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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

opinions wanted......11 yr olds, mobile phones and downloading without permission??

37 replies

TheLadyEvenstar · 18/08/2009 15:22

without permission...what would you do?

delete game?

let them keep it?

tell them not to do it again but let them keep the game?

OP posts:
Tortington · 18/08/2009 15:24

11 yo shouldnt have mobiles (imo)

take it away

Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/08/2009 15:25

its for when they start secondary to let parents know they got there or are staying at after school club etc.

OP posts:
Stayingsunnygirl · 18/08/2009 15:29

For a first offence I would issue a stern warning, making it clear that any further downloads without permission will be deleted.

My 12 year old has had a mobile for a couple of years now, and it does have its uses, though he uses it more for music than to make calls. It's also allowed him to stay in touch more easily with his friends from England, following the move north.

elmofan · 18/08/2009 15:33

we got ds (10) a mobile last Christmas , every time we top up his phone though the credit is gone within a day , he downloads games , songs etc
we have let him keep the games etc but now i only top up his phone once a month instead of every two weeks , & hopefully he will learn to stop wasting his credit .
in answer to your question ,
yes let him keep the downloads as long as they are age appropriate .

Stayingsunnygirl · 18/08/2009 15:37

You are spot on, elmofan - we do the same with ds2 and ds3. They've both signed themselves up to stupid daily horoscope/joke/ringtone sites, and we felt that the sudden loss of all their credit was a pretty good punishment!

clumsymum · 18/08/2009 15:42

"its for when they start secondary to let parents know they got there or are staying at after school club etc. "

WTF !! Why does a child need to let his parents know he got to school, surely one assumes that is a given ...
And I would insist that after school clubs were a pre-arranged thing.
We did these things before mobile phones were invented, and I don't see that things are so different now.

No mobile phones for my DS until he can fund them himself.

pingping · 18/08/2009 15:44

Get them to connect there mobiles to the PC or Laptop they can add music from your computer or CD from there saves alot of money than downloading ringtones!!!

Let them keep it its only a game!!!!

Maybe it will be adviced to look up a way for you to lock the internet on the phone as there is a lot of porn on phones internet etc take it to the car phone warehouse they will tell you how to do it

Tortington · 18/08/2009 15:46

its still not needed. IMO

what happens is there is phone one upmanship
phones get confiscated by teachers and are a distraction.

this will not be an isolated incident

children managed to get to school before they were invented.

i think its best to just opt out of the mobile peer group thing until he can afford to pay for it himself.

after school clubs should be planned in advance - so you know

detentions cannot be doled out on the day of punishment as you have to know as a parent

clumsymum · 18/08/2009 15:51

Custardo, you and I of one mind.

I was at DS's school at the end of last term, just happened to be in the year 6 class at the end of the day.

I was ASTOUNDED by the number of kids who queued up to collect their mobiles from the TA (policy is they hand them in during the day).

Tortington · 18/08/2009 15:53

your kid will never have the best or the latest -or enough credit -or the latest game or add on, or the right camera or video

it will just end in tears.

either fights

or becuase mum says in 3 months "no you can't have the latest...."

danthe4th · 18/08/2009 15:57

Keep the phone simple and basic then know problems.Both my girls have phones as we live in a rural area but they have to be switched off in class. My 12 year old has a phone which she can listen to music on and thats enough, they tend to bluetooth music and various other stuff, I pay for her credit but she has to clean her room, change bed linen etc, she uses about £10 every 10 weeks. My eldest dd Used £10 in 5 days and now does a paper round to pay for her credit and bought herself a better phone.She is now very sensible as she has to pay for her credit.
Your daughter is just having fun with a new 'toy' they all do, let her enjoy the fun and then learn from her mistakes, they'll be plenty more to come, believe me.Let her keep the game is it really worth making a lot of fuss over, save the argument for something more important.

danthe4th · 18/08/2009 16:07

Clumsymum- one of the reasons my children have phones is the school buses are often late and after school clubs are not always arranged in advance, were talking about high school children who hopefully are learning to be independant. I find them a godsend, my eldest daughter cycled 10 miles to her grandma and its peace of mind to me that she could have rung. When our whole area was flooded we could not get in touch with each other without phones it saved alot of tears . I agree not all children need them and they do not need fancy phones, but for me and my children it means I can contact them if I need to and them me if they want to stay at school or stay later at a friends etc.The school also finds them useful as they do not have to ring and tell parents the bus is late etc. I agree that primary school children should not have them, mine didn't get them until year 7 when they started high school.

Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/08/2009 16:21

Sorry should say it not my ds although he has one BASIC for when he starts secondary in September. its my friends daughter.

OP posts:
Stayingsunnygirl · 18/08/2009 16:22

I did get told a story by the Headteacher at ds1's old school, about a mum who decided to ring her Year 11 son to find out how one of his GCSE exams had gone, but got the time wrong and rang him in the exam. For some reason the phones hadn't been collected in, and the lad answered his phone!

Just having your phone in an exam is an infraction of the rules that must be reported to the exam board and can result in you being disqualified from that paper - so answering the phone was even worse!

When I invigilated GCSE and 'A' level exams, it amazed me the number and quality of phones that I collected from the candidates.

katiestar · 18/08/2009 18:20

Custardo - Many children have long rural journeys on public transport.What do you suggest they do if their (only) connexion doesn't turn up / bus breaks down etc etc

TaxiLady · 18/08/2009 18:32

i would delete the game and monitor credit daily

i am a mean mamma!

dd has been sans phone since june, when i confiscated it, and it subsequently went missing from the mantle. and

I would like her to have one as we live in the back of beyond but she will have to save her birthday money...not till october

luckily she has an older brother at the same school so school bus probs are not an issue!

CheeryCherry · 18/08/2009 18:32

You can scoff as much as you like about children too young to have mobiles, but when my DS (Y7)rang me at work from his mobile in July to tell me that his coach had crashed on the motorway on their school trip, I was so glad to be able to speak to him and reassure him. The pupils had been encouraged to ring parents, and I would not have had it any other way. Some children had been severely injured.
The same week, a friend's son (Y8)had his face punched in an unprovoked attack as he stood at a bus stop. She was also so glad he was able to ring her immediately.
So please stop being so riteous - one day you may be so glad your child had a phone on them.

clumsymum · 18/08/2009 18:38

Katiestar/danthe4th

I can see the point of your questions, but I lived in a rural area when I was at school (30 years ago). We managed you know.

I'd be complaining to a school that organised after-school activities with no notice at all (I suspect children may perhaps just forget to tell you), and if I went to a friend's house after school, I'd use the friends phone to let my mum know where I was (most homes do still have landlines).

If buses didn't turn up, or whatever, I had to be resourceful enough to work out how to deal with it. Find another way, go to a mates house and phone from there, etc.

Obviously, every parent is at liberty to make the decision for their kids. But I do wonder if we are relying soooo much on the technology these days, and maybe our kids aren't needing to think thru stuff on their own (like the kid who answered his mobile, even tho it was in the middle of an exam).

CheeryCherry · 18/08/2009 18:40

BTW I would let them keep the game, make them pay for it, and let it serve as a lesson learned...my DD joined a ringtone site that appeared to offer free tones on the back of her mag...it ended in tears with a huge loss of credit but once we sorted it it was a big learning curve!

nickschick · 18/08/2009 18:41

Can I say that all my dc have phones,initially they all waste their credit but then they realise that if its a monthly top up they get then its got to last.

My dc have phones primarily to know that they can call me at any time and here are a few examples of why theyve been handy....

mum can you pick us up the bus has been bricked the driver has chucked us all off and now we are in xxxxx estate (very rough place)

Mum they are making me stay at a detention i havent even got- the teacher says its mine and wont listen to me......turns out after i phoned school they had the wrong Sam!!!

Mum Sam is very pale and is shattered (Sam has M.E and can often go down v quickly)

8 year old ds will fone me and say mum im at xxxx house (next street) his mum says we can play inside.

Telephones if used correctly are great for encouraging independance and indeed sense if used correctly.

All mine started with basic phones and have been allowed better ones as we deem them responsible enough.

Morloth · 18/08/2009 18:42

Delete the game and only allow him to have the mobile when he is away from you.

With just enough credit to make an emergency call - though can you get packages here where you can only dial a couple of set numbers along with 999?

katiestar · 18/08/2009 18:47

They would eventually get home I would imagine but it just adds another layer of stress for 11 year olds who have more than enough to cope with.
Would you want your child say waiting for an hour and a half on a bus whilst they send out maintenance staff or a rescue bus.
Also when DCs start going on residential trips the school can only estimate the time they are going to return from ,say France (we live in the north of England) and tell the children to ring parents when they are an hour away from school.

sayithowitis · 18/08/2009 23:41

When DC2 spent a fortune in a few hours by downloading stuff, we just contacted the phone company who did something at their end that means he can no longer access the internet with his mobile. Now that he is paying his own bills, if he wants to access the internet he will need to get a new sim card. This was a PAYG phone by the way.

chichichien · 18/08/2009 23:46

Is the phone pay as you go and do you pay?

If so, don't get him more credit.

If not, sort that out.

danthe4th · 18/08/2009 23:53

Clusymum- we have the technology to make our lives that little bit easier why not use it, and why would I want to complain about a school that has such fantastic teachers that if they are having a fun gymnastics session they are invited to stay for an extra hour after school.Or the science teacher has just had a brill idea and wants to do an extra lesson. The school is fantastic at teaching their pupils to be organised for themselves and to stop relying on parents to do everything for them.Yes my daughter could ring me from a friends house but by then the bus has left so I would have no choice but to pick her up later I much prefer her to ask my permission before the bus leaves. We all have different lives but for our family when they get to year 6 and move on to high school a mobile is a godsend.