To wholeheartedly agree with Brianna Ghey’s mother

[Moonpig82]

I spotted this article this morning. We personally do not allow Tik Tok, Insta, Facebook, Snapchat. For our eldest who has just got a phone when starting Year 7. However we have succumbed to whatsapp.

What are people’s thoughts? How can we ‘police’ our children’s phones?

Or AIBU and there is no policing for social media? I know my Year 7 child’s friends do have these apps. Not all of them though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68193103

I actually thing the idea of and under 16s phone is genius and would need to be enforced with legislation but could make a massive difference and I think broadly parents would go for it. Most parents I know are worried by phones and social media. Most kids have their phones bought by their parents and would not have the money to try to go out and illegally by an expensive phone. So whilst there will always be exceptions I think it could help.

it would probably be a bit like the smoking age, yes a lot of them will try smoking under age but we don’t live in a society where 12 year olds can go and buy cigarettes and take up smoking. Most parents wouldn’t support this or buy them cigarettes because it’s illegal and bad for them. A few exceptions to the rule but broadly benefits the health of our children.

Maybe 16 would be a better age if that is the case. But to train lines not have apps and also the buses? What is your suggestion regarding smart phones for children, do you really think they have been really beneficial in the last 10 years?

Thats incredibly naive.

I suppose you never lied to your parents either.

It all comes down to parenting, OP. Strong rewards for minimal use, setting a good example yourselves and engaging actively with your children often - that's mitigating risks but not eliminating them by a long shot. And why any child posts anything on SM before they are 16 is beyond me!

Every generation will have an example of what poor parenting looks like, SM and excessive Internet use is ours. As was sending your small children out all day with no adult supervision - although I will be lambasted for this opinion as so many of that generation claim it was character building and whatever 🙄.

We, as parents needs to manage it, simple as. There is absolutely no way to police it effectively.

Parents will mostly abide by the law, as long as they understand the harms. There are not many parents buying their kids cigarettes.

Schools need to stop encouraging children to use devices. If they require a smartphone for homework they are a big part of the problem.

Other than a decent chunk of kids are given hand me down phones. This requires all to be able to afford to purchase a phone specifically for their child. Which many cannot. And how would you enforce it? Make it a criminal offence giving children old phones? Is it illegal for a child to touch a phone not designed for under 16? It’s not practical.

How do you check if the parents have done that?

We don’t check. We ask them to sign up to school policy. But they complain. They complain about kids not being allowed phones in lessons as well.

The use of smartphones and issues around it are really a parenting issue. How we introduce our dcs to the smartphone and how we limit its usage, etc is largely about parenting and educating children that the internet is not innocuous.

I don't mind them having an offline switch or something, (I had a Gameboy and a DS growing up) but I will not be putting one in their hands before they even know what one is. Someone has already said they'll be asking for it at 5. My son is just 7 now and doesn't show any interest in gaming whatsoever. He thinks a Playstation is the climbing frame at the park.

I know a lot about apps, VPNs and social media. I also work with teenagers, so I know that there will be a lot of pressure for them to have some kind of social media or else be an odd one out. However in an ideal world, it would not be uncommon in their friend group, and I could get them a dumb phone that has very limited capabilities.

I did but equally I didn't have a good relationship with my parents. I adopted what I'm talking about with my own teens and it worked. Like I say it's not about being right all the time, it's about them knowing it's safe to have privacy but it's safe to make mistakes and it's safe to speak up about them. I don't want my teens to not be sneaky and to not lie, it's part of how they learn and part of how they grow up, but I want them to know someone's got their back and someone's keeping an eye on their sneakyness.

Murder is pretty rare at that age.

Not allowing access to certain apps compared to their friends breeds resentment. The best way is to build their own knowledge around safety, confidence and give them the ability to know right from wrong and to speak up.

It would be better but then we would need every one to follow the rule

It's possible for parents to do a lot about it - but as some/many will not, it's a battle that cannot be won.

This. Schools are a huge part of the problem by insisting on tech. Even in reception their reading homework is to be done on a tablet.

We use the iPhone controls so they have to ask and be approved for apps and you can see how much time they are spending on what.

The issue is those who don’t have any controls. Also thing like TikTok being recorded and then shared onto YouTube and even found onto children’s YouTube at times. So one minute you can be on a documentary about dart frogs and the next is some TikTok about frogs but then that leads to just YouTube TikTok.

So many schools now want the children to have apps for homework, my dds school she has five different online app accounts for homework and study. Bus tickets are cheaper on the app than having to buy on the bus, who 9/10 want payment via card/phone rather than cash too. Want to check your school dinner balance it’s on an app and that’s the only way to check it.

You would have to actually pass a law to ban smart phones for people under a certain age, schools would need to then change how they do everything too. Back to everything via paper not thinking that everyone has a smartphone, no more say online homework because a lot of people use tablets and phones not pcs and a tablet is just as easy to get all these apps and whatnot as a phone so you’d have to ban them for children too.

Would need the councils to open up all the library’s again. To make sure all children had access to the things they need for learning as most parents can get a smart phone on contract for say £20 a month can’t get a whole pc and wifi for that.

Libraries should be reopened anyway btw. But you are asking for so many things to have to change. I don’t think it will happen but I’ll continue to have monitoring and checking on my children’s smart phones though. They are after all my cast offs so free and I know exactly how they work.

I know. But lots of manufacturers dont want to do things but are made to be legislation or consumer demand or via law suits holding them responsible.

If we want a better society then why do we allow shows like csi , why do some films tv shows glamourise crime, what about books about infamous individuals, what about various music's ? ECT

basically to reshape humanity it would be something similar to the film equilibrium with Christian bale

But if their friendship group are all tech-lite there won't be a problem. If we switch the culture back to tech free it will help.

In positive news there is an upsurge in teens asking for dumb phones and social media trends to get out and touching grass so the tide is turning.

Ah, I can see the too difficult light has come on for you very quickly.

As I said, it would need to have the attached legislation so yes it would be illegal to sell a phone to a child and technically enforceable by law. However of course in this country our laws basically police is by consent rather than police officers running around enforcing everything. I’ll compare it to smoking again, it’s illegal to sell cigarettes to children and the police are very unlikely to run around arresting people who let children touch cigarettes but broadly it works.

I do agree that hand me down phones are common but it wouldn’t take long for the under 16s phones to be available second hand in places like CEX and there could be a trade in scheme for old phones when they are introduced.

Given the impact of social media on phones on our children’s mental health, it’s worth considering rather than simply dismissing.

i think there needs to be a massive shift in accountability for parents around the use of devices and knowing what their children are up to and just generally forcing parents to stop being such wet fucking blankets about their kids tbh.

My mum and dad were hippyish ‘gentle’ parents when we were growing up and we were allowed a fair bit of ‘managed freedom’ - but they knew what we were up to and there were definite expectations around respecting them, the importance of being at home as a part of the family, communicating with family about our lives and there is no way they’d have allowed us to stare dead eyed into a device for hours and hours, plotting a murder. They knew my friends, they knew what I was looking at online and they had expectations about where was acceptable to go (including online!), what I was doing/thinking/who I was talking to. And it worked! Even now at 35 making my parents feel proud and doing the right thing is a source of motivation for me.

There seemed to have been SO many extremely serious red flags with Scarlett where this awful tragedy could have had a different outcome. She was devious and manipulative, and I think she will be diagnosed with ASPD in future but at the end of the day, she was a child and not a particularly bright one either. Hindsight is of course 20/20 but the adults should have stepped up - they failed horribly.

RIP Brianna 💐.

I think it depends on the child - my Son is the same school year as yours and I dont mind Whats App as he uses it to chat away with friends, arrange things, share videos etc. I will give it a quick look once or twice a week. The only things I have seen that have been ‘bitchy’ have been from girls he is in a few groups with girls from his Primary. The boys are usually just talking about gaming, memes etc. He is a sensible boy, fantastic group of lovely friends, know all of the Mums too (of his Primary friends) so easy to pass on info if something wasn’t appropriate in the groups.

I think we can’t really talk about Brianna’s killers in the same way that we talk about our kids. From what I read, she was a deeply troubled girl, had been expelled from school, tried to poison kids etc. If I had a child like that, absolutely no chance they would have a phone and she should never have been allowed in a normal school.

@LetsgoLego made me think that this was the first year I didn’t buy my eldest some Lego for their birthday. It’s trying to think of all the things that will distract the kids. Books and pencils in restaurants, rather than phones. It’s hard, very if the friendship circle is tech heavy. Thankfully my DCs (the eldest) isn’t tech heavy. I do worry about my youngest though, year 4. Her circle does use more tech. And I’m really monitoring this.

I agree the tech is creeping in younger and younger. When my now year 3 moved schools in year 1 within a couple of days she had been asked for her Roblox user and if she had a Fortnite account. That was certainly not an age I was expecting that at despite having two older children.

This is very true. The social media companies need to be held accountable and they just are not.
we tried to lock down social media sites and they just use friends phones or use VPN’s Parents can’t or don’t do it and it is up to social media sites to do it or be held accountable. Something that cannot be policed is damaging our children, sometimes permanently
Many probably the majority of teens have accounts that their parents are unaware of and parents that think their children are not accessing unsuitable sites I think are deluded. Teens experiment and strive to push boundaries and they are, well many of them are damaged by what they see