Phone disagreement

[InsolentAnnie]

DD (11) has an old iPhone, because she walks to and from school on her own (1.3 miles). It lives by the front door when at home and she has to ask to use it. Currently she has WhatsApp and CapCut. I’ve just had a proper look at CapCut and realised you can get onto TikTok videos through it, which I really don’t like. From next month WhatsApp is likely to stop working as the phone will stop being able to update and won’t support it.

DH wants a phone with a bigger screen; best deal we can get is £30/month (plus airtime contract) for a reconditioned one. He’d then given his old phone - which works fine - to DD.

I think she doesn’t need it. I don’t think she has the maturity - we’ve already had friendship issues with a school WhatsApp group (which the school aren’t at all interested in), and we made her leave the group - she has since rejoined without asking, so I’ve hidden it again. We have frequent, very open conversations about social media etc and she is sensible and generally well-behaved, but I think lacks the maturity to resist the temptation of joining in with all the peer pressure stuff.

Therefore, I think she needs only to have access to calls and texts, and we can introduce things like WhatsApp as she gets older. DH thinks we’ll make it a taboo by not allowing WhatsApp / CapCut (not TikTok or Snapchat or Facebook, he agrees with me on those) and she’ll do it anyway on her friends’ phones. I think we’re better removing temptation until she’s old enough to deal with it, and I reckon part of his thinking is that he just wants a new phone... She’s going to High school soon and he thinks she’ll need to be able to use email and other apps on her phone, but I disagree (school has a strict no phones policy) and think there’s plenty of time for that sort of thing.

My main argument is that I don’t want her to become dependent on it, and I don’t want her getting pulled into friendship disagreements online which happened a few months ago (we took her phone off her for a month then and she didn’t even really miss it - never even asked for it back). Thoughts?

I’m with DH.
As much as I hate how reliable we are on them, and how much younger ones are glued to them, she is going to be at a disadvantage if she hits high school with no access to all the things her peers have.
I remember being picked on (not bullied) for not having the things friends had, I left school 35 years ago so it has had a big effect on my whole life.

I can understand not allowing her to use things like tiktok and snap chat but allowing her to have usage of a phone but not the main way her peers communicate seems completely pointless and an arbitrary boundary.
Young people use WhatsApp, they don’t call or text.

I would remove it completely if she is going behind your back. It sounds like she definitely doesn't have the maturity required, which isn't surprising at 11yo. My DS is about to move up to secondary and doesn't have a phone. Why does she need one for walking?

I think she’s at an age where she should start to have a phone and become responsible for what she does on it, I would set the ground rules and let her know it can be taken away should she break them. They are good for when she starts to go out and about as you can keep track of things.
she will definitely be the odd one out not having one for high school.

I am so relieved that I don't have young children anymore. However I do have GC.

My daughter won't allow her children (oldest 11 & in 1st year of high school) to have a smart phone & carefully monitors access to the internet - no SM for example. Daughter has a dumb phone that GCs are given to use when on school trips to let daughter & SIL know what time they'll need to be collected, but as they are taken to/from school & school can call if there's an emergency she sees no need for them to have phones.

I believe TT and Capcut are owned by the same Chinese company? They're both banned here among with snap chat (y10 DD) she had WA from when she got her phone near the end of y6 and she's gradually added Insta and Pinterest over the years. We can still check her phone. I think the important thing is that she's sensible and trustworthy, she accepts that some stuff is not allowed - and the adults don't have TT or snap chat here either - and hasn't tried to bypass the rules, unlike your DD.

One of her friends was given an old not smart phone in y7 for 2 years and hasn't been even slightly ostracised. My experience has been that if kids want to communicate, they'll do it, and if someone has SMS but not WA their friends will use SMS with them.

At that age I’ve gone for time limits on WhatsApp, Capcut and YouTube and games. Absolutely no TikTok, Insta, Snapchat or any other social media.

School has an app to set/track homework - you can’t really get away from that unless you battled with school to give a paper alternative.

The friendship spats etc are going to happen anyway - it’s just that using a phone speeds them up and inflames the intensity. So could you balance an approach by putting time limits on apps and having a policy where you can check the phone at any time and you chat openly through anything questionable? That’s what works for me, but I have a boy and he’s not so into all these dramas that seem to play out more in the girls’ groups!

CapCut is a video editing/making app - if she's uploading to social media platform (TikTok, Insta etc) then she has social media accounts you're not seeing on her phone (nothing to stop her installing it, uploading something she's made with CapCut, and then uninstalling the SM app before you look at the phone).

If you have no social media accounts, then all you can do with CapCut is make videos that stay on your phone... I very much doubt she is doing that.

So I'd not give her a better phone as she's proven already she can pull the wool over your eyes with the one she has. Dumbphone/brick phone only.

The biggest danger with smart phones/internet access is the deception and lies.

On CapCut they have loads of ‘templates’ which are like TikTok clips. My daughter seemed to spend loads of time just scrolling through those on CapCut. Not all of them are suitable for kids. I let my daughter use it a bit on my phone now, but with time restrictions since I’ve seen those templates.

I would set ground rules and daughter needs to earn your trust with what she has access to now.
I would stick with the phone only being allowed to be used downstairs in family areas, never in bedrooms.
You check it regularly.
Tech free time,- whole family do it.
At this moment daughter isn't managing the freedom given to her, so why would you reward her? That's not the right message to teach.
However a phone is useful in secondary for the homework app which nowadays usually has behaviour and reward points timetable, school notifications and messages. So to encourage her to be organised and responsible at school it is beneficial to have access.
I think slowly introducing these things is far better than giving full access at some point when she hasn't had the chance to learn the appropriate skills.

We started with WhatsApp but no groups - DC were then allowed pre approved groups e.g. closest friends, for specific events but not the whole year group ones. You can block people from adding them automatically so they then have to accept an invite - so not fool proof

I think you are right to see how it's already having a negative impact and the argument that all her friends will have it, whilst understandable is pretty weak parenting.
Lots of kids are harmed more by the negatives than the positives of inappropriate internet access.
I'd agree with having a smartphone from starting high school - with strict rules and enforcement. No overnight use, no class group WhatsApps, no SM unless you agree to it, only making friends with people you know in real life, no PIN changes and that she fundamentally understands it's your phone and not hers. It's not totally private.
If she shows she can follow your rules, they will relax as she gets older. Don't budge.

We used to use an AirTag but after school arrangements get complicated sometimes due to grandparents picking up our other DC and needing to contact her to arrange where to meet if things change at the last minute. Sometimes she’ll ring to see if she can go to town with friends on the way home, which I don’t mind but I like to be able to see where she is.

Are you sure her current phone will stop supporting WhatsApp? I replaced my iPhone 6S at Christmas because too many apps stopped working well, but I'd expect an 11 to keep going for a couple of years yet.

This is exactly what I think. She has to ask permission to download an app (we get a notification) and DH let her download it without knowing everything about it, which irked me. I also think he doesn’t understand what girls can be like in WhatsApp groups - we didn’t have them when I was at school and it was bad enough! At least we got a break outside of school hours and it couldn’t escalate.

It is a 6S. I’m happy to do what @BookArt55and @Beamursuggest because I agree that’s the sensible way to go - so I’m not too fussed if her phone can’t do all the snazzy stuff yet. Aside from the WhatsApp groups drama it turns out you can now have WhatsApp channels, which are public, and I’d never even noticed until DD showed them to me. She’d set one up but didn’t realise they were public until we pointed it out, which is my worry - she deleted it once we told her they were public, but she hadn’t realised, which suggested to me she’s not savvy enough to use it.

I also don’t like the peer pressure. They’re all doing Get Ready With Me videos, and the ice bucket challenge (slightly modified because it just seems to be cold water and not for charity). She got massively stressed the other day because she couldn’t complete it within the 24hrs you’re apparently supposed to, and I hate that pressure. My logic is that until she learns to take that stuff and chain messages etc with a pinch of salt, I’d rather talk to her about it but not let her join in. Her best friends will still communicate with her, as far as I can see it’s just the mean ones in her class that she’d end up not being in touch with and I can’t say I’m upset about that 😂