To take away phones on sleepover

[gowednesday]

10 year old dsd, hosting first school friend sleepover next weekend.

is it unreasonable to say no phones or that we’ll look after them and they can ask to use them?

What I’m really taking from this thread is posters talking about ‘unlimited access’ to the internet for their kids and how sinister it all is. Why the hell have these kids got unlimited access. The amount of parents who give their kids a phone and talk to them about using it responsibly and think their job is done is beyond me!

Please block your child from:
-using the internet without your PIN or even better just delete the internet app. If they’re older and need it, use appropriate parental controls to filter as much as possible. Why do they have any unsupervised access at 10?! That’s incredibly ignorant. Check internet history regularly. Block sites as needed for older dc.

-using YouTube. IMO this should be blocked on both apps and allowed internet websites. My child has YouTube kids for 15 minutes a day. This is controlled through family sharing on my phone

-installing or deleting ANY apps without your permission (you need to put your PIN in to allow) You can talk all you like but peer pressure will make them less responsible than you think

Phones should be monitored daily, passwords should be known, you can set up duplicate accounts of older children’s social media accounts on your own device to monitor. If this is all done from early on, dc accept it and even embrace it. All this talk of what they could be seeing is mind-boggling. Obviously they are going to see things but mainly because so many parents are completely uneducated on how to manage screen time and what dc are able to access.

That’s all fine, but I can only do that for my own child. If a child visits my house with a phone I do not know what controls the parents have put on it. Therefore that phone will not be entering the bedrooms.

Teacher here too. I posted earlier on in the thread, and yep, seen all of this and more.

Reading through the thread this morning I'm horrified by the number of PP claiming that their child must have a phone to be able to contact them.
Why is this?
Presumably YOU the parent must trust the adults in charge of the sleepover-otherwise they just shouldn't be there, and even more importantly you are responsible for teaching your child the skills to communicate with those adults.

If your DC feels unable to speak to the adult in charge then no, they are not equipped yet to sleep away from home.
If you are insisting your child has a phone to access you 24/7 then you are teaching reliance on a phone above basic necessary communication skills and quite possibly projecting your own anxiety.

I shouldn’t have to request to call my child at your house I should just be able to call or they call me without having to ask. My child wouldn’t be staying at OPs house. I wouldn’t want my child to feel uncomfortable in anyone’s house because some children wouldn’t have the confidence to ask. I understand the concept but no.

Would you be happy with the compromise of an non camera, non Internet phone?

That's exactly what me and my DW just said. Of course you can't take their phones. They're 10, not 3. Why on earth wouldn't they have their phones? As soon as my DD was allowed to walk to school and stay at home while we nipped to the shops or went for a walk she was allowed one so she could get on touch with us.
Also to all the people saying 'We DiDn't HaVe MoBilEs AnD it DIdN't Do uS AnY HArM!' no, no you didn't but everyone did have a house phone, so you could still ring your friends. It's called moving on with the times.

@Ludinous
Does your child have a smartphone though?

Sleepovers are the most common places children are exposed to porn - due to kids having phones. That's why I wouldn't want them having phones.

So the kids themselves are showing the other kids at the sleepover the porn? So by taking away a kids phones for 1 night that will stop said kid from showing their friends next time they see each other? I don't think so.

A very old one but yeah, why?

This. My child won’t be having a smartphone until 14 at least, preferably older, so I wouldn’t be letting his friends use smartphones in the house when he’s not allowed to - his friends would have to follow the same rules as him.

I think it’s only polite to let the parents know first, but by the same token I would expect my child to follow someone else’s house rules when visiting their house, even if that’s not what we do at home. Having your own house rules is not interfering with other’s parenting decisions.

I'm just amazed that 10 year olds have phones, seems ever so young!

I think if they do have them though you can't take them away, it'll seem weird to block their mechanism of contacting their parent whilst at your house.

When my children go on school trips their phones are collected in at bed time and redistributed in the morning. This is the case from Yr 7 to Yr 11.

Why are there so many people who think it’s normal for primary aged kids to have a phone and be so attached to it they need to take it to a friend’s house? My 9 year old doesn’t have a phone and I see no reason for her to do so. Secondary school will be a different challenge to navigate but these kids should not be having unfettered access to phones in bedrooms or at a sleepover. I’d be thankful for a parent taking any phones and keeping downstairs over night.

But it’s the feeling of ‘safety’ given by adults being asleep and all being together that combine to increase risk taking behaviour amongst young people. Children are far more likely to search for and/or share inappropriate content when they are certain an adult won’t catch them doing it. Nighttime at a sleepover creates the perfect environment.

Absolutely the norm here too. The only exception is the one student who has an app to manage his diabetes. One girl refused to hand hers in on the first night of a residential. Her mum had to collect her.

We do the same on camps. It would be a massive safeguarding risk otherwise. Which is why I find it bonkers people are happy with even younger children having access to devices where they don’t know what the child safety measures on it are. If you say you won’t have your child’s phone taken away, then what you are also saying is that you are happy with all the other children also having their phones and all the safeguarding risk that entails.

I mean my child’s 4 at present so I’m a long way off however I don’t intend to give my child her own phone until she’s secondary school age. She has an iPad that she watches Netflix on for a couple of hours here and there at present and that’s how it’ll stay. I probably won’t allow sleepovers unless I’m friends with the parents and know the house/home anyways.

I don’t agree with 10 year olds having phones however I still wouldn’t send my child to a house without being able to contact me or have to ask to do so. Safeguarding from the internet and safeguarding from weird people it’s all a safeguarding risk. I just wouldn’t trust a parent that wanted to take my child’s phone off them but again like I’ve said my child’s 4 and I’m a little way off parenting a 10 year old.

i mean when I went to sleepovers my friends mum would have sex in the next room loudly and dismiss her own child trying to tell her to stop. Said friend would make us sleep in our school uniform for the next day so I’ve been traumatised enough and I in the end had to tell my mum to start telling me no when I asked to stay.

‘i mean when I went to sleepovers my friends mum would have sex in the next room loudly and dismiss her own child trying to tell her to stop. Said friend would make us sleep in our school uniform for the next day so I’ve been traumatised enough and I in the end had to tell my mum to start telling me no when I asked to stay.’

But how would a mobile phone have avoided any of that? It sounds like you went home, didn’t say anything, and repeatedly went back until you told your mum. What would a mobile phone have done in that scenario if you didn’t tell your mum in the first place?

It’s also likely that if devices were involved, your friend would have had unrestricted access due to poor parenting/neglect, and, due to what she was being exposed to in the home, perhaps more likely to search out and share inappropriate material when unsupervised.

If the reason for your 10 year old needing a phone is to contact you, why do they need a smartphone?

I despair. No 10 year old needs a smartphone and I am gobsmacked of parents allowing them.

Times are changing slowly. Smartphones for children will be the next generation sending children up chimneys and we will look back in horror at allowing children to have a device in their pocket where they can access all sorts.

The most important thing is you don't send your child to sleep at houses where you don't know and trust the parents.
'My child needs a phone because I don't trust the parents' - No! Don't send your child there!!

Do you genuinely believe a night without a phone is riskier than a night with unrestricted internet access, for a 10-year-old?

Do you really think a smartphone is the only way to get on the internet? Besides...who said anything about being unrestricted?