What age did your child have a phone?

[nonamemummy]

Wondering what age other parents are giving their children a phone?
My children keep asking for phones and says their friends already have one but I didn’t intend on getting them one until they were walking to and from school themselves.

Year 6 of primary school so about 10/11

11th birthday for my 3 older children, dc4 will be the same - ready for high school.

Summer term of year 6. Realistically, it’s necessary for secondary school. Mine has a walk across fields to the bus stop and then a 20 minute bus journey to school, so it’s helpful to be able to know when she is coming and going for safety reasons. And then do have stuff for school they need to do on it (which actually is annoying! because school shouldn’t be encouraging them to be on their phones any more than they already are!).

The couple months at the end of primary is good for you both to work out how to manage screen time and use.

There are definitely a few in the class who got a phone much earlier (Y5). In my experience, these are not the parents anyone wants to be emulating in terms of parenting. 😂 They are the fairly negligent parents, their dc are posting all sorts of inappropriate stuff on TikTok, they’re up all night messaging everyone, very little supervision. The sensible parents, generally, wait until the second half of year 6 and even then, it’s heavily monitored.

A few days before the end of Y6, so she could record primary friends' numbers on her phone and keep in contact with them as they were going to several different secondary schools.

His birthday in year 6 - March 2020.
2 days before lockdown.

Easter of year 6.

10th birthday.

Last term ofY6 so they could set up WhatsApp groups with their primary friends (they went to quite a few different schools)

Would you get a smart phone or one that just does text and calls? I'd be happier in Y5 with a dumb phone. Would that be frowned upon by DC though?

Same here as they were going to be getting the tube for school on their own. We definitely didn’t give them access to WhatsApp until they reached the legal age for it.

11th birthday

It was earlier then planned because we seperated. DD got her's midway through year 5 so she could contact us both without needing to go through the other parent. The plan had been last term of primary school.

year six.

My daughter is 8 at the moment and she has friends with phones including social media. We're planning a relatively dumb phone for her 11th birthday. There are some good options now that avoid social media.

I’m amazed at the number of parents letting their children have access to WhatsApp and TikTok when they are obviously too young.
Although DT’s had a phone it had to be handed in at school each morning and then collected after school. Anyone caught with a phone had it confiscated and returned at the end of the week.

11th birthday for my 2 DCs - both July birthdays. That was 10 years ago though. I do remember them wanting phones before that though.

DS - 11th birthday - half way through year 6
DD - 10th birthday - start of Year 6
Basically, when they started walking to school by themselves.