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

Future generations will look back in horror that we allow our children unfettered access to the online world.

And parents need to stop seeing them as necessary to track their kids.

Parents have let this happen over the last 20 years and as a parent of younger children, I'm pretty pissed off about it.

My kids only use tablets on long journeys and will not have consoles until they ask for them. I really worry about phones entering their orbit.

What it requires is some strong will across groups of parents - children gets phones way too early and if parents held the line and said “let’s all agree to not get our children a phone before secondary school” that would help hugely. However once one child at school gets one, the peer pressure is harder to defy.

Hard to know how to police it with apps but all parents should be restricting time and access. The amount of information available to young people is so scary. It’s very hard to police but parents really should be trying.

Bill Gates & Steve Jobs kids are all long ago adults, most of them grew up before SM as we know it existed or the Apps were available. That whole comparison with their world is daft.

For all that SM amplifies terrible minority ideas and opinions, it also amplifies support for people with minority identities. Like gender-alternative kids. BG had a supportive parent. You turn off the support for all < 16yr olds, all kids like BG who didn't have supportive parents will be incredibly isolated with possibly nowhere to get support.

DS2 & DdD's father is very tech savvy (works in IT). He restricted apps across all devices - Snapchat & TikTok mostly - they don't have Instagram/FB.

The DC found a way around it. The kids are always two steps ahead IME. Restricting seems a bit pointless and more for the adults peace of mind. Now all I do is endlessly educate and show examples of where it goes wrong and talk about it openly. They gave been told, if it feels off, PLEASE talk to me about it. I won't judge your actions beforehand but I'll try help solve/address whatever feels off. I don't know what else parents can do?

What backlash!!! Online and in middle class forums like this, people are obsessed with it to the degree of not buying things like bread from a shop. In real life it barely makes a dent.

I think it would be more beneficial to have a class in school to educate kids about social media, no point banning it then letting them all loose when they turn 18 and there's no parental input at all imo

If they put ages restrictions on, this generation are very savvy on tech, they'd get a VPN installed.
They'd find a way.

Also, when I was a teen, we were told smoking was dreadful by the adults. So we smoked because it made it cool.

Yes exactly I remember when Jon venables and Robert Thompson were found guilty of murdering James Bulger a,lot of it wss lanes on their access to video nasties .

They would find ways round it

A lot of children get hand me down phones when an adult upgrades theirs.

I don't like the idea of having a 'children's phone', it makes the 'adult phone' more desirable and doesn't stop you using other IT to access the web.

Also not all children come from loving homes, children need to be able to access things like childline, forced marriage information, information on drugs even abortion services.

How could this be enforced? And who buy? Do we want to criminalise a child for making a phone call?

James Bulger was not murdered because of accessing things on the internet.

Today just wait until you have teens. All very well feeling smug about “restricting access” for a 5 year old who knows no different but how will you deal with a 13 year old crying because she’s being left out because all her friends have phones and communicate that way but she doesn’t and is therefore being socially isolated due to your parenting choice? Phone use has been our hardest parenting aspect bar none.

I don’t know if exactly what she suggests is the best way to do it but we need to do something. I don’t agree that there’s no going back- within my lifetime we’ve gone from children being able to buy single fags at the corner shop, travelling in cars without any restraints, adults smoking around babies, playgrounds build on concrete etc etc- and it’s all changed very easily. We now look back and wonder how previous generations could have been so unbothered, and I suspect our kids will look back on the same way at us- because we know it’s not right, don’t we?

That photo of Brianna and her mum is so lovely. What an awful tragedy.

It's good idea. But would be completely impossible to implement.

My ds who is 22 has come off all social media. He thinks its all basically bollocks. Hopefully more kids will be the same as they mature.

My children are older and so I'm one of the people you are blaming.

Do you think other people buy their dc consoles before they ask for them?

My children never had tablets on long journeys. They looked out of the window and we talked and sang. Perhaps you are part of the problem after all.

Teenagers always cry because they're "being left out".

"But everyone else does X / has those shoes / that bag / goes to Y".

The answer I got was "well good for them, but you're not".

I agree. I’d love to see the end of social media completely. It’s toxic and full of advertising for adults and incredibly dangerous for children.

Before my children were teens and young adults, I had all kinds of rules I thought I would stick to. Guess what? They all collapsed in the pandemic. And some before.

I am currently trying to convince them to be wary of Tinder and Hinge. One sees my pov, the other doesn't.

Do your research and make sure you have all parental controls on your child’s phone so they have to request to download apps, can’t go on certain websites etc.

make it clear it is a privilege not right to have a smart phone and it can easily be switched out for a basic phone used for calls and text.

also make it clear that you have rights to access the phone, not that you’ll be snooping at it every day but if you feel the need it is your right to look.

phones must be left downstairs before bedtime. No negotiations.

make sure they’ve watched educational videos about how what we put and say online is forever and it is as real as saying it to somebodies face.

make sure you communicate with your child and ask them often how life is going for them, if they have any worries and let them know you are always there for them no Mather what the issue is.

People (parents) need to think about the position they are coming from - restricting apps/social media is for the parents peace of mind that they are protecting their DC. Whilst they have unfettered access to the internet themselves as adults? The DC think another way. Collaboration on how, why, when and prevalence of using the internet should be with kids, not done to/at them. Knife crime resolution is taking kids along as the resolvers and it's working. We should go to the children with this issue - ask them what their take is IMO.

How did children access those things before smart phones.

Children can have brick phones and access those things. There are safeguarding roles at school for children to approach if they need to.

We cant use this as an excuse to let phones parent children.

The same child that doesnt come from a loving safe family, is more likely to find dangerous unsafe links and interactions on an unmonitored internet, they are more vulnerable to this lack of oversight, not made safer by having it.

Really? Every single friend of hers had a phone. They socialised and communicated via the phones. Without it dd (a non dramatic “good girl”) WAS being left out.

Put your phone in a drawer for a week and see how you get on.

We capitulated of course we did. She was starting to hate us.

James Bulger wasn’t killed because of his killers accessing things on the internet, he was killed because they had access to awful adult movies that included torture and murder.

so it is exactly the same context. Children accessing things they shouldn’t be.