To think all schools should ban the use of smartphones entirely during school day?

[90sseemedsomucheasier]

I would welcome a ban on smartphones in my child’s secondary school.

At present, in my child’s school they are allowed to take them in, but the rule is that they are to be kept at in their bags and not be seen at all. I think they get a couple of behaviour points if seen, and if seen for a third time then it is confiscated.

I know that, had smartphones existed when I was in school, I would have been a master a checking it without getting caught. I would have been on social media, messaging my friends, secretly listening to music with one AirPod under my hair, looking up answers to questions I didn’t know. I’d have never got in trouble because I would have been stealth like in my use of it. But it would have distracted me, it would have called out to me all day. I’d be waiting for my next check of it and thinking about it. I would therefore not have worked as hard, or chatted to friends as much. It would have fed me a horrible narrative about what I should look like, what my life should be like, how everyone appeared better than me and I’d be full of anxiety and not feel good enough.

This is what is happening to our children today. They don’t have the strength to stay away from them - they may not be seen doing it but they are constantly on them. Even the best behaved kids.

Even if teachers do notice a child having a quick look at their phone, they’ve got so much other stuff to do with the demands of their job - are they going to challenge the child and make more work for themselves or are they going to pretend they haven’t seen it.

Children take secret photos and videos and send them to one another to ridicule and bully. Inappropriate contest is airdropped and shared via WhatsApp groups.

As a parent, I am on it with internet safety (as is dh). We use parental control tools and my year 7 child is not allowed social media,free access to the internet and we monitor their use of their phone each evening. There are screen time limits and phone switches of at 7pm and is not allowed in bedroom.

I often feel like we are going against the grain in doing this. I feel alone and like other parents don’t see the issue with handing our children a device where they can access ANYTHING and absolutely will access anything because they are naturally curious. Curiosity is normal, but the level of information, the horrors, the ideologies and the algorithms that form as a result are not. They are extremely damaging.

I know, when I look online (I know, the irony) that there are other parents that feel the same way. But it is hard in real life. When you’re child goes to secondary school and makes new friends who went to a different primary you have no idea what their parents, and their parenting choices, are like.

Whilst I know my child is safe online in my home, I don’t know when I send them out to school. They can be exposed to all sorts of horrors / porn / ideologies because other parents send their child to school with unrestricted smartphones, whether that is because they don’t understand the dangers, or simply do not care.

do any other parents agree with me that schools should be made to ban smartphones entirely? And by ban I mean asking students to hand them in - either a locker or a faraday pouch on arrival. I get that they are a part of life and needed for safety on journey to and from school (although I would argue that for many they don’t actually even need it for that!). But during school hours they simply do not need them and should not have access to them.

This has been rolled out in some schools already and the benefits are already being seen. I would welcome it in a heartbeat if my child’s school did this!!

What do you think? Would really love to hear people’s opinions -

YABU - children should be allowed access to their phones throughout the school day

YANBU - all schools should ban smartphone access on school sites entirely by asking students to leave them at home, place them in a phone locker or in a faraday pouch

Ok then so because some kids sneak vaoes into school or penknives or drugs then let’s not have any rules about them at all! Let’s just have a free for all. What a ridiculous argument.

if phones were locked away all day, I could deal with the few still floating about. These children could be sanctioned and banned from having a phone on site at all. At least let’s try to improve the situation as, let me tell you, most parents are living in cloud cuckoo land about what their child’s school day is like.

I would welcome a ban.

It needs to be alongside sanctions for parents who then go and hassle teachers or worse because they believe their child should be an exception.

Forcing someone to manage their disablity in a different way is discrimination.

Our son needs his smartphone for his hearing aids, can you find me another device that is cellular, has bluetooth, is small enough to go in a school trousers pocket, battery will last the school day and can be fully intergrated with his hearing aids.

What makes you think that a medical device - which is what the CGM connection is - wouldn't be exempt for the roughly 3-4 out of 1500 that have T1?

The only concerns would be the cost of the storage and somewhere to keep them - for 800 students, one box per form, you're looking at a stack of storage boxes roughly the size of an AGA.

That reduces the phone related workload down to 5-10 who handed in a burner, plus your diabetics and the occasional person whose hearing aid connects to theirs, who aren't an issue. Oh, and all the nonsense they get up to outside the school gates. At least there's next to nothing inside them as a result.

My DS has to lock his securely in a box in his form room each morning in registration and collect it at the end of the day. Caught once and it goes to the office for the day, caught twice and it goes to the office and a parent has to collect (and get a lecture)
If DS needs to speak to me he goes to the office and they let him call using their phone
I support it fully

I stopped reading after you got on your high horse and then your 7 year old has a phone.

Agree. A lot of parents won't like it though.

Your point is valid BUT If they were banned as they ought to be, then a separate device could and should be invented to monitor glucose. No need for it to be on the smartphone . We need to wake up and address this addiction that we have sleepwalked into.

I think you stopped before then - the OP's child is Year 7.

Right. We'll just uninvent the way cgms and insulin pumps communicate - via wifi. You know, a bit of freedom from the constant worry about how many times you'll need to cheat death today?!

The closed loop systems that many young people are now using have made type 1 management easier than it's ever been. And a mobile phone is an essential piece of that kit. The better type 1 is managed, the longer a person is able to be an active member of the workforce and paying their taxes. Many type 1s experience debilitating conditions including kidney failure, the loss of feet/legs, and heart problems far earlier in life than a non-type 1. What the cgm and pump working together do is minimise the time a type 1 is out of range - when out of range, damage is being done to the body which, over time, adds up to these conditions, and others. It's a no brainer.

Please educate yourself before coming out with this rubbish. Type 1s - particularly young type 1s - have enough shit to deal with. My type 1 is constantly having to explain why he has a phone to the teachers that can't be bothered to read their emails. His so-called 'friends' tease him about it constantly. At least he doesn't have to worry as much as he used to about the amount of insulin he does/doesn't need.

There is no 'another discussion' to be had.

Fgs I have the freestyle libre and you can get a small scanning device which does the same thing as the app. This is so dramatic.

FFS. Type 1s can monitor their blood with a fucking finger prick. Doesn't mean they should have to if there's something they can stick on their arm for 10 days at a time and it sends a reading to their phone every 5 minutes. And their parents phones. And anyone else who might need to monitor - like a teacher, scout leader, or similiar. But hey ho, so phones can be banned, type 1s should have to carry all the paraphanelia and be out of class multiple times a day bloody finger pricking 'cos they don't feel quite right. I mean, why not invent an app....oh wait...

does it connect to the pump?

And you know what, when we had the libre, my son was challenged continually on having that out in class as well....

You’re right, cheerfully withdrawn 😂

As for dramatic, I'm taking it you're hypo aware and don't have seizures whilst hypo?

Disability or health needs are different. Some students use their phones to monitor insulin levels. No one is silly enough to say these students could therefore not have their phones.

Yes it does.

https://www.tandemdiabetes.com/en-gb/home

Every time this conversation starts someone starts hyperventilating about type 1s. Firstly, we make up a v small minority. Secondly not a single fucker out there has suggested type 1s should have their phones removed, they very clearly mean phones used for social purposes. And 3 yes there are plenty of devices which can read sugars etc without the use of a phone.

I find this narrative so unhelpful in the context of this discussion.

Erm....read above?!

I would absolutely support a ‘no smart phones’ in my sons school. They do have a no phones in use during the day policy and they are removed if seen. But they’re allowed to have them turned off in a bag.

But, something that occurred to me the other day was that whist we say “we didn’t have them when I was at school and it didn’t do me any harm” there were public phone boxes on every corner. So, whilst not ideal, there possibly was a form of communication fairly close by - now, of course there are no alternatives to a mobile phone.

Honestly, not sure what the answer is - banning them for under 16’s is pointless as we’re too far along to do that really and it would make a smart phone a really popular thing to have but under the radar (making them more “cool”).

Sadly, no real answers 😕

That's great. I'm glad. Please ask the NHS to pay for the reader (because for dexcom at least, they don't come in the box and have a price of around £300 to buy) because the phone is free....

No, type 1s are small in number. But their condition is none the less a complex one and shouldn't be dismissed because it suits others. The long term is important. I am surprized you don't think that.

Who said I don’t think that?

You’ve just hugely blown up because this topic obviously ignites some kind of fear in you that your son’s CGM will somehow be prised off him at school, this is simply never going to happen.

My child shows little interest in their phone but use it for school use, not all teenagers are obsessed

Do you give your DC a Nokia brick?

Because that's where I would start.

Start normalizing having a shit phone. Or no phone. By holding a smartphone even if it is locked down, it justifies to other parents and children that they need them.

10% of children in y7 at our local school don't have a smartphone. The national average is something like 3%. There's power in numbers. I'm hoping next year that will rise to closer to 20%.

If your child can go on Whatsapp or send/receive unsolicited messages and pictures then you're part of the problem.

I walked past a "naice" school with a "no phones out" policy the other day. Saw four quite innocent looking 12 year olds in an obvious blind spot crowded round one of their phones...

Ours does this, too. None of the pupils bat an eyelid about it, it is just what is done.

Ideally, they wouldn’t need phones at all but mine use it for bus and train times. We also have very very poor phone reception at work so if they need to contact us it has be over wifi so an old style Nokia, for example, would not work for us. As PP said, there are no pay phones anymore.