If mobile phones are such a big cause of 'psychological cruelty', why don't they ban them from schools?

[Enid]

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why on earth do kids need them anyway?

It is handy for them to have them.

My teenagers go to a school about 20 mins walk away. It's really good to be able to ring them and say I'm coming in the car if it's pouring with rain, or for them to call me and ask if they can go to a friend's house after school.

When you've got older kids and they start going around on their own it's great to be able to phone them and find out where they are.

Because parents moan like anything... saying but my child needs it because x,y,z.

My school tried it and the parents were in uproar.

how depressing

agree with anorak - when they're out on their own its nice to be able to be in contact. I park in different places and one day a week dd is out of school early so will usually meet me at the car when Im picking ds up. It could be one of 3-4 car parks

I would never say my child needs it but I do feel they are safer with one than without one.

Sure bullies use them, but I've had bullies ring on my landline to take the mick out of my dd. No one would suggest we get rid of that because of bullies.

U & I both managed throughout our teenage years without one, jeez I managed witout one throughout my 20*s.

OK it.s rining, I'll go fetch, if they don't choose to walk the normal route, hey they just lost a lift.

GOD!!!
please lets stop wrapping them in little tiny bubbless

We all use lots of things we didn't have when we were their age. I don't think anyone with teenagers is going to agree. It's not because we wrap them in tiny bubbles. It's because we can make them a little safer with a phone than without. If you tell them you won't buy them one they save their own money up and buy one anyway.

I think kids have always been cruel. it's just that now they have mobiles the victims have proof.

I never let my 12 year old take a mobile to school. However, in Summer there was a fire at the garden centre next to his school which spread to the school grounds. School evacuated and a 1.5 mile radius cordened off to traffic by police as there was a petrol station opposite garden centre.
No contact with school, no real info on what was happening. There were radio reports that said fire on X road, so we did not know whether the fire was at school. Due to road closures all children had to walk out of the cordened area and then try to find their way home on routes which were not familiar. I saw boys from his school being sick at roadside. I could not conatct son and as I was caught in the traffic chaos collecting my younger children from primary I did not know ds1 was safe until I got home at 6.00pm. My heart was in my mouth until I saw him safe and well.

Yes, I now let him have a mobile at school, cheap bottom of range, payg but only for emergencies.

i have no idea - mobies and children are evil. children are evil and mobies are evil. together they are evil.

theres no good reason why a pre teen should need one, and dont give me that safety rollocks before they are teens you should know where they are and be with them anyway - the amount of times my kids friends ring hom on their mobies to ask to be picked up - i dunno!

no one needs a moby texting is crap.

The school I work in does ban them, sixth form can have them.

parents send them in anyway and ignore the rules. We have a pay phone in school and can also arrage to phone home for kids in the office if they don't have the money.

The parents ignore all of this.

cept if works insists on it of course - i mean for personal use

Well my dds are teenagers. I would never argue that they need a mobile. Their school bans their use during school hours and rightly so. They also have a payphone (one between 1000+ pupils)

We can all manage without mobiles, we could manage without washing machines, cars, television sets. But most of us use all these things because they make life easier.

mobiles make more things difficult than easy though. people get really shirty with me when I turn mine off (most of the time)

i hate to disagree - no thats a lie and you know it i love to disagree.

a washing machine is essential. as is my car for work - i simply could not cover from reading to portsmouth to dover on the bus.

tv - i agree.

My school bans them.
Not only are they an irritation but they are valuable items which are nickable.

And the are used for a different form of bullying.

I would think that it would be even more stressful to get bullying text messages at home. When this happens you must feel as if there was no where that you were safe from the bully. Your 'personal space' would be violated....and that would add to the stress I think.

And then there is happy slapping, which would never have spread so much without the mobile phones being used to capture it in photographic form.

BTW I have read of an even worse escalation, blading. It is when a child delibertly thrusts the blade of a pencil sharpener towards another face, not close enough to cut, but close enough to scare. A blinding waiting to happen , I think

god dont let spidermama read this thread

agree with anorak
kids do explore, turn up late etc etc
at least with a mobile I can get answers to there whereabouts

as for school, ds doesnt take his in, but dd does

Enid

Never said scool wuz perfect!

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do they sit in class mindlessly texting, I bet they do

PITA to try to hand them all back at the end of the day tho!

Bad enough trying to get the little cherubs to put the books on the side bench and put the chairs on the benches without them in a srum to get their phone back!

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