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.

Also, I don’t think there are any primary schools demanding that pupils download apps for school work, and this thread is predominantly about primary aged children.

no i understand not letting kids have access to phones until secondary school age but i'm more responding to the op's hate of whatsapp and some parents on this post saying that nobody needs technology when that's just not true, technology is now essential for schooling and communication parents can't stop that, parents have been trying to stop the latest craze for decades it's never worked

Exactly this.

People claiming "it's the world we live in" just can't be bothered with the hard parenting, don't want to be the adult and have the argument with their child.

No one is saying keep kids technology free, just dont give them a smart phone in primary school.

Sadly the parents bleating "it's the world now, we have to" are the ones who have already handed their kids a smartphone... now they have to desperately attempt to either pretend it's not bad for children and/or invent reasons why its "absolutely necessary ".

All just so they dont have to accept the damage they've done to their child. Its bonkers.

Agree with every word.

i think I’ve had it easier as my children have two teacher parents so we have been strict about phones, devices and social media. We have a family laptop and that is all.

It’s an excuse to say children need social media to communicate with family and friends and Covid … my children also lived through the pandemic and managed to stay in contact by borrowing our phones for video call.

My children do a lot of extra curricular - they communicate face to face. Way better for mental health than messaging. How do you properly converse through text and memes?

We’ll I don’t have an iPad, and my only laptop is my work one.

Actually I loved a long way from grandparents when I was a child and I didn’t manage to stay in touch much. A phone call here and there wasn’t the same. I hated talking in the phone then as much as I do now. It definitely wasn’t the same as sharing every day chats and photos of what is done in my day like my dc do with their grandparents. If I could work out how she can send pictures via text (her phone always refuses) then we could just do that. She loves sending them pictures of her artwork.

my dd was in one big WhatsApp group. She had an issue, we discussed it and she came out of the group. We talked about how sometimes things can be misunderstood in text, and ultimately if anything was upsetting the best thing to do was to come out of group. So she did.

This thread has made me think about it and I will in particular consider dd’s WhatsApp. Ds is 13 and only in one group which is 3 friends he’s had since he was a baby. Never any drama there.

@MrsMurphyIWish i used to be a teacher, although left 7 years ago so probably not as much as an issue then.

My dd has had to give up all her extra curricular stuff this year, Guides, sports etc because school is so hard for her and she has been school refusing because of autistic burnout. Any further socialising on top was too hard. It’s easy to assume that all children can just do tonnes of extra curricular stuff. Lots of research has shown that autistic young people benefit from online friendship, such as through gaming and chats as they aren’t able to cope always with face to face.

My DS is autistic. I’ve worked hard to find extra curricular he has enjoys. I’ve purposely pushed him to feel uncomfortable and try to overcome that as I know he’ll face many challenges ahead. I don’t want him to get sucked into a world where his only friends are online.

That’s great. I’d love that too. Sadly my dd is currently in a crisis caused by school, pressure of SATs and an obsession with assessments and attendance.

She loved Guides, she loved swimming but she physically couldn’t go anymore it was too much. They out loads of effort into adjustments for her too. I could find loads of things she wants to do, but she can’t. We can’t even leave the house at the weekend as she can’t manage it.

Sorry, I’m a bit sensitive about it at the moment. There are loads of things she wants to do, but can’t.

I’M not disagreeing that social media is bad, I’m defensive about why I let my dd use it. But agree maybe I shouldn’t.

By end year 6 most children have phones ready for secondary school. I don’t understand those in year 4 or early year 5 having them I will admit.

Whatapp gets used to bridge the gap between iPhone/android users for easy free group messaging. If it wasn’t whatapp it would be kik or some other platform they used or you just end up with an Apple / android divide in friendship groups.

The problem again comes back to parents not keeping at eye on what their children are doing. Not the app itself. Whatapp doesn’t make someone say something bitchy, but a parent not keeping an eye and then not handing out suitable punishments etc for being a bully is the problem.

A bully will bully regardless of how they bully, a parent who is willing to step up and deal with their bully child again will regardless of it being WhatsApp/in person/paper airplanes fighting or words.

Same as when you get parents saying Minecraft good fortnight bad not realising both let you play with strangers and chat to strangers. However you can turn chat off in both.

Parents need education on today’s technology because lots of children are running laps around them because they just lack the knowledge or just plan old don’t care.

@TorviShieldMaiden It’s difficult being a parent of an ASD child isn’t it? I’m sorry if my post read insensitively. We do what we think is best for our child and what works for one ASD child won’t for another. I know unless I push DS to be uncomfortable he would be speak to another child. I hope your DD finds something she can be happy doing.

. If I could work out how she can send pictures via text (her phone always refuses) then we could just do that

There's probably a setting you have to change. Ut will probably be something like "allow phone to send,/receive mms when connected to wifi"

I'm not a Luddite. Tech is great (but we don't need it for everything).

I'm talking specifically again about primary aged children and social media, particularly WhatsApp, because the responsibility of sorting out the issues that are affecting children's well-being is falling on me and my colleagues.

People can communicate in a variety of different ways that don't involve social media.

It absolutely shouldn’t be up to you and your colleagues to sort @SocialMediaPITA . If problems have arisen through use of an App that parents have decided to allow their children to have despite age guidelines, it should be up to the parents to resolve issues arising from it.
My 9 year old was frustrated a few weeks ago as half a PE lesson had been taken up with their teacher resolving a WhatsApp issue with a large group of the class.

It's worth mentioning here that anyone using social media reads the Terms of Service and understands how their information is stored and used.

With WhatsApp your phone number is used in any group you belong to, whether you know those people or not. If someone in the group adds someone else, someone you don't know, they too can then see your number, even if you block them.

I hate "that's just the way the world is" arguments. When I was a kid in the 80s / 90s you couldn't be openly gay, half the teens I knew smoked, girls were expected to just shrug off 'dirty old man' stuff and 'spastic' was the insult of choice. I'm sure people then shrugged off any attempt to debate whether those things were what we wanted for our society.

@OhmygodDont
Whilst I agree with parents keeping an eye on things, even with doing that, there are issues.

Instead of the children being unpleasant to each other just at school, it now continues (or even starts up) at home online. There is no 'safe space' at home anymore to just chill and have downtime away from friendship issues at school. It's not bullying that I'm dealing with as such, it's friends falling out online, people taking sides, or words taken the wrong way. Things that are better dealt with in person with adults to support on the playground (or in class). Also we see people type things they wouldn't say face to face. Things get whipped up on the group chats and then these children are coming into school the next day feeling anxious about what happened on the chat and having to see their classmates.

And parents can't prevent other children typing something nasty. Once it's sent and seen you can't unsee it. A parent checking the phone every evening doesn't help.

@UsernameMcUsername i don't think sexism, homophobia and ableism is comparable to thinking technology is necessary honestly but btw most teens still smoke, they still get made fun of for being gay and by some posts on here still get questioned on whether being gay is appropriate, also you could say the same thing about the trans issue, so many people are transphobic especially on here and yet in 20-30 unfortunately for transphobes it'll be normal

My DC13 has a brick phone and they are fine. Heaps of friends, extra curriculars, reads a lot. DC9 has no phone at all. I work in media and God knows I’m addicted enough to social media (because I have to stay across it for work). I want to preserve my kids’ brain space as long as possible. It’s really telling that teachers and people who work in tech don’t let their kids have smartphones (eg Melinda Gates gave phones to her kids at 14 - and wishes she’d waited longer).

I really think social media is this generation’s tobacco. We will look back and wonder what the hell we were thinking.

I think, ultimately, far from being the bleeding edge of cool that parents panic their kids will feel left out from… social media is just a bit naff.

No one is saying keep kids technology free, just dont give them a smart phone in primary school.

Sadly the parents bleating "it's the world now, we have to" are the ones who have already handed their kids a smartphone... now they have to desperately attempt to either pretend it's not bad for children and/or invent reasons why its "absolutely necessary ".

Exactly this.

This thread had me thinking that as an adult I mute various group chats, and left some others, and I removed work emails from my phone because as an adult I found the endless notifications was creeping too much into my offline life, and turning a phone on to lots of backed up messages was stressful, but people defend how essential it is for their primary aged children to be pinged at all hours in various group chats. How else will they manage to have friends if they don't have social media in KS2? How can they keep in touch with their grandparents if they don't have their own smart phone?

It's funny that given how apps and social media are specifically designed to give quick release highs and keep you engaged on the platform for longer, and it works, it seems there's a lot of parents who think their primary aged child has a better grasp of appropriate tech and social media use than most adults. I highly doubt all these 9/10 year olds really do have such special powers.

It’s completely disgusting that parents do this. There is no need. There is no justification. All the agro and that’s without the major safeguarding risks.

And the idea that they need a phone to walk to a from school! Our head has the line that if your not happy with your child walking alone then they shouldn’t be doing it. Absolutely agree.