblox or something online. I honestly can't see the harm if it's being used responsibly and parents are monitoring and supporting and taking to children about safe use of apps etc...

Yes I do allow other things. They've both watched a couple of 12 films with me checking content before hand. They both play Roblox and have played Fortnite (not so much now as it's boring apparently, and older one has moved on to some airplane simulator thing and a new online chess game!) which I think are rated at 13 or more.

As a parent I take these ratings as guidelines, and ultimately believe it's up to me as a parent to make the decision on what I think is safe for my children. Children will be exposed to more and more things as they get older, and I like to teach safe and responsible use of tech now to ensure when they are more independent they will have that foundation of knowledge.

All this COVID excuse…DS1 (Y5) just used my phone to ring his friends in lockdown. Why does that lead to having one himself? He’ll get a brick in Y6 and we’ll assess what he needs for secondary when he gets there. They’ve already had at least two massive safeguarding alerts this year in his class due to WhatsApp (DS1 oblivious, fortunately, but all Y5 parents were ‘reminded’ to take WhatsApp off phones as the DC are breaking the licence terms). DH (secondary teacher) has VIEWS about that…it’s very noticeable that the DC who don’t have phones nearly all have a parent in education or tech.

I think she is old enough to send messages/call her best friend. Yes, I had to lie in all fairness but that wasn't something my child was aware of. She just knows I feel she is responsible enough to speak to her friend. She knows I won't allow other apps I feel she is too young for like FB, Insta etc.