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…

Firstly, phones stop the children interacting with each other.
Secondly, in my experience, phoning home brings on homesickness.
We all used to survive a few days without being able to contact our parents and it’s not a bad thing for children today to experience.

No child needs their mobile phone on a Scout trip - as much as they’d like them. They’re there to switch off from tech and enjoy outdoor adventures and time with friends.

Its also a massive safeguarding issue for leaders to manage - groups of teens together away from home with phone my be encouraged to take photos/videos that cause distress to other Scouts.

Theres also the issue of losing/breakage and leaders being held responsible

If a Scout is in distress and cannot be settled they will always be allowed to speak to parents via the emergency contact given.

Scouts is one of the few places that kids can still be kids

This is normal. My child has done two PGL trips in primary and then secondary and the rule was the same. I totally get it. It’s not like you won’t be contacted if there is an issue. It’s good for kids to be without devices, they cause nothing but problems.

Scouts at Kernow last year. Ours have never been allowed phones. It's brilliant. DS has done this since he was 10.
The tent next to them had phones, they were up all night, a total pain and got constantly told off by their leaders.

I'm just back from Wings - so a similar event. The group leader allowed phones and tbh, they were a pain. Girls would come back from the guilds early and just sit on them, one would sit and watch TV and then have a breakdown because her phone & Powerbank were flat and the fuss she made about wanting to go to the trading post where she could charge it!
There's also the additional risk of it being damaged....

So absolutely support your son's leader, they should have a home contact in place & hopefully, like us, have whattsapp or similar to keep parents updated. The digital detox is great!

I love it that my teen gets to experience life without a phone on camp. No news is good news at these events.

Mobile phones are a scourge on childhood.

Even before widespread use, children did not phone home from camp - the main reason was homesickness.

If an urgent message needs to be passed, it can go through the leader.

The daily WhatsApp from the leader means that you can still live vicariously through your son. You can have a real catch up when he gets back.

100% this, i thought it was great just because parents have seperation anxiety doesn't mean kids need phones constantly

DS joined Scouts at 10, he'd never been to Beavers or Cubs, he was the only Scout from his school year, so the youngest one.
He went to Kernow Jamboree that summer and was fine. Nobody took phones from our troop. He's done a week's holiday with his troop every year since with no phones.

I did a one off school trip with 80 12 yr olds recently. We didn’t really have a policy on phones (not in the UK) so went for a compromise of allowing them to bring them but they were only given access during the long (10 hour) bus journeys and for 30 minutes at the end of the day to call home.

It’s hard to say if it was the right choice or not. Mostly well behaved kids so they were ok to hand them back, but it was an extra task we adults could have done without. Speaking to parents - some kids didn’t bother, others were really upset / made homesick by talking with parents. Some of them blurted out all their complaints to their parents, who then called out leader to complain / all worried .

i personally would have told them to leave them at home. Many parents agreed. But a significant minority actively wanted them to have phones - there was quite the argument about it at our pre-trip meeting with parents 🤦‍♀️ And the problem is of course that phones aren’t just phones - they are cameras, music players, video players etc.

I went on residential camps as a child that were two weeks in duration. Never had a phone, but was allowed 1 phone call home in the week.

Camps are about sports, activities, socialising and learning. Not about phones, social media and home.

YABU.

No it isnt odd and if you kept up with the news you'd see all the stuff about restricting use of phones. You should be pleased that no phones are allowed on this trip. Sounds like he is having a great time.

I let my daughter take hers. She gets dreadfully home sick and the only way I could get her on the trip was having the comfort that she could ring me if she wanted to talk to me like she has done when being away from home previously. As I suspected she didn’t need to ring and it didn’t come out of her suitcase. I’m not sure she would have gone without it.

I suffered with home sickness terribly at her age too, there was a pay phone we could call home on. I did each night for 2 minutes, which was enough. Why they aren’t allowed to at least use a pay phone to touch base with home baffles me? If I’m away I quickly check in with my DH each day.

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.

His mate facetimed you ?
He couldn't wait one day?

Don't like the reasonable rules? Dont go.

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.

Would have been just as nice to hear all about it when he comes back on Saturday.

Of course it’s a sensible rule for a plethora of very good reasons. None of them need a phone.

We had 90 children (4-18) at our camp earlier in the summer just from our scouts group across 2 days, cross the whole camp it was about 500+.
Children at camp that we didn't have consent to share photos of, these children wore wrist bands as it wasn't possible to know all the children that could have shared images.
Before any photos were shared they were scrutinised for any children in the background wearing wrist bands and these photos were deleted. It would be a logistical nightmare if all the children had phones. I was with the squirrels (4-6) who were only there for the day and only the leaders took and shared photos. The adult volunteers we had couldn't.

not rtft

Been a scout leader on camp. I absolutely did not want scouts:

• being able to take and share photos of fellow campers when in bed and vulnerable
• boys messaging girls and vice versa to agree to sneak out of tents to meet up
• spending hours on screens
• having sleep disturbed by screens (they are hard enough to persuade to sleep)
• playing music that we all have to listen to
• constantly mithering about charge

You might your DS to have a phone…but given the above do you want the rest of the scouts to have one?

As for holding their phones myself: I don’t want responsibility for £4000 of other people’s tech, and last camp we were on my tent leaked overnight and lots of my stuff ended up soaked. Also that means more camp conflict on handing out and collecting phones

If there’s a problem, we’ll call you. The one scout who was badly homesick, I called their parent on my phone and let them talk… because I could frame what was going on and the actions the leaders were taking parent knew all this before talking to the homesick scout and was better able to support them to stay.

usually there’s a scout shop that sells postcards and a postbox…..

Maybe not separation anxiety but good old fashioned 'living vicariously through their children'.

Well said.

OP, there are very good reasons for this.

Agree with all previous posters, I wouldn’t be happy if they were allowed phones. Leaders do not need the extra responsibility of checking everyone still has their phone or safeguarding around them, not worth it at all. They will live a week without a phone and it’s good for them to not rely on this. If you were a parent and I was the leader having to hear about this complaint I would feel fed up and wonder what the point is

Can I urge you to get more involved with Scouting yourself. There's just not time for mobile phones on a camp at their age. If you went to camp yourself you might understand.

I'm sure the other leaders will welcome you with open arms as a leader so you can implement phones allowed on camp rule. Then you can deal with kids moaning they can't charge their phones, other kids complaining about being bullied, having photos taken of them they don't want, parents calling you in the middle of the night saying they are coming to pick their child up who has phoned them instead of talking to leaders, dealing with safeguarding when a scout shows another scout porn on their phone, consoling a scout who has lost or broken their phone, dealing with the parents who blame you for all of the above.

These are all things that have happened when kids have brought phones on camp, despite being told not to.

From the present point of view, I think that no mobile phones is sensible for all the reasons given. Presumably there are means of contacting the organisers/leaders in an emergency and vice versa. Look on it as a digital detox for your son.
Life is far too instant these days, just look at all the members of the audience filming concerts, for example, but, in effect, actually missing the experience.
Your son will come to no harm having to remember all the adventures he has had and telling you later.
Or are you afraid that you have no control over his activities?

@Besidemyselfwithworry it’s parents like you that make volunteering so much harder. If you don’t trust the Leaders, don’t send the child. If you do trust them, abide by the rules and stop whinging.

I organised a weekend trip to London and a parent secreted an AirTag in the child’s bag so they could track him. I hit the roof because of all the issues it could have caused.

Apron strings need to be cut.