To not allow my almost 11 yo a mobile phone

[Dottycotton86]

Back story my now 19 yo son had a phone on his first year of secondary school. This was a huge learning curve and I have decided that my daughter will not be allowed one this young. At what age do you think is suitable to have a phone. I am only see negatives with a phone and lots of positive to not having one. At the moment she doesn’t seem that bothered but I am sure this will change. Anyone on the same position how will you deal with the peer pressure once she is at school. I don’t want her to feel isolated

There is growing scientific evidence that smarphones have had detrimental effect on mental health in young people. My son is 10 and I'm not planning on giving him a phone. He won't need it - he has a tablet and laptop at home to do his homework. In most of good secondaries mobile use is anyway banned. He would be glued to it for hours, so I do not see any advantages. I have 2 nephews and they simply stopped talking to people due to screens.

Actually 10/11 has been shown as the WORST time for her to get one.
She hasn't even asked yet.

Parental controls have changed a lot in the last 8 years though OP 😂😂

go with your gut OP

even a couple of hours of the constant doom scrolling and dopamine hits of SM isnt good.

get some drawing and graphic design stuff for your computer/laptop and maybe a drawing pad that she can use at home so she can develop digital art skills.

using a computer and those sorts of creative programs are a skill that is worth honing and can be done without plugging into SM. its all distraction and at that age they're too susceptible to influence and anonymised bullying.

this. parents are so naive to it. the blocks and time locks make no difference there are ways around it.

i have one for my now for when i need to deep work and there are ways to circumvent. Your kids are more clued up on how to circumvent than you.

ad that doesn't stop the picture messaging, or flashing on videos calls etc. unsupervised internet access is dangerous full stop.

My nearly 12 year old just got her first phone. She starts secondary in sept. It’s still linked to my iPhone for parental controls

If she dosnt see it as a punishment then now a good time to teach her good habits, set the rules while she dosnt care about being attached to it.

I don't entirely understand the parents who say their kids don't need a phone as they have a laptop or tablet. My kids do not have laptops or tablets (besides my daughter's school ipad that stays in her backpack) so am wondering what the actual difference is between a phone and a tablet in the sense of screen time? My daughter doesn't have social media (just WhatsApp and I check it now and again) and my kids never go on youtube or anything like that... they barely watch TV. So am very curious to know what the difference is between screen time on a tablet and screen time on a phone. Am sure there's something I'm missing!

using my phone as an example, if i turn my phone wifi off, i can use the 4G to bypass the households wifi restrictions. (which i do if i need to access an 18+ website during the day)

If i turn my tablet wifi off, i lose the internet completely.

The tablets at home mean i can restrict via the broadband shield i have installed what access they have to the internet in the home.

My two older teens got phones at 13 (age kids start seconds school in Ireland). My youngest is 13 in June and starting secondary in September and will get a phone. Tbh though I wish I could just refuse I do not see any benefit whatsoever to having a phone so young. She can do her homework on a tablet and communicate with pals via snap on tablet she does not need to be walking around with access to an online world all the time. Yes we'll have controls as we did with our older two but I just think there is so much more research now about the negative impact it has on young people I feel like a sheep just following the crowd even though I know it's not good for them. I'm glad I didn't have to decide on this when they were 11.

This is so depressing. Follow your instincts OP. It’s really not “being mean” not giving 11 year olds phones. It’s really actually the opposite.

Honestly, some of the replies you’ve had actually make me want to weep.

(I’m parent of early teens who have no social media but do have happy social lives - worth noting several of their friends don’t have smartphone either.)

There is a growing movement against smart phones in childhood. Sign up to your local WhatsApp group for more info on what is going in your area - https://tr.ee/CAvAklN6TH

This is such a hard one OP. Like others have said, I don't think it's possible to blanket ban phones at this age without alienating your DC from their peers and you.

My DS 11 has had a phone for about 6 months now and we have an app on there and on my phone so I can restrict/ban all kinds of things from, from example, no Facebook allowed at all, 45 mins per day max on Tiktok and not allowed to post anything, no phone access at all at certain times etc.

Crucially, for me, I can also see all his internet searches and all his youtube searches. We had an incident a few months ago where a friend encouraged him to go on some "talk to random stranger" website - of course the random stranger would be an adult of the opposite sex. Luckily it scared him enough that he told me about it but it really brought home to me that we'd gotten way too lax with checking his phone.

I think, as parents, we have to look at mobiles, social media, the internet in general as somewhere new we have to parent. We can't just opt out of it by banning phones/controlling screen access.

This is so depressing. Honestly, stick to your gut OP.

The dangers are too significant - online grooming, warped racist/ misogynistic views, sextortion, online bullying and threats, ruined attention span and no enjoyment in anything else in life.

Working in a school, we won't let DC have smartphones until 16, Nokia for start of secondary. We've had the police come into school several times this year to talk to seemingly nice children from nice families. Children don't have the maturity to use phones effectively. Honestly for me, the racist/ misogynistic views that children are picking up online is enough for me to say no.

I'm so surprised that we aren't hearing from whistleblowers about the damage that tech must know is happening.

I'm really surprised by some of the answers on here. Parental controls may block a website but if the kids know the IP address they can get around it. History can be deleted. I think it's extremely naive to think they're a catch-all for inappropriate content. We're only now seeing the effects of smartphones on adults, let alone kids with their developing brains. I've only heard negative things when kids get phones young and like a pp I wish government would legislate against it, and that parents would follow minimum ages for apps.

I'd say you'll have way more issues and conflicts without the phone than with it.

If I could have my time again it would be 14.

Dumb phone at 15.

👆

Weep yes, but a lot of it is making me angry too.

A lot of abdication of parental responsibility-

I wish I could
I wish I hadn't
I dont want my child to resent me
I have no choice
The horse has bolted etc
It's too hard
I gave in

Hard to read actually.

Mine managed to buy himself a second secret smartphone at 14. While he pestered us for the "newest and coolest", turns out an old beat up android on payg was good enough for nightly snapchatting and whatever.

I’m still not seeing anyone explain what ‘socialisation’ 11 and 12 year old children are missing out on by not having smartphones? Are kids that young really being allowed to organise their own social lives with little/no parental input?

@PuppiesProzacProsecco im curious why you allow TikTok but not Facebook? Facebook hardly has anything on it and is not popular with kids at all these days where as TikTok has far more disturbing stuff that is harder to control. TikTok is one thing we absolutely don’t allow.

well, kids that age aren't exactly playing outside all the time until streetlamps come up anymore

@JazbayGrapes neither was I 🤣 but I guess your point is that they aren’t using social media to arrange to socialise but rather social media is their socialising? That’s chronically depressing if true and makes me more determined to hold back on smartphones and social media so DD can learn to function in the physical world first