Teen dc long walk home and no longer has a phone

[HelpfulHelena]

Has your dc stopped taking their phone to school following the new rules introduced widely this term banning phones on school premises (not even at bottom of their bag) and how do you feel about it, particularly if they have a long walk, cycle, bus or train journey home?

My dc has a 2 mile walk each way, and is age 16 so often doesn’t come straight home. I’m struggling to adjust to the fact I can’t message her ( or track her if she doesn’t reply!) and she cannot let me know if she has trouble or decides to go to a friend’s house after school.

At least when I was at school I could phone from a phone box. Now she’s just out there, god knows where.

She was never obsessed with her phone, and only used it for utility purpose - so it’s especially tough. It’s okay right now but soon it will be dark as she’s getting home, and her walk is long and lonely. There’s no bus and I work so I can’t collect her.

Is anyone else finding the new rules make them more anxious about their teens in particular being alone in the big wide world?

The scans are just standard metal detectors so would pickup knives in bags as well. Which could be a good thing. They will then need to search the student to see what set it off. But schools have been permitted to search students for some time now so that's nothing new. Although it may now happen more often.

No she still takes it and leaves it in her bag or pocket. I’ve told her to not have it out at school and if it’s confiscated it’s on her

Best of luck OP. Fingers crossed that your school is more rational than mine on phones (the overwhelming majority are).

In Germany kids as young as 7 or 8 walk to school and back on their own, their journey sometimes also involves public transport. They don’t have phones. Your daughter is 16! Surely she is more than capable of getting herself to and from school 2 miles away without needing to contact you and if she’s stopping at a friend she can use their phone to let you know. Alternatively perhaps allow for a couple of hours leeway after school so she has time to visit with a friend before her allocated home time

I do agree that phones don’t necessarily make you any safer, and I was definitely around long before mobile phones too - I got my first one in ‘98, late 20s (and that was for a genuine safety reason) - but I think many women have had at least one moment when we’ve been glad for our phones, such as letting someone know where you are, being able to use it in a potentially dodgy situation etc. Personally I hate the “always available” misconceptions of having a mobile, but would still take it out with me wherever I am - so I can pay with it, send someone my location when meeting someone (had to do this just a couple of weeks ago) - but I think, obviously, kids now have been brought up in an”always connected” type of world, and some may be used to also paying with their phones etc, maybe being able to get a taxi/uber on their parents’ accounts etc. So whilst I do agree with the ban of phones in school, specifically smartphones (and I’m not going to start a rant about the crap some kids are able to access because their parents just don’t keep an eye on their online presence in general…!), in certain cases I do think a bricked or dumb phone can be useful to students that have a long walk/journey. My child is well into adult years now, but they got a phone in time to start secondary school (20 years ago now!), they weren’t smartphones, so my opinion is perhaps not so relevant to those with younger, school aged kids now, and I do realise this.

@Itsasecretnowwould you have thought it was strange 20 years ago if a school said your child wasn’t allowed to have a phone on them out of school? A phone that is only capable of making calls or texting? How many times did your children having those phones make life easier including knowing your children could contact you if they needed to?

(Just to add some context here; we had specific safety reasons for needing to have phones, which I can’t go into here, so there’s no debate as whether dc actually needed a phone at this age, just that they had to have one once they started walking anywhere on their own, but I do know this is obviously not the usual for majority)

Obviously hard to think back over that long ago, but if I recall, end of last year of primary when dc starting to walk/cycle to school on their own in prep for secondary there was a period when they needed to hand in to reception in the morning and pick up at end of the day - phones weren’t actually “allowed” in school, but they were aware of our situation and had been all through since nursery, which is how we came to arrange for it to be handed in. Far fewer children, esp of this age had their own phones so this was manageable for the staff at that time. Phones needed to be left in bags through secondary as far as I can recall. As I have added above, I had specific reasons for dc needing to have a phone and had either school (primary were aware, secondary this was harder due to number of staff involved) told me that they weren’t allowed to have it outside of school either I honestly would’ve pushed back, but as I say we weren’t in a normal position so it’s really hard for me to think about how I would’ve felt if we weren’t. If that makes sense?
As for the other question, yes, there were times and situations that them having a phone did genuinely help.
It’s hard to now put myself in the situation when end of a levels and school years were almost 1 1/2 decades ago, and end of school/gcse (and phone rules) was 15 years ago, but at the time the kids were generally really good with the school rules about keeping phones in bags. It was a pretty strict school, with a lot of rules, and although the phones were still less smart the kids did use them a fair amount, but likely not as much as they do now, but overall did “obey” the rules about no phones in classes/phones in bags. I don’t think they were as surgically attached (yet) to their phones as many people, not just kids, are today though.

Thanks @Itsasecretnow

They can stay turned off at bottom of the bag in our school. I’d not be happy for them to be without a phone on the way home- my daughter is only 11!

It’s not that I think my child will be unsafe walking home. But, often she’ll phone me and ask to go tp the library or a friends. If she had no phone she’d have to come straight home and have no after school social life. She’s only 11 so I would worry if she didn’t tell me where she was

You are concerned that she has a 2 mile walk at 4pm in the afternoon? Without a phone?

Those of us raised in the 1970s managed to walk 2 miles home from school without needing to be in contact with our parents. And she's 16. Frankly some of my classmates were raising their own kids at that age.

Our dc can still take their phones into school so long as they are turned off and are only turned on outside of the premesis. This has been the policy for eons. It works fine and is a sensible solution.

I think that those schools who have gone the total ban route are going to find it harder and harder to enforce than those who have gone the more sensible middle way of phones off and in bag or confiscated. That's the rule that most schools already had before.

Plenty of children round here even have their school bus/travel passes on an app on their phones. Plus, there are now hardly any public phone boxes.

Total bans will cause problems (transport etc.), alienate parents and there will be some backtracking. Those schools will have to find that out though.

Before anyone starts, I am in my sixties now and grew up in the world without mobile phones.

At our local secondary school, the students have to download an app which blocks the phone during school hours.
It works very well as there’s no faffing around handing phones back and forth to lock away and it means they have a phone if needed on the way to and from home.
Children who need their phone for medical reasons (diabetes) are obviously not required to download the app.

@Topseyt123it’s a big overstep and parents are not happy.

When people dismiss the importance of phones for children walking home I always think of Millie Dowler. The reason they knew something was wrong so fast was because she text her dad saying how far away she was and when she didn’t arrive home they knew something was wrong. Sadly it didn’t save her life but people acted fast and they were able to trace exactly where she disappeared due to her keeping in touch with her family.

Do phone boxes still exist?

AirTag?

Try not to worry. Phones are such a distraction.

There were often intimidating or unpleasant incidents on the way to and from school, it would have been pretty nice to not have to deal with it alone. Physical assaults, sexual harassment, sexual assault, theft.

When I was in my final years of secondary (early 90s) we had a PHSE lesson about self defense if being attacked and shown how a rape alarm works and told where we could buy them from.
Personally I would prefer my 18 year old daughter to have a phone in her pocket that she can use to ring for help than a rape alarm which most people would probably ignore (because lets face it - if you're out and you hear a random alarm going off you generally don't head towards it).

That is a great idea, but if they scan her bag for weapons they will confiscate it as the wand will expose her breaking the schools ruling and likely land her in hot water with the teachers and peers for not following the new ruling.

Put an Apple AirTag in her bag and you will be able to track her.

That would set the metal detector off, but they might allow that.

If you take that route OP, I would get the permission from the school first before paying for one, just in case they don't want that on their premises.