Would you stick to this rule and if not, why not - phone ban?

[Rumors1]

My DD is going on a 5 day residential trip to take part in a mentoring workshop. It is organised through the school and is for those wishing to train to mentor and support the incoming students into secondary school. Its a full on programme to train these young people as support leaders in the school. There was an application and interview process for selection and 10 children are chosen from each participating school. They are aged 17 and 18.

We had a zoom meeting with the coordinator and one of the rules they strongly request we abide by is that students dont bring their phones on the trip. He spoke about this for a while saying the purpose was to avoid distractions on a busy schedule and to get full focus and engagement from the students. They also implement a strict 10.30 bedtime and dont want phones to be used after this time. They have asked for full cooperation from parents.
Arrangements are in place for parents to contact students if necessary and the students can phone home if they wish.

I told DD she wouldnt be bringing her phone, after her initial complaints she accepted the situation.
She did however later say that all the other students from her school were bringing theirs and she was "advised" by a former participant to bring it as no one sticks to the rule.

I have no doubt that many if not all of the students ill bring theirs (always happens on school trips, phones are banned and my DC are usually the only ones with no phones).

AIBU to think you should you stick to this rule and if you wouldnt, why not?

I'd be asking a lot of questions about what they mean by mentoring, what actual training is going to be taking place, and why it has to take so long, and why it has to be residential.

Wouldn't you have done that at the time your dc was first thinking of applying?

At 17/18 there is some nuance to rules. Following rules at all costs isn’t admirable. It isn’t intelligent or sensible. Nor is breaking rules for no reason at all, or for a laugh. Stupid, unfair or bad rules should be broken and raising children who can recognise bad rules and rebel as needed is admirable. Have a read of the Milgram experiments if you want to know why resisting authority is good at times.

But this rule is meant to have them be present with their work, and their peers. Can she do that with her phone? Can she do that even when the adults aren’t around with her peers? Why doesn’t she want her phone? Is it for emergencies or is it a little dopamine/avoidance machine? Have a chat, work out her motivations, leave it to her.

How do you imagine school residential/people away at university/cub, brownie, guide, scout camps and everything else with any sleepover element functioned pre-mobiles bring taped to everyone’s person? We managed! There will be a pay phone or landline, they’ve said they can contact parents if necessary.

17/18? It's up to them, and if they get caught or sanctioned, if the consequence of their own actions. It's too old to enforce the 'mum says no' rule

Yep. I'm checking that op has.

They can't be that strict about kids that age having phones. What they mean is they don't want to see them. They don't want to know that people have them.
So during the workshops/working days they'd be on silent in bag or in locker/dorm room. I'm guessing when they're in their bed/cabin that's when they can get away with using it.

So just be subtle would be my advice.

To give context to why I think this is odd... when I have received so-called "coaching training" before I found it quite odd and not quite right for me. There was a lot of role playing and a big emphasis on sharing anecdotes, I felt an obligation to share personal things that I wouldn't necessarily want to, with colleagues I didn't regard as close friends, and then an MLM-like push to become a coaching trainer. And that was just two days.

What on earth will these teens be doing for 5 whole days? What actually is mentoring training?

Hmm I think at 17/18 it would be up to my dd to decide what to do, I’d talk it through with her then leave that decision up to her. Personally I’d probably prefer her to take her phone but leave it switched off unless something happens where she needs to access it. I can see why they don’t want phones distracting them during the day, but surely the free time in the evening is up to the individual to decide what they do? Unless it’s a safeguarding issue and they don’t want details of the course shared, photos etc? Even then they could just get the students to sign something agreeing to that.

I think you are really projecting here. This kind of thing is very common for students and does not indicate a cult initiation.

Her decision. Personally I would take a phone for emergencies only and not expect to use it throughout the stay. That would be in the spirit of the request from the organisers but would be a sensible safety precaution.

Presumably they want attendees to fully engage with the residential experience and not go off into their own little world, hence the blanket ban on outside distractions.

Otheriwse what’s the point of it being a residential course?

I've taught for many years and have never come across a residential mentoring training course for teens.

I've heard of residential trips that needed to be residential, for example geography trips to Iceland or physics trips to CERN or DofE trips where camping/orientation is part of it. There's a clear reason those are residential. There's no good reason for "mentoring training" to be residential.

My DD is going on a 5 day residential trip to take part in a mentoring workshop. It is organised through the school and is for those wishing to train to mentor and support the incoming students into secondary school.

It’s a program to train buddies for new students not the Jim Jones school for future leaders 🤣

ETA: might be an obscure reference. Jim Jones was an infamous cult leader.

Yeah my coaching training was organised through my employer, a school.

I don't know why you keep mentioning cults. I never mentioned a cult. Something can be weird without being a cult.

Ok… whatever. It’s not a cult but a cult.

@Rumors1 sorry for the derail. Either let your daughter decide or let her take it but be discreet. Hope she has a great time!

Why do people write replies like this? If this kind of thing was relevant, I reckon OP might have said so. If I asked whether my daughter should walk to school, would there be a post saying "my child is in a wheelchair, so they definitely couldn't walk to school"?

OP, your "child" is 17/18. They will live and die by their own decisions. You've done your bit telling them that the organiser has a no phone rule. It is up to your daughter to decide to go against this. If they decide to abide by it, they'll go without their phone. If they sneak it in, they'll need to be discrete but will probably be fine, however, they will need to accept they broke the rules knowingly and will have to face the consequences, whatever they are.

@Everanewbie it's not a no phone rule though? It's merely a request.

@Rumors1 stated in her first post that

"one of the rules they strongly request we abide by is that students dont bring their phones on the trip"

OP specifically mentions the word "rule". Irrespective, its up to DD to decide at that age.

The OP asked 'would you stick to this rule and if not, why not?'. I've answered that question and given my reasons, which is exactly what she asked. If you deem my post irrelevant, feel free to scroll on past it.

yes, she does but then she qualifies it by saying

"rules they strongly request" ergo not really a "rule" per se because it is not mandatory.

It's a request.

I agree, it is, totally, up to her daughter

At 17/18 I'd let them decide, and fully expect them to take a phone. I wouldn't be happy to be without my phone for 5 days. I don't see this as a realistic request. I'd expect most of the group to have phones.

There's no good reason for "mentoring training" to be residential.

So they can bring together groups from all over the region or country, and the participants can meet new people with different interests and experiences? And in that sort of context, the socialising can be as valuable and important as the formal part of the proceedings, and I can see why they don't want them all sitting on their phones all evening.

I would follow their guidelines, they have given very good reasons for wanting a 'phone free environment. In the case of an emergency, I assume the organisation will have contact details of NOK

Thanks for all the responses and comments, interesting.

I didnt think the format of the course itself would cause some much discussion. We are in Ireland, its a Meitheal course, its run across all secondary schools in Ireland and run by the same organization for a few decades now so very established - definitely not a cult.

I am more than happy for her not to have a phone, I have strict phone rules in the house so she isnt wedded to her phone anyway.
They run workshops all day on personal development, outdoor team-building skills, bullying awareness, communication skills and active listening skills
assertiveness skills, group dynamics, group management and decision making skills. They socialise in the evenings and as another poster said, that would be impacted if they were on their phones, I personally think its a good idea.

It isnt a totally novel rule for residential trips in Ireland, lots of secondary school children go on a 2 or 3 week Irish speaking residential course in the summer (the Gaeltacht) and they all implement a no phone rule. You can be sent home with no refund if caught with one and the courses are between E1,000 - E1,500 each so not inexpensive.

‘Strongly request’ isn’t an outright ban. At 17/18 she’s old enough to decide for herself but taking it, keeping it off and out of sight during the workshop times seems like a sensible compromise. That way she can contact you if there’s an emergency or whatever. My nephew is the same age and they had the school bus break down recently on the way back from the trip- because he was 17 and had his phone he was able to leave, get the train and then call home for a lift from the station which took max 30 mins. Those that had to wait with the bus (mostly boarders returning to school) apparently had to wait hours for the replacement bus to show up. So he was glad to have his phone!

I would let her do what she wants. The school are asking them to take on a position of responsibility and then treating them like children. Personally I would have pushed back on the school rather than telling my dd to follow their ridiculous rule.