To think parents are not teaching any independence?

[MrBlobbysNuts]

A local parent group is in uproar because their precious secondary school children are apparently "too vulnerable" to get the bus before and after school without a phone (phones have been banned from premises entirely)

How is getting a bus for 15 minutes without a phone unsafe? Back in the day we just had ourselves and we survived. Give the kids cash and teach them to stop relying on phones to get around. The world is no more dangerous than it was 40 years ago, if anything it’s much safer!

You can do both. I did.

that's just an example of a stupid human, in whatever context

I did it from 6! Left an empty house and came back to an empty house. Do I win a cookie?

The person I was quoting was saying most adults, not school kids, would have trouble if a bus didn't turn up. Hopefully there's at least one parent waiting at those kind of bus stops. My mother used to wait with us in the morning, though we'd find our own way back in the afternoon.

Mine were allowed to walk the 5 min homes from school, we just had to fill in a form. But the judgemental looks and whispers from the other mums who walked theirs to school and back until year Christmas 6! 😂

I don't allow my dc social media until after GCSEs, after that they can have chose.

I'd go one step further than smart phone free childhood, I think families should not have TVs at all either and parents smart phones locked in these little bags, after 6pm. It's so much better to sit together in the evenings and chat, crochet, knit, draw, sew, read the options are endless.

It depend on how the local area is set up, OP @MrBlobbysNuts

In the area we live in now, I certainly wouldn't have let DD1 got to school without a means of contacting me, as there was one bus she could get, we are rural and it sometimes didn't turn up or broke down en route, or she couldn't get on coming back as it was full. DD2 would have been ok as she went to school locally.

When I was at school there were five school buses I could get and it was a very reliable service.

to be honest we need to teach kids how to use phones/technology safely and responsibly, rather than pretend that phones don’t exist and just take them away as if our kids are growing up in some 80s/90s utopia. The 80s and 90s are over, phones and AI etc are here to stay, teach kids how to use them properly.

I think they need to consider the specifics of each school - not every school is the same.

My kids go to a school in the nearest town but we live very rurally. Some kids are driven twenty minutes to reach the bus stop for the school minibus. You drop your kid at the bus stop and go to work. We’re not talking roads with pavements - we’re talking country lanes with high stone walls or hedges and nowhere to stand if a tractor comes.

If the school minibus doesn’t come we don’t get told. It just doesn’t turn up. At which point one of the kids phones a parent and we all scrabble round trying to work out who could get there to collect them, how many we could get in each car etc. (Thank goodness for parents WhatsApp groups!)
If they had to walk home (no phone boxes) before they could ring, then wait for us to get home, they could easily miss half a day of school for no reason.

Similarly when the bus breaks down they can call me and I can go and get them (and others), or another parent can, instead of them waiting four hours - which is how long it took to get a mechanic out last time this happened. The bus broke down on a road I took when I went out that evening so I saw him sitting there. I need them home for dinner, clubs and homework not sitting in the middle of nowhere because they aren’t allowed phones and the bus company don’t keep in touch with parents.

I like them having a phone. I’d be ok with it being a brick one though. Doesn’t need to be a smart phone.

I think they need to consider the specifics of each school - not every school is the same.

My kids go to a school in the nearest town but we live very rurally. Some kids are driven twenty minutes to reach the bus stop for the school minibus. You drop your kid at the bus stop and go to work. We’re not talking roads with pavements - we’re talking country lanes with high stone walls or hedges and nowhere to stand if a tractor comes.

If the school minibus doesn’t come we don’t get told. It just doesn’t turn up. At which point one of the kids phones a parent and we all scrabble round trying to work out who could get there to collect them, how many we could get in each car etc. (Thank goodness for parents WhatsApp groups!)
If they had to walk home (no phone boxes) before they could ring, then wait for us to get home, they could easily miss half a day of school for no reason.

Similarly when the bus breaks down they can call me and I can go and get them (and others), or another parent can, instead of them waiting four hours - which is how long it took to get a mechanic out last time this happened. The bus broke down on a road I took when I went out that evening so I saw him sitting there. I need them home for dinner, clubs and homework not sitting in the middle of nowhere because they aren’t allowed phones and the bus company don’t keep in touch with parents.

I like them having a phone. I’d be ok with it being a brick one though. Doesn’t need to be a smart phone.

When my youngest started university, I joined the parents fb group.

I was absolutely boggled by some of the concerns of parents and the lack of independence they'd created in some students.

Posts in the group included -

Suggesting Buddy Benches around the university for students who haven't made friends yet to sit on until someone comes to talk to them. Like at primary school. The parent even included a photo of the brightly coloured buddy bench her child's primary school had installed.

Parents asking if there was a comprehensive list anywhere that told students how food should be stored (cupboard, fridge, freezer) and for how long it could be stored safely before eating and how to cook it (someone suggested all that info was on individual food packaging).

Parents asking why there wasn't anyone in the laundrette to show 'our young people' how to use a washing machine.

So many people had got their kids through their GCSEs and A Levels, had completed their UCAS forms for them, sorted their student finance for them, applied for accommodation for them and then realised that, once they were living 100+ miles away, they hadn't equipped them with any life skills whatsoever.

Was actually baffling.

I used to print and laminate DD2's timetables for her so she could out it in her blazer pocket, but other than that it was only available on their phones, as were several other apps they needed for school. I noted that recently since DD2 left school they have gone over to giving out paper diaries/log books. I don't know what they do about homework but I wonder if they will go back to paper for that as well instead of using a myriad of apps!

I wouldn’t be happy with that actually. My DD is 15 and has always got a bus (public not school) to school since she was 11. She has needed her phone at times when the bus has broken down/got stuck in traffic/she’s decided to get the later bus because she’s doing something with friends etc. It’s also getting dark by 4pm in winter.
She also has the travel app on it and lots of them have e-tickets on their phones.

“Back in the day” nobody had a mobile but we did have payphones everywhere and always had emergency loose change for the phone. There were also more places like police stations, post offices, libraries where you would have felt safe to go in and ask for help.

My DD has to have her mobile off in her bag during the school day, which I completely agree with. I don’t think it’s up to school to say they aren’t allowed it outside school hours though

Schools can have the rule that when in school hours the children cannot have any phones however outside of school hours il choose what my child can and cannot do.

Some schools think they can tell parents and children what do outside of their responsibilities and perceived authority.

My children have left school now, however it would have been a no from me, ds2 in particular was so badly bullied he ended up having multiple hospital trips and broken bones, the school never once called us even when he was knocked unconscious and on another occasion told ds his broken arm and wrist was all in his head.

When schools have an adequate safeguarding system in place, parents will trust the schools, however they don’t and therefore parents don’t have the trust in them, so need to make provisions to safeguard their children.

When DD started university there wasn't a parents FB group, nor did I expect there to be one.

I used a pay phone probably daily as a teenager, none of them are there anymore

For university? Jeepers. I'd hope not!

And you could knock on a door in an absolute emergency- not saying that it was always the best idea - but more adults nowadays wouldn’t answer a door to a couple of teens - they expect them to have phones and regardless of where their parents are they are solely their parent’s problem at all times.

So adults saying “phones are bad” are also adults who wouldn’t help a teen in need.

There are a lot of people who are happy to spout off judgement about modern parenting without even having children themselves. Which is fucking odd. All they have are some rose tinted memories of what they remember or think they remember about their childhoods (irrelevant that world no longer exists) we don’t know how their parents felt or thought.

Phones are not the problem in regards to instilling independence. Parental anxiety or overthinking or not believing their child is capable or just assuming there is danger everywhere.

There are clearly thousands of teens with independence they have been meeting on beaches and rioting through town centres. And that is the darker side of phone use but that doesn’t go away when dumb phone teens reach 16, plus their mates will know and see stuff you could easily be lulled into thinking because they don’t have a smart phone they are “safe”.

Sometimes kids need to know the dangers to navigate them.

My parents never had to talk to me about flash mobs. But we have had to with ours.

Wow!

DD felt we where fairly mean as parents when she was younger. Getting her to do jobs round the house, making her cook dinner once a week from 16 and insisting she got herself to collage and back (she did high school as well but was much closer). We'd insisted she got a job at college and learn how to save and do a week's shopping. I'd made her pay for some of her own personal stuff to help her learn how to budget.

When she started uni last year she said thank you for teaching me how to cope as an independent person. She realised a lot of her fellow students didn't know how to do a lot of the things she could, as their parents hadn't taught them and had done everything for them up to that point.

I am definitely joining a FB uni parent group for the batshittery!

Our youngster did his whole table’s washing up in food tech because “no one else knew how to”

We were howling when he told us. He obviously got value points and a pat on the head from teacher. Even so.

I presume they make exceptions if the phone is used aa a medicsl device such as CGM?

They have to.

Same here only mine was a 2p only I didn’t spend it

There were loads of working phones about.

I wouldn’t be happy about my child (not relevant now as she’s 30) not being able to contact me before and after school. I do agree that they could be dumb phones or switched off during school day.

Not sure as I'm all for no phones in school but as there are no public phone boxes now, what do kids do when buses bugger up or there is a change of plan? Wouldn't like to think my eleven year old gd would have no way to make contact when she starts secondary in September.