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

How old is your child Motorway?

I would be so interested to hear from any parents of an averagely sociable teen now (not in the past) who have successfully banned them from smart phones until 16.

We know tens of families and not ONE has managed this.

Just watched the BBC interview with BG's mother. Very sad
However, banning smartphones to under 16"s isn't the answer. Education, parental guidance. Too many young people/children including the victim share lots of their life on social media, post videos, thoughts etc, too late to go back. Most children of young people don't kill others. These 2 murderers were very messed up.

I don't think its possible to police outside of the home. Even inside the home it's difficult.

This!!! We held off getting a phone fir DD until she was 13 last March.

so much organising and chat is done on Snapchat, she WOULD be socially outcasted if she wasn’t on.

however, we restrict to 1.5 hours a day, do random checks and she knows it’s a privilege and nit a right x

Most dont kill no

But there are huge huge issues with physical and sexual assault, sharing indecent images of themselves and each other, watching pornography that normalises violence which impacts on intimate relationships as they grow, both male and female etc etc, MH of children has dropped through the floor. Someone has posted information about attention spans which affect learning but also impulse control

Murder doesnt have to be the thing we measure the harm with

We have all the parental controls in the world on our DCs phones and then some kid in the playground showed my DS a clip from some horror film and he had nightmares for months. What can you do?!

And this is an unhealthy cycle.

"We can't get kids off social media, because kids use social media".

Restrict it to all of them and they'll have to go back to organising things the old fashioned way like telephone calls or talking to each other.

Theoretically you can't have lots of the apps until you are 13, but lots of primary school DC still have tik tok, Instagram and the like. So banning them won't make a difference. Most DC use them without any issues.

Plus, Jamie Bulger's murderers won't have had phones and social media to plan, and that didn't stop them.

I agree with her. I'm one of those smartphone refuseniks who won't give their kids phones. I don't have one myself, only an ancient granny Nokia. My eldest is 15 and youngest 13 and they have laptops but no phones of any kind and I've banned them from accessing social media. There is occasional wrangling about the phone issue, sometimes even fights, but I refuse to budge. My aim is to hold out until the eldest is 18 but even if I don't make it that far I'll hold out as long as I can.

Doesn’t matter if your DC don’t want to see torture at 13- there’s a high chance TikTok will show it to them anyway.

I don't think you can put the genie back in the bottle now unfortunately.

Tech companies have too much lobbying power over the government to ever allow any sort of law restricting access for under 16s. They will pay lip service to 'making things safer' for teens online but young people are avid users of social media so tech companies want them online. It's down to the parents to keep their children safe online because the government and tech giants couldn't give a shit.

I agree that education is key and for parents to be prepped and planned on it all before the phone arrives.

Example: talking to a colleague last week with a 14yo, who she says is glued to her phone. Teacher commented her school work and class engagement is excellent, her homework and test results suggest she's likely on her phone while working at home. Colleague shocked that it was apparent and shocked that she's now expected to remove it. Also surprised that allowing phones over night is a no no, says teen won't go to sleep without it. Point being, all of this needs to be planned for and decided in advance. Allow it, as late as I can, yes, have agreed limits and lots of open discussion, yes.

I heard a psychologist say last year that we are depriving children of a normal development by allowing them unrestricted access... how sad is that and yet the majority say, oh well, what can we do! She was speaking in response to a teen in Ireland who had raped his cousin, having become addicted to porn age 11... so tragic and depressing and v v possibly avoidable.

The trouble is children will always find a way to find this type information that they shouldn't, as others have said the children who killed Jamie Bulger watched Videos they shouldn't have.

Maybe parents should look at their own use of mobile phones and the apps they use.

Me and DH don't really use our phones other and consequently our 3 children (15,16 and 20) rarely use their phones where as their cousins whose parents are always on their phones their children have been attached to their phones. even to the point the youngest from the age of 18mths knew how to get onto YouTube on her mothers phone and called the phone 'ours'.

I think it’s wrong to bring the murder of Jamie Bulger into this, it’s well known they were exposed to horror films etc.

This is a separate issue about the here and now. We have it within our power as parents to safeguard our children against harmful technologies. This includes phones, tablets, gaming etc. it has to be a collective effort.

It’s so sad when I see toddlers in prams with a phone not looking at the outside world. I see Primary school aged kids walking to school looking at their phones.

We need to fill our children’s curiosity in other ways. Sport, books, family time. Make it impossible for them to have time for phones and gaming.

I agree with her. I admit...i can't get my head round what dd is doing online as she is private and a strppy teen. If all kids had brick phones, this would not be an issue.
Problem is, as adults we are role models and should have brick phones too. Is this going to happen? Er...no!

Great post.

The thing is, it's not just about phones. A lot of DD's school life is geared towards some device with internet. Of course that could just be a laptop in a shared room,with controls and supervision. However , parents who would do that, would also check and supervise usage of other devices too (tablets,phones etc). Parents who allow their kids unfettered access to the internet on a phone , wouldn't bother with a laptop either, so kids can still make secret accounts, message each other, look up stuff and so on.

I didn't get a phone until I was 17, and it was a nokia brick, however I spent my teen years in internet cafes with absolutely no supervision or restrictions, befriending all kinds of people.

I don’t think education is enough and tbh in many areas of life it’s code for “let’s do fuck all” eg food companies advocate for education around healthy eating, phone companies want more education around phone use for kids etc. in other words “don’t regulate us please- it’s consumers’ fault if our products are harmful because they can’t resist what we’ve designed to be irresistible”.

Proof of age for social media, porn etc- all perfectly doable. It’s not being done because of people waving their hands and saying “too late now”- a counsel of despair.

I mean we are all.commenting on a thread on mumsnet I'm on s tablet I expect others are on their phones .

I agree with everything but in reality seriously what is a concerned parent to do? I can’t change society and prevent all the other teens having phones. So if you hold the line and your teen is quite literally the only one without a phone they are a socially excluded oddity who hate you.

There's no evidence that the internet or social media has led to a rise in murders. It just mirrors the ills of society as they already exist.

The killers of Jamie Bulger didn't have access to the internet. But everyone at the time had their own pet theory as to what ought to be banned in order to banish all of society's ills.

Ditto Lizzie Borden.

Ditto Mary Bell.

We all have enormous sympathy for the family of Brianna Ghey. But their perception of the world has been hugely distorted by a very rare, tragic event. And they are not uniquely placed to solve the world's problems.

This could be done at the contract level where eg vodaphone could do an under 18 contract that not only blocks adult content on the web, but also blocks snapchat, facebook etc access. I dont see why it couldn’t be done. Just needs a provider to step up.

however i do think people, adults are too quick to blame social media. She was accessing the dark web! Ive never been on there. I do websites, i cannot believe there is no trace to whoever set it up/paid for it. Its not a one off fee. Its ongoing payment for a website. Surely, someone knows who owns websites/content. If not, that needs tightening. Why we allow having a dark web in the first place with that kind of content is beyond me

Regardless of how long ago our children were teens, this type of behaviour existed. It’s really easy - just tell them no!

I agree that murder is not the only measure of harm.

Even if no action is taken by a teen as a result of seeing rape or torture, i think seeing the rape or torture is harmful in itself.