Parents unite to tell children they can’t have a smartphone until secondary school.

[NeedToThinkOfOne]

Here’s the story:
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2023/05/26/greystones-parents-agree-to-no-smartphone-code-for-children-until-second-level/

AIBU to think we should all be doing this, with ALL primary schools having a no phones policy to enable more groups of parents to unite within their communities?

Personally, I’d like that to apply at secondary school too until 16, but I realise that ship has sailed for this current generation.

I understand a phone for contact re safety for older pupils getting home or whatever, so I can see the need for a basic phone for calls only, particularly for rural school pupils. The real issues impacting children’s mental health are driven by social media, so it’s not just about the device obviously, but banning phone usage once on school premises for all secondary pupils would be a step in the right direction and with no peer pressure to have one at a younger primary school age, it could really make a difference?

I agree this would be a good thing. Both my kids only got phones on their 11th bdays and then I policed it like a hawk and set limits on them (not allowed to have the phone every day, only allowed on for an hour or to catch up with texts, not allowed certain apps, no phones overnight etc)

DD is 16 now and self regulates well. Her phone screen time averages one hour a day or less. She's popular, outgoing, at parties etc so it's not affected her social life.

Her school don't allow phones out on school grounds at all. If you're caught, the phone is confiscated and they make a PARENT come to collect it, they won't give it back to the child. I think it's a great policy.

DS is 11 and we are in the early stages of laying down the law with him. Think he'll be harder to police cos he's a different character but I do think it's important not to allow electronics to become their lives.

Phones are banned in all the secondary schools near me. I dont agree with stpping secondary age children from using smart phones outside of school though.

Neither of my DD's had a smartphone before 14 because they were still not as common (they had Nokias from age 10 when they transferred schools, remember not everyone transfers at 11!) one dd is fine, one has lots of mental health issues. Smartphones are becoming a bogeyman, when in reality it's far more complicated

My DCs' primary school begs parents every year not to give kids phones because of the sheer amount of time teachers at school have to spend dealing with the fallout. Cyber bullying, bitching, inappropriate messages etc.

I've only skimmed the thread but what I bloody wish parents of secondary kids would band together and do is NO PHONES IN BEDROOMS AT NIGHT.

The amount of shit that goes down at 3am. Kids that come into school and fall asleep in lessons because they are up all night. The constant pinging of messages that mean they can't sleep properly.

When I tell kids they shouldn't have phones in bedrooms they instantly argue that it's their alarm clock, they listen to music/podcasts as they fall asleep.

Buy an alarm clock. Buy them a radio. Take the phone away at night.

I don't think MH issues are wholly the fault of smart phones. I think it's because kids aren't let out anymore. I see it constantly on here "I'd never let my 8yo out to the park" etc, when even in the 2000s that was a completely normal part of life.

I think if there is issues like bullying then smartphones can make this worse, but I really don't think they're the root of all evil. I think modern life on the whole is what's fucking up ALL our mental health. And I say that as someone who really hates my own smartphone and resents how much I have to use it just to function (app for this, login for that etc). Both my girls (8 and 13) have pretty much free access to them whenever they want, but they regularly choose to do other stuff. I knew from the start I wasn't going to make it some kind of forbidden fruit and it's working well so far.

We've since had contact with a variety of IT issues - they don't have the expertise - and often haven't thought though any of the problems or developed a consistent approach - and we've found questioning anything isn't welcome.
That's a poor experience for you, but confirms what I've long suspected: the staff who are quick to jump on an app haven't really thought it through and are letting 'engagement' come before appropriate decision-making.

It's poor leadership if they aren't willing to listen to parents on these sorts of topics.

The school leaders I respect on this topic have had different views and made different decisions for their schools, but it was very clear that they'd considered inclusion, accessibility, and technical issues in their decisions.

I'm chair of governors at a primary school. Today I had yet another call from the headteacher about yet another issue of online bullying amongst children.

This week, I watched a programme on TV about how a man had systematically groomed a number of 12 and 13 year old girls, having first pretended to be 15, and then raped them.

This week I read another article about how children as young as primary age are accessing pornography via smart phones and tablets.

Parents: giving your child a smart phone is NOT keeping them "safe". In fact, it's doing the exact opposite.

I have year 3 children who have smartphones and the ability to send inappropriate messages to others is a real issue. Unfortunately many parents don't check phone usage or take any responsibility for their child's actions.

Timing- I’ve just read that the 14 year old boy who died at school in Scotland yesterday was apparently replicating ‘a social media challenge called 'Tap Out'.
The game is believed to cause people to pass out due to a lack of oxygen.’

That boy’s family must be utterly devastated. It’s that kind of thing I am so sick of reading about. He was 14😞

@noblegiraffe agreed. Need it for my alarm and need it to listen to music to fall asleep/relax are very common reasons put forward by kids.

I got this from my DD but I insisted on alarm clock and cd player with really relaxing stories such as Paddington, The Worst Witch (yeah babyish stuff but it’s calming) this worked great until age 15. It buys you time, if you get some good habits in you will find the lure of Snapchat has really worn off. Every year you can keep them off social media is a win, as they get older they are more able to make their own decisions.

A boy in my year at school ended up in hospital (luckily survived) after doing this. In 1989, well before social media. Kids doing stupid dares spread around isn't new unfortunately

@noblegiraffe agree with you completely on phones downstairs at night. My two have an Alexa in their rooms which they can use as alarms and listen to music on. Phones are off at 9pm and stay downstairs overnight to charge. That’s always been a condition of owning one.

Mine have had them for a while now at the upper end of primary. Their best friends moved to the other end of the country and it lets them keep in contact, plus as we're starting to allow more freedom in preparation for moving to secondary - it supports that. I can say that mine have had less bother over phones than the kids who've just been handed them over the last month or so prior to going to secondary, because the sheer novelty's not there and because we've been able to support them in learning how to use them and not be a total muppet with it.

Yes we have rules about their use and we won't let devices be in the bedrooms past a certain time of evening, and app installs need to be approved and the kids know that I do reserve the right to go through their phones if I feel the need - so no, they're not horrendously sleep deprived screen zombies - and at the moment they both have their heads screwed pretty well on. Both kids have come to me when anything's been said that was remotely controversial via phones (and it was ludicrous stuff like someone calling someone else a poo poo head over who got to take a model home made in school). I'd rather have tackled how to deal with situations like that then in that low-key way than have to tackle it with more complex stuff later - so the kids know about not deleting messages and bringing them to me instead, about who to add as friends and we've worked through lots about real friends and online friends, and really obvious things like how to take a screenshot of anything that you're at all worried about. From the kids' school there's not one particular secondary that the kids move onto so the cohort is going to be scattered and they want to keep in touch as well.

I'd be bloody pissed off if I was expected to join forces with some mini parental mafia though to avoid other parents having to deal with pestering.

Oh gawd, you miss the point entirely. Social media wasn’t around then for them to win peer approval for trying the dares, filming it, probably bullying other children into taking part and then enabling children of all ages to see it. This is a traumatic situation for the school staff to deal with too😞

They did it for the laughs and approval of their peers around them, and the "stories". My point being, these things aren't unique to social media sadly.

Some kids are going to do stupid things whether it’s egged on by social media or by friends/frenimies IRL. When I was in school one kid was killed crossing train tracks which he did as a dare. No social media or smart phone involved.

Just as I try to ensure my kids are safe when they go off by themselves in the physical world without stopping them from having any independence at all, I try to make sure my kids are safe online (with a smart phone) without stopping them from using social media entirely or any of the other smart phone functionality. We have limits that I police. We talk. We discuss what to do in different situations.

They may well do the odd thing I don’t know about, just as I did the odd thing my mum didn’t know about when I was a kid, and they may have the odd thing go wrong, just as I had the odd thing go wrong, but they’ll also develop skills, understanding and resilience while doing so.

I have no problem with schools banning phone use during the school day if that’s their ethos, but I won’t be supporting a parent ban on phones. If you want to say no to your kid, that’s fine. I won’t be saying no to mine.

The boy's family says it wasn't a TikTok challenge and that the boy was being bullied.

I remember doing that at school in the 80s

One of the biggest things is that children from maybe 12+ would struggle to organize going places outside of school to meet friends without their parents with no phone with group chat

They'd have to go old school and use the landline. Never held me back from having a social life.

This thread has clarified for me there is a good proportion of parents who are happy with how kids have smart phones now. There’s a lot of defence of how necessary and normal giving smart phones and social media to kids is. Have to agree to disagree.

I should be decluttering our room of shame so am going to disappear and try and make some progress with that. All the best everyone.

Unless their household doesn't have a landline, as is the case for many these days. Or using the land line to make calls is prohibitively expensive because their parents use mobiles so haven't paid for the cheaper call landline phone package.

This is similar to the argument for not having a phone while playing out/travelling to school. Yes, we didn't have phones in the "old days" but we did have access to public phone boxes if we needed to contact our parents. You can't say "it was fine in our time" because the world was different then.

Well mine would struggle, we don't even have a landline!

Depends where you live. My DD is 11 and in year 6 and walks home from.school alone. Year 6 are allowed to walk alone with written permission from.parents. they are allowed a phone but its given to the teacher in the morning and they have them.back at home time. I live in a city near to a place where there was a riot recently, so I think in our case we are justified wanting to have that safety net.

Some children and teens will do stupid things because that's what they do. It doesn't mean to say we should enable it.

Children can be unkind, fall out with each other and bully their peers. It doesn't mean we need to give them a device (which in too many cases isn't monitored appropriately by parents) so a child can be bombarded with personal attacks.

Children will always want to stay up past their bedtime, but we don't have to give them a device that allows them to scroll through mind-numbing content, dangerous content or be glued to social apps all night for fear of them missing out.

Teens will often try to access pornographic material, but there's a big difference between some porn mags, or poor quality images being bluetoothed peer to peer and the sheer range of pornography that's easily available.

Children and young people will do silly pranks, but we don't have to sign them up to social media where they see the sort of stuff that gets them a nice little dopamine hit with the clicks and likes.

I think back to being a teen. We were allowed to consume some alcohol around our family, and still drank under age with our peers, but most parents didn't hand their 15 year olds a few bottles of spirits and tell them to have a good time and be safe because they're parents.