AIBU to consider a restricted smartphone for my 10-year-old?

[Noddyslittleredcar]

DS is 10, in year 6.

He's starting to gain a bit more independence - walking home from school, going to the shop alone, being left alone for short periods whilst we go out.

He doesn't currently have a phone and we don't have a landline, so there's no way for him to contact us should there be an issue, or if we have an issue.

Contemplating getting him a phone, but I worry he's too young?

FWIW DH and I have smart phones but use the "brick" device 90% of the time. For people who don't know (and I swear this isn't an advert for brick) brick allows you to select apps, specific websites (or web access completely) etc to block, or alternatively you can allow specific apps and websites and it blocks everything else. It also prevents downloads of new apps.

I'm suggesting we get DS a smart phone and then "brick" everything except maps, calls, SMS texts, whatthreewords and wallet.

I'm considering this option rather than an older Nokia type brick phone because of maps/location and wallet functionality. It would be a very cheap smartphone.

I'm really torn as we are a very low tech house - no tablets, a single family laptop etc and we hadn't intended to get DS a phone until year 9. But unlike when DH and I were younger, there's no public phone boxes and less access/ willingness to help people.

What do people think generally? I'm open to options/ discussions.

YABU - no 10 year old needs a phone for any reason
YANBU - this seems like a sensible compromise

The police did a really interesting talk for parentd in dd's primary school all about the risks posed by online. They are seeing children targeted online, especially if they have their own smart phones. It was quite shocking. There have been cases of children groomed, children convinced into suicide etc. These phones are far more dangerous than we used to realize and young people need protecting from the dangers these expose them to. A simple Nokia to be able to phone you if needed should be enough.

I have a Brick and it’s excellent for my phone addiction. We’ve just bought DS year 7 a Nokia and it does the job. Boring enough for him not to even start an addiction.

It did cross my mind to give him my old iPhone and Brick it. But what’s the point in having a smart phone if you’re just gonna lock it down?

His friend has an iPhone ‘but it’s very restricted’…… why have a £1k iPhone just to lock it down? 🤣

The amount of lost phones and nasty messages already happening in the first 3 weeks of high school makes me glad DS isn’t involved!

So to summarise, IMO YABU.

Yep. Far safer out in (most) neighbourhoods than let loose online.

OP I agree with you and don't think it's a bad idea. I am totally against un restricted art phone use for youngsters however smart phone use is part of daily life that we need to use responsibily our DC have limited smart phone access (like you describe but they don't have wallet and only have SMS no messaging apps) and it has been fine for the past few years they got them at 11. When we gave them to them we drew up a family phone use contract and if they break that it's confiscated. That happned once and then never again. Use Google family or similar, set form boundaries and I think what you are suggesting is a good idea ours have the pouches at school

In year 6 DS had an Xplora watch which was fine and had tracking, if you’re concerned about tracking. The ‘safe zone’ range was far too big ie he could be at school/in the woods and it would tell us he was at home. So we decided bit pointless. Depends what your son’s cycle length is guess.
Nokias are common/cool now so he preferred to swap to a Nokia.

The one time I thought ‘huh, this is where tracking would be helpful’, has been when he lost his Nokia. Thought it was down in the park being rained on and was very glad it wasn’t an expensive iPhone! Whose battery would probably have died. Found in the sofa.

So the Nokia Vs smartphone is literally so that he can have maps/ tracking and a way to pay for things, which he can't get with a dumb phone.

There would be no social media use, no WhatsApp, no internet access.

Brick is very hard to bypass (we've tried given this subject coming up).

I think I'll leave all phones for now though and just keep on going as we are.

Yes it's all these reasons why if we were to get one it would be a really locked down so those things couldn't happen by phone.

There are a few special kids phones that have a few extra features (GPS, ability to download a train or bus app etc) but don't have a browser or social media.

Would you get him another phone for secondary school or keep the same one?

DS1 (year 6) doesn't have a phone yet but we are planning on getting probably an xplora1 or a pinwheel phone and then he can just keep that for secondary school as well.
The local secondary schools are strict on phones so no year 7s will have a smart phone...just brick phones and special kids phones.

My DS 10 in year 6. We got him a phone about 6 months ago, but it’s only given to him when he actually needs it ie when he walks home from an after school club on his own, goes to the park with a mate, we pop out and leave him for 20 mins etc. The rest of the time it’s off in a drawer. All it has on it is maps, calls and texts. No apps, no browser. One of his friends said they would invite him to the Y6 WhatsApp group - I said no to that and he wasn’t particularly fussed.

I’m happy with this for now - when he goes off to secondary we’ll consider if he needs anything else on it.

The bus pass issue is a clear one noone else is replying to (though would have helped if it was in the original post) if they don’t do a physical card is the only option for kids to have it on their phone? Do you know of anyone with a child in that school already you could ask about the bus pass situation?

If it has to be on a phone I imagine it does need to be the wallet of a smart phone. Also if he’s traveling by bus maybe he’ll want Spotify to listen to music? I think a Bricked plus lots of other parental controls option sounds like a good one. Yes maps may well be handy as he gets more independence from you

My 10 year old has my old IPhone, had it for around 7 months.
It’s on my apple family, it locks down an hour before bedtime so can’t be used, i have to approve any app download and the rules of her having it are i can check her messages whenever i want.
She was added to a class group chat by a friend but got so fed up of all the nonsense messages that she muted it.
She loved it so first but the novelty wore off quickly and now she only uses it when going to a friends (she walks there)/the park etc. It doesn’t go to school or to her room at bedtime, half the time at home she forgets to turn it on.
I haven’t allowed Whatsapp. She only uses messaging/Imessage/phone/Facetime.

DS is 9 and has a smart phone. I've blocked everything I dont want him accessing, can't download games or anything on it. We've also had many conversations around it and I check it regularly. But he walks to and from school everyday with his friends (20 minute walk) and sometimes likes to go to the park after school so I use it to track him and for him to keep in touch. It's been very useful as one day one of his friends fell and hurt themself on the walk to school so DS called me and I went to pick them up, cleaned up his friends leg and took them both into school.
DS uses his to call his friends to arrange playing at the park and who's walking with who. He uses it for homework when he needs to research stuff and he can track me on his phone too.

Yes, we looked at those which is when we thought "oh we could do that using brick and one of our old phones".

If we got him a Nokia he'd need a new phone for secondary school as he needs the bus pass app (or we pay 3 times the price on a pay by the day tariff). So we're thinking of cutting out the middleman.

But we might just leave it 10months anyway.

The bus app/price difference problem has just hit national news so this might get resolved by the time your DS gets to secondary.

DS is 13 and very sensible. He's not having a smart phone until he is 14, and then just WhatsApp until he is 15.

It erodes innocence. He comes home from a friend's house talking about videos he has seen on a friend's phone and some of them are inappropriate even though the friend is a nice kid.

My daughter got a phone at almost 10 when she started walking the mile to school on her own. I locked it down and checked it regularly and it’s been fine. Shes 13 now and barely on her phone at all - averages 2 hours a week. It’s been brilliant for her independence and socialising (she’s autistic so has quite a few challenges).

my son is 10 and we just passed an old phone down to him. He uses it for Duolingo and texting me about how much he hates doing his chores. He’s had a smart watch for a couple years now but it’s glitchy and we don’t want to buy another one so moving onto an old iPhone with parental controls and limits.

the school gives them all iPads in his year anyway so it’s not like he would have a tech free childhood regardless. He has a sport he’s serious about, plays a musical instrument, plays outside every day, does his chores, runs around with friends… and does french and chess on duolingo. It’s a balance that works for us.

I have a firm no thanks on Snapchat and TikTok (though would be happy for my daughter to have them at this point as she misses a lot without it. She hates them both though) but I’m delighted my kids can have the sort of freedom they have now without requiring them to make all their plans ahead of time or ask another parent to call me or whatever. It’s been nothing but great for us.

There are zero pay phones on the mile walk to our school and we are the furthest street of the catchment so they wouldn’t see other kids or parents for a few blocks.

Yes we've explored it extensively - options are getting a school bus, using the pass on the app or get a public bus at 3 times the price. The cost is manageable for us but presents other issues as well. It's something we are considering. He could also cycle to school, it'll take about 45 minutes.

That would be brilliant.

It seems so unfair!

Have a look here for some alternatives to smartphones. It’ll be full Nokia for my children but here are some others:
https://www.smartphonefreechildhood.org/alternatives

For starters be aus you said you are not a tech household, so I assume your knowledge of technology is limited. And kids have all sorts of weird and wonderful ways of breaking any controls or restriction apps which they circulate among their peers. You wouldn't even know that your blocks have been removed untill it's too late.
Your kid should know your phone number off by heart. They can ask pretty much anyone to call you including school, any shop keeper on their school route and a passer by. Nobody is going to refuse helping a 10 year old. Not to mention that the most likely thing to happen on his school op commute is for him to get his phone snatched away from him. What then?
And what reason you envisage for needing to contact him? And why can't this be done on a Nokia phone?
Why does he need access to a wallet to on his phone? Why not a bank card?
Why does he need access to maps? Are you expecting him to travel to another city independently at the age of 10?

We gave our DDs phones at the start of year 6 to get use to the responsibility before starting high school. We didn’t really think about the phone itself as DHs contract was up on both occasions so they got his old iPhones.

Everyone is different in what they allow their child to be able to do with their phone, usage etc.. we’ve never had any problems with our DDs and smart phones seemed to be the norm with their friends even before ours got theirs.

The only concern we’ve had is group chats, mainly watsapp but DDs now know they aren’t allowed in big group chats (bullying and inappropriate posts). Both have stuck to our rules and never got in trouble at school for having phones out.

We’ve offered to get them cheap flip/brick phones for school since the stricter policies have been put in place but both want to take their smart phones as one likes to do her homework on the school bus and the other plays games with her friends.

We’ve made the rules very clear though, if their phones get lost or confiscated they don’t get replaced.

Our eleven year old has had a smartphone for years as he needs it for his hearing aids. We don’t use brick, but its set so he can only call/text numbers in his phone book, he also can’t add numbers without us approving it. He has maps, what three words, his hearing aid app and thats it. Oh, actually he has stars too, its a messaging app where messages etc can’t be deleted, you also have your controller (so parents) have control over who is invited and you don’t need to share your phone number with the people you invite.

Ok, your initial premise is really wrong. We're a low tech household but DH and I both work in tech - he's head of engineering at a software house and gives talks and tech, cyber security and AI. I'm technical product owner at a different software company. We are good on tech, we just don't like it to invade our home life. It's one of the reasons we chose brick Vs a competitor as it's hard to bypass, and we've tried (given this situation). But appreciate teens are resourceful. Unfortunately unless the app for bus pass situation is resolved next year, he'll need a smart phone for that.

We can contact him on a Nokia. I'm thinking more as he gains more independence in this next 12 months. Seems a tricky age.

Thanks, yeah we looked here. It's what got us thinking about using one of our old ones and restricting it.

The balance, pinwheels and xplora allow access to cameras which we don't like and it seems a waste of money to buy one and then lock it down further.

The point someone made about app creep is really interesting though and a good point we'd not considered.

Maybe low screen (except today) rather than low tech is a better way to describe our household. No tablets, smart TVs, media subscriptions etc. our kids don't do app based homework but both know how to code (youngest on scratch and eldest in python and java). No Minecraft/ Roblox/ fortnight. No YouTube etc.