At what age to give mobile phone to a child

[expatinmys]

Hi all

DS is 11 and will be starting year 7 soon. We are not very keen on mobile phones and do not want to give him one until he is 16. It seems that in the UK from what we have seen and heard, the norm is to give a mobile phone at the age of 9, which we find quite hard to believe. We were expats in a different country and mobile phone were not much of a problem and not many 9 year olds have phones.

Are there any other parents out there who are thinking like us and don’t intend to let their children have a mobile phone until the children are much older? It seems like a taboo subject but we don’t understand the mentality of giving a phone at an early age?

Any input (positive or negative will be appreciated).

From my experience it’s usually when kids start secondary school so 11 going on 12.
Think you will find it very hard to keep your child from having any kind of mobile device until they are 16. They message and organise things with their friends on them at secondary school age.

Agree with pp- the summer going into year 7 is when most kids get a phone as it’s usually when they start to get more independent. Some secondary schools require children to have a phone so you’ll need to consider that too- the school my kids go to don’t but you’d be wise to check.

Do you mean a standard mobile phone to make calls? Or a smartphone? If smartphone - mine (fingers crossed) won’t be getting one till ages 14.

Standard mobile - from (10/11).

Secondary school seems a common age of more independence so a phone is "needed"

Dd did have one before she turned 10 but we lived in a village there was an incident where calling a parent would have been really needed thankfully her and her friends were rescued by strangers but that was not a situation we wanted repeated so she had a basic phone for use when they were out "exploring"

If your child will be taking themselves to and from school independently or doing activities outside the home without you (walking to the local park, meeting friends at the shopping centre) then it's a good idea to have a phone.
Public pay phones are rare these days.
Just get a basic non-internet one.

Smart phone or brick phone OP?

9 is too young, but 16 is too old. Kids around here generally get them the summer before starting secondary school.

https://www.thebalancephone.com/products/balance-phone

We did when she started secondary. And we showed her how to use maps and a tracking app.
Because we both work, so she had to make her way back home. She has activities after school. And some school clubs. Things can change, due to a lesson suspended or extra, and they can contact you for pick ups.
If any of you is home and can pick up at short notice, then I would not bother.
Once given to them it is another battle in fact. Monitoring and restricting on weekly basis.

I agree with PP re the lack of pay phones etc meaning a brick phone is necessary to keep in contact, I’ll be holding off on a smart phone for as long as I can! This link is quite helpful and a movement I’ve joined, hoping more and more become aware of it and join!

https://www.smartphonefreechildhood.org/

We have DS phone the summer before starting secondary when we started letting him walk a bit more, meet at local park for a play etc. kept it just so he had a few game apps, find my phone and texts / what’s app. No internet etc.

As he’s got older we’ve allowed safari etc but still keep a close eye.

Year 7 is fine, I was that age when I got mine. But none of my friends even had mobiles so it was pointless 😂 was mainly to stay in contact with my mam who was caring for my terminally ill dad. You can get basic brick phones now and put on safety controls. There apps I think to check what kids are up too.

Never

Dd has had a brick phone for a year now, since she turned ten and started walking to the park and eventually to and from school. She literally just has mine and dh numbers and uses it to update us on her arrival, changes of plan.

We're hoping to hold off on smartphones for as long as possible. she is so creative when bored and an smartphone will just swallow up that time. And I like that interactions with friends are limited once she gets home. Kids need time to decompress away from social pressures imo.

We have given both our boys (11 and just 14) a mobile phone at the start of the summer term before secondary school. However just because you give them a smartphone it doesn’t mean they have to be able to access everything! The boys don’t have safari / internet browsing, YouTube, or any sort of social media. All they have (14 year old included) is calls, texts, Duolingo, Audible, a tracking app, and the older one has a nature ID app and his school homework app, whereas the younger one has a Pokemon card collectors app that shows him how much his Pokémon cards are worth. They are happy with this and understand why we restrict things. They are allowed to text / call friends but not allowed to have group chats as they don’t have WhatsApp. They really don’t spend a lot of time looking at their phones - on long car journeys I also allow them Disney+ to watch, and in fact I forgot to shut this back down on the eldests phone recently and discovered he’d barely even looked at it. We use the iPhone family set up so we can easily lock phones down and not allow access to things, and can monitor screen time etc. having a phone has meant the younger one can arrange to meet his friends in the village (3 miles away) to go and play in a stream down there, and go to the woods. Our eldest went through this phase too in his last term at primary & first year at secondary. He mostly meets friends at our house or their houses now as we are all rural (they go / are going to a private secondary school whereas most of the kids in the village go to the local primary and on to the comp in the nearest town).

I think it’s important to separate the idea of getting a phone from having total and unmonitored access to everything! They can be useful if monitored carefully and restricted enough - my eldest has been able to log all his Duke of Edinburgh bronze award sports and volunteer hours on an app instead of having to keep paper copies.