Secondary school mobile/smart device ban - how are you handling this with DC?

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My DS11 is starting secondary school in September. His new school has introduced a smart device ban to take effect from this year.

DS does not have a smart phone. He is very upset today as his football team trained together for the last time and they were all swapping numbers. Understandably, he felt left out. Equally, there will be children leaving his primary that are not attending the same secondary school and he wants to keep in touch.

I have been speaking to some of the school Mum’s whose children already have a smart phone and they say their children will still take a smart phone to secondary but ensure it’s switched off and buried in bag. The school have prohibited them and they are not allowed on the premises.

I’ve just had a conversation with DS saying that him being upset and getting worked up at not having a smart phone is the exact reason why his Dad and I don’t want him to have one … although, I completely see his point.

I intend to go back to work full-time in September and whilst I work from home in the main, I will spend one or two days each week in the office and I would like to have some way of us being in contact between school finishing and getting home from work. I have suggested a dumb phone might be the way but he says what’s the point, I can’t talk to my friends on WhatsApp?

His Dad is over the moon with the ban; his words “at last! Common sense f’king prevails!’ but he only has DS one night a week and every other weekend and it’s me doing the bulk of the parenting.

I am so torn. Of course I see the downsides of smart phones and as an older parent (I’m 55) I didn’t get my first phone until I was 28 so it’s not as though I grew up with them but this is a different generation and I’m struggling with it.

For those of you in a similar situation to me, how are you handling these conversations with your DC? Are you standing firm? Do you agree with flouting the rules and letting DC hide phones in their school bag? I really do not know how to deal with this.

Sorry for typos, I can’t seem to go back and edit!

My kids still have brick phones (12 and 15). I’m not saying it’s easy but there’s a lot of BS that is inescapable with smart phones and big WhatsApp groups. I don’t regret holding the line.

When he says everyone else has a smart phone and WhatsApp etc, you do what you'd do in any similar "everyone else's parents let them" situation. You say "I'm not everyone else's parent, I'm yours, and I say no " You are the one in charge, if you don't buy it he won't have one. Teach him the value of compromise by getting a non-smart phone so he can text his friends. He gets a smart phone and WhatsApp when you think he's old enough and mature enough.

DD 13 has a smart phone but all social media is blocked. She tried saying everyone else has WhatsApp but that didn't mean I let her get it - I don't think it's appropriate so she doesn't have social media.

@ladyglassequally, the schools in my city they will not be permitted to take the phones in but from speaking to some of the parents, they still will.

I will need to get him a brick phone in case he needs to contact me after school I think and the smart phone issue for home use is a separate issue.

I’m a little confused why you’re unsure what to do.
smart phone for at home with parental restrictions and you check it regularly
a cheep non smart phone that’s switched off in bag for travelling too and from school. This means if it’s lost it’s only £20 value gone.

There's nothing to stop him having a smartphone. Just leave it at home is all.
Just like anyone else would leave their phone at home if they are going somewhere it is not needed or allowed.

thank you @PunkTiger I do need to be more like you!

@cannedlaughterI hadn’t considered the option of two phones but think we start with the brick so we can contact each other on my office days (if needs be) and then we think about a smartphone at home.

We actually chose the school that allowed them to bring smartphones in (then handed in in Y7) over one that only allowed brick phones on the premises - but my DD needs to get the train to school and I want her to have the ability to check train times and things like that.

In your case, cheap burner phone on PAYG for school and then a smartphone for home use if you want him to have one.

My son will be handing in a decoy phone. He has serious parental controls on his iPhone anyway which basically enables me to turn it into a brick so no he won’t be handing his phone in. It’s restricted between 8.30 - 3.30 so he can only call/text me, his dad and grandparents.

He could always give his friends your number so he has to use your phone to use WhatsApp - that’ll really test how keen he is for it

Way to teach your kid the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to him because he’s special. Slow handclap….

An example of how not to parent!

WhatsApp will die off for this age group now there is a ban in schools. Most people will get a dumb phone.

I have a 12&14 year old. No smartphones. Normal messaging is fine and you can have groups on iMessage which they do have.

I wouldn’t flout the ban. Dumb phone Al the way. Easier to have a hard line set by school and stick to it. Blame school, blame government, blame dad - and don’t give in to his whining.

I say this as a mum of dd15 who did have a smart phone age 10 because she had a 1.4mile walk home from primary school and dh worried and wanted to “be able to track her” (though she is trustworthy and he works in another city, so precisely what he’d do if he suspected her phone had been tossed and she didn’t turn up at home, I’ve no clue!)

It was a mistake to give her the phone. Even tho dd didn’t get WhatsApp til age 13. Now they are year 11 and they ALL have it of course and she receives literally hundreds of messages on group chats a day. It’s not healthy. I cannot count the hours she must have spent on YouTube shorts.

The thing is if all parents get on board with these bans then kids will have to use traditional ways to keep in touch with friends from primary. A dumb phone and a voicemail message asking my to meet up works. Let that be enough.

@titchy @ladyglass well until schools stop setting homework on apps, bus/train tickets stop being only available via an app and BT re-instate all the public phone boxes they've removed I expect a lot of parents will allowing their children to be doing that.

I would assume that a school that bans smart phones wouldn’t be setting homework using them. I’d also assume that in that area bus/train tickets didn’t need apps. Which is pretty much the entire UK.

Added: And dumb phones make phone calls - that’s the point of them, so no need for phone boxes.

I don’t know a single child over the age of 11 without a smart phone so if anything is going to die it will be with younger children. My son is 9 and one of the last of his classmates to get a phone - he has a smart watch for calling us when playing out and such but he’s very much in the minority.

Stick to a brick as long as you can. I say this as a mum with slightly older kids who do have smartphones. I wish I had gone that route and saved myself the effort of monitoring WhatsApp. I thought I locked down their phones but they found a way to get around that - I’m half impressed but also very annoyed. I know of children with brick phones and busy social lives because their friends do make an effort to include them so it might make it tricker but it isn’t impossible.

God just let him have a smart phone

100% this. My DC have smart phones but not WhatsApp and they are over 13.

Yes they miss out on group chats and some of their friends won’t respond to texts but jesus I won’t budge on this.

A responsible parent would be checking the content of their chats regularly (?every night?). I don’t have the time or energy for this. I also don’t want them to be implicated by their membership to a group.

Recently a male student circulated an image of a female student on WhatsApp. Every child on the group was reprimanded for not reporting the image.

I just can’t be supervising all this and quite frankly I think parents that allow their children to join group chats are mad (even more so under the age of 13).

Well it's supposedly ALL schools will be banning them.
I can't speak for all the bus companies of the UK but it has become very common for the most economical bus pass (or specific school bus passes) to be only available on an app now.
Homework on apps is also commonplace now - even for primary age children.
Will schools change their homework methods.....well parents have been asking for ages because not everyone can actually access the internet at home and children are frequently missing out.
Valid point about dumb phones for actually making calls though although not everyone will be able to afford two phones.

I’ve said this many times on here but, as a teacher, delay WhatsApp for as long as you can! The things that children are exposed to on WhatsApp are appalling and they can never unsee them. There will always be children who do not have parents monitoring their chats and even if you are monitoring once they receive violent porn or extremely violent videos they cannot unsee them

WhatsApp is a hotspot for bullying, abuse and intimate image sharing. It's not appropriate for a child.

The three ‘serious safeguarding’ incidents in DS1’s Y6 class were all over WhatsApp. It was noticeable that the DC who were still minus a smartphone at that point all had teacher parents. DS1 (now 13) has recently handed his smartphone back to us on the basis that it stresses him out. His school are smartphone free until Y10. He doesn’t seem to miss out.

Do you not have a home phone? We had a home phone until dc had smart phones at 14. I’m grateful they were still not ubiquitous when mine were first at secondary