To think this is a stupid rule - no calls home on scout camp!

[Besidemyselfwithworry]

So I’ll keep it short
Son age 14 is at poacher a big international scout camp in Lincoln about an hour away from us for a week.
he’s done camps before for a weekend but not a week
they said “no mobiles” incase they loose them and filming and kids being homesick.
however his mate has gone just for the day, he had a phone and he’s face timed me on it and he was so excited to tell me what he’s been up too it was really nice to hear from him.
I just think they should be allowed them even if they hand them in at bedtime or whatever but does this seem odd to everyone else??

scout group are updating on a group wattsapp with photos etc…

I think this is a good thing.
My son recently spent five days away at scout camp. They are not allowed phones, and there are no calls home.

He's 14 FFS, he'll be fine.

It stops them being fully present in the experience, and also makes them homesick.
It stops them going to leaders on-site with problems, they could usually help but not if they never get to hear about the mean child/homesickness/injury until an angry parent turns up having set out on a mercy mission after a tearful secret phone-call.
Phones have cameras, social media and the Internet, and you don't want any combination of those in a tent of unsupervised kids.
They might lose or break it (or have it stolen or vandalised).

It's a huge mixed sex event.

The last thing anybody needs somewhere like that is a bunch of teenagers with phones.

It’s standard. We managed on trips and residential without phones. I went to Spain on a PGL holiday at 14. No calls back home were allowed.

My 9 year old has done a residential recently Mon - Friday about five hours away. No phones.

It builds independence.

It's normal, we had this at school trips, DofE trips and camps.

Yabu. I'm shocked you didn't realize this is normal. At aged 14 your son must have gone on school trips and other scout camps. You are being updated by the leader.

we weren't even allowed phone calls home back in my day, before the rise of smartphones

it actually helps kids be less homesick / be more present in the moment

No I think its the height of reasonableness. But if you dont like the idea, don't send your kid.

Guide leader… we have always said no phones at camp and will continue to do so. Aside from the breakages and nowhere to charge them, some (but not all) reasons….

Older Guide (14) shows younger Guide (10) something she shouldn’t see and her parents would definitely not want her to see. You can’t ever put that back in the box and ultimately I’m responsible for it.

Homesick Guide constantly messaging parents - parents turn up to collect Guide and leaders know nothing about it. Miraculously, Guides are a lot less homesick when they can’t contact home all the time. And we as leaders are very experienced at dealing with homesickness and know when to make the call as to whether they will be ok or they are really not enjoying themselves and need to go home.

Over dramatising issues at camp and causing panic - messaging home saying there’s been a mass outbreak of food poisoning when actually one child over did it and was a bit sick.

Photos - so many possibilities for where Guides could post photos and they don’t know who has photo permissions and why. We have a password protected Google drive where we put ‘safe’ images and parents are explicitly asked not to download and share.

No control over who they are messaging and what they are watching when ultimately I am their parent for the week.

It’s just good to be away from screens and interact for a change!

I am also a secondary school teacher and it baffles me why we allow phones on some trips. My two worlds don’t always collide harmoniously.

PS. Edited to add that I’m surprised he has time to even think about you at Poacher!

Also that we still give the campsite address to parents so that they can write a letter, or they give us a letter to give midweek, and the girls love it.

Kids were going to camps before mobile phones existed! Back in my day pre mobiles there was a landline for the campsite office for true emergencies, and the campsite manager (huge site accommodating 1000+ at a time) would bring a message to the leader if a call was received, my friend lost her grandmother whilst we were at camp and it was managed really well, my friend was told about 30 minutes before her dad was due to arrive to collect her, and we were retold to support her and we packed up her stuff, knowing travel times they must have waited an hour or more, until after dinner and the campfire, it meant she didn’t have to wait long. Kids do not need a phone themselves

Mumsnet in general at the moment has a few threads about kids at camps messaging home that they’re homesick and want to be picked up.

I was a 70s/80s child and absolutely would have probably done the same. But there were no mobiles and I had to stay and I always ended up having a good time. Or at least a not too terrible time and learned some resilience.

For this and lots of other reasons outlined by other posters, no phones makes perfect sense to me.

Having been a Guider ( now retired) for many years and veteran of many camps I can assure you there are very good reasons for this rule
If your son doesn’t want to comply he doesn’t need to go to camp

We've got so used to being in constant touch it's become a comfort blanket - in this case for the OP. Look forward with excitement to hearing all about it when DS gets back home. Leading a scout camp is hard work. The last thing the adults need is to have to manage phones and their fallout.

Im a scout leader and our group has ha hard ban on mobile phones too.

personally I don’t agree with it and think that at scout and explorers age they should be allowed their phones.

but the group leader is adamant so no phones

If you don't like the policy don't send him.

We live in the Netherlands and my son's recent scouts camp was in Bath.

Even though they were all abroad (and most of the kids don't speak English) they still weren't allowed to take "any devices with internet capability."

Honestly, it's great, and even though my son moans about it before he goes, he always enjoys it much more without his phone.

And he tells us all about it when he's back.

It's great to have a chance to miss each other, we don't have that feeling much any more.

(He's a strapping 15 yr old though, I would have felt very differently if he was still small and physically vulnerable).

Poacher is the experience of a lifetime for so many Guides and Scouts. 6 years on, DC still talking about it fondly.

Having no mobiles is essential - for safeguarding, for digital detox, for actually reducing homesickness. I have nothing but gratitude and appreciation for the wonderful volunteer men and women who hold that line and give young people such an incredible experience.

So they cant have them all day as the point is to engage in the activitues. They cant have phones in tents or unsupervised due to age range, possible safeguarding concerns, etc. If they had to hand out and collect all the phones every night for 10 mins to call home, just imagine the hassle. Phones being lost. Parents not answering during that short slot and children upset. Phones charged out with nowhere to charge them. Phones not turned off fully when given up and Scout leaders with bags of phones pinging and ringing. Phones getting mixed up. Leaders being blamed for damage or lost phones.
I say all this because I work in a school and we take children away overnight, we allow them to have their phones in a common area for 15 mins after dinner each day abd it is such a hassle. All the above. They fight over sockets to charge them. Plus all the kids in one area talking on their phones at once so nobody can hear properly. Checking everyone's handed theirs back, not hidden it away.
I've been on both sides, as a teacher in situ and the parent at home with my child on the trip and I honestly think its not necessary and causes more upset than benefit.

DD(9) is at a PGL residential camp this week. Children there are allowed their phones/iPads for an hour in the evening. DD doesn’t have a phone and we carefully monitor her use of an iPad so that didn’t go with her. Last summer she did a residential camp for a week (with complete strangers) so I thought I ought to call a few days in. DD was annoyed that I was taking her away from playing with her new friends, so I’m not calling this year. If there were a crisis, the camp staff would call me, but I think it’s important to allow her to have some independence and she can tell me about it when she gets home. A few photos might have been nice, but not essential.

Phones can cause more hassle than they are worth. Simply put, u were aware of the rule, if u didn't like it don't send him. A week without phones will do the participants good

I think this rule is in place based on teachers/scout leaders experience. My friends son hid a phone so he could play games on it at night as he couldn't sleep & you guessed it he ended up calling her in tears at 1am & he let his friend call his mum in tears aswell, teachers were woken up & my friend got a big telling off from the school (she knew her son had his phone).

It's safer without and tbh how amazing is it to have a week without phones in this day and age? We had the most amazing teen years without them so it's great he gets the chance to experience that and just be in the moment.

Hard no from me - the teachers would never get the kids to do anything, they’d just constantly be on their phones.

50 years ago at the ripe old age of 11 our entire primary school class went to France for a week. Us kids had no access to a phone of any description and we all managed to survive, I'm sure your DC will too. If he gives you a daily bulletin then what's left to tell you when he gets back? Nothing, so you would have taken all the excitement of him recounting his escapades during the week away from him. There's nothing more joyful than a child returning from a week away being full of tales of what they got up to and eager to share them.

DS did a week in France aged 15. They were allowed to take phones. I heard nothing from him whatsoever the whole time that he was there but he said that the dramas caused by the phones were unreal and he actually felt sorry for the teachers. I’m a teacher and he never says that!!