11 year old wanting a phone.

[TickingKey46]

My daughter is nearly 11, she is off to secondary school soon so will need a phone. I'm thinking about getting her a Nokia one, so she's able to call and text but has none of the other features. I really don't want her getting involved in any of social media rubbish teenagers are obsessed with. But I also don't want other laughing at her. What are people's thoughts on this please?

I think it's appalling that schools expect children to use apps/ phones for their school work while also saying that children should spend less time on screens. There's really no need for it

My son goes to secondary this year and he has a reconditioned iPhone 12 that he got for his birthday. He takes it to scouts/clubs and find my iPhone is enabled. It stays downstairs at bedtime and we know the pin.

I don't really see the issue. He knows we might look at it anytime but we haven't felt the need to go overboard with rules. He uses it to message 2 friends to see if they want to play online. They barely manage sentences!

Kids these days aren't like we was .
If you don't follow the trend just another excuse to get picked on 😥

Don't get her a brick, she will get picked on. Plus there's less ways to track and have control over her access. If you go for a smart phone/ iPhone then you can have control over apps she uses and can put an app on her phone to track her. Some secondary schools use apps for homework and info for kids, my daughter's school has school teams. I would let her have WhatsApp also, it's the bare minimum communication app that you'll find most of her friends use so she might get left out a bit. You can minimise social media and smartphones but they are a big part of life now unfortunately but they can get useful if used the right way

Are you not aware that many high schools track homework and all communication through smartphones?

My children do their homework quiz’s on theirs. They communicate through Snapchat. They take pictures of their homework. They also have their banking apps on their phones. I would definitely go for a smartphone.

The thing is that when they're younger they will often go along with rules happily but you can't stop them becoming teenagers. You said you don't want her getting involved in any of the social media rubbish teenagers are obsessed with but you might not be able to stop her or control her forever.
She might want to be in photos with her friends or to make tiktoks with them or to have a Vsco page etc.

I'm in Ireland and kids start secondary school later here, 12-13, and there are huge changes in behaviour around that time, not sure if it's due to the age, the new school or what, Irish secondary schools would be vastly different to primary schools, not sure about the jump in the UK schools but kids change and things you might have easily managed to control when they were younger or that they happily went along with you might find they don't want to go along with anymore.

Of course that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to restrict things and teach her to be cautious etc, I'm just saying that she could change a lot soon!

Oh yes I knew a few of them, going on about how their kids wouldn't have a smart phone until they were 18 but of course they had an ipad/tablet since they were a toddler because it's 'educational' even though all they do is watch youtube like their less educated counterparts!

All my kids have/will get smartphones from age 11/secondary school. I know many of their friends have had smart phones in primary school, but I always refused mine that. At secondary school all the kids seem to have smartphones, and yes I expect a child with a basic nokia is going to get the piss ripped out of them unfortunately.

My 10 y/o has had a basic nokia for a couple of years, and he can't compose text messages on it. And neither can I any more. Years ago we'd bash out texts quickly and easily on those number keypad, but not any more - going back to it feels like trying to program a 1980's video recorder whilst blindfolded. So it doesn't surprise me that kids can't pick it up compared to modern touch screen devices.

Parental controls work really well on android (presume apple has similar?). You decide what apps they can use, what time of day they can use the phone, and the location sharing means you can see where they are (when it works). Biggest issue I've had is that for some reason google has decided that when a child gets to 13 they are no longer a child so google gives the child themselves the choice to opt out of the parental controls. I've no idea why they do that, but it's a total pain in the arse trying to talk a 13 year into reinstalling the parental controls when google is telling them they're old enough not to have them!

Come on... That's always been the case! Kids have always picked on others.

My DD is 12 and in Year 8. Communicating via their phones js a big part of what they do, whether we like it or. not... and the vast majority have smartphones and access to a WhatsApp etc. If you restrict that, you'll restrict their friendships and cut them out of social interactions. Yes, there are risks, and there's the potential for online bullying, but you don't deal with that by wrapping them in cotton wool and preventing them from accessing the digital world.
It's like in my day when parents didn't let their kids play out because of the risks - those kids' could never develop the friendships others had because their parents were mollycoddling them.

Also, don't underestimate how much your DD will change over the next couple of years or so as she starts high school...

All the homework is online at high school for my eldest and the school ask them to take pictures of ad hoc assignments and look stuff up online in class. As in scan this qr code and follow link type stuff.

Wrongly, she will likely get laughed at and feel very self conscious. Plus not being able to be part of any WhatsApp group conversation might mean her just missing out in whatever her friends are doing/talking about. Personally I feel it’s better to talk often about social media rather than try to ban it. It’s impossible to ban it because if your child wants a social media account enough, they will get one via another device and you will not know about it.

We very reluctantly got one for DD at end of year 6, meant we have a few months of knowing all the kids she was connecting to so we could talk through issues. Good for knowing if one of them was being a dick on WhatsApp it was because it was we knew they were silly. If things got out of hand we could contact the parents etc.

We put an app on it that meant we had total control over apps she downloaded so she had the ones for school, a few games, Spotify and WhatsApp. No tiktok or other bollocks.
We looked at her phone every day for the first few weeks and then whenever we remembered. We talked a lot about situations could arise. Cat fishing, bullying sharing of pictures and what to do if things go wrong. We put limiters on the phone and it switches off after an hour of use (though can ask for an extension if needed) apart from calls and Spotify and shuts off at 9pm until 7am .

It's worked well. She has nice small groups on WhatsApp but ignores all the big groups where it was boring and mean. She loves music so has that for her journeys.

I have seen some of her friends become attached to theirs and have no limits at all.

I wouldn't get a Nokia, she will be laughed at.

Get a basic smartphone and put parental controls on it.

Start with good habits. Phone stays in the kitchen charging after 9pm etc.

iPhone has a feature where to download anything you can request permission from parent.

Life 360 is a brilliant tracking app. Much more reliable than find my iPhone and works on all smart phones.

You simply can't shelter them from modern life and I think by restricting it too much you risk creating an obsession.

Mine both have Nokia smarth phones. DS had a brick phone at primary when I needed him to have a phone as he was coming home on his own in year 5&6. He got upgraded to his sisters old smartphone just before starting high school.

We have Google parental controls on it and with tesco you can put them on as under 18 on the contract. I borrowed DD's phone the other day and it wouldn't even let me on mumsnet. DS only have WhatsApp, Dd 16 has more but she's older and has shown we can trust her. They can't install anything without permission (Google doesn't let them). They don't need it loads for school as you can access the homework from a computer rather then a smart phone but it does make it easier for them to keep track. I don't think schools should be using them as tools anyway as you can't expect all students to have one.

I guess it might vary with the intended secondary school, but if it's a normal comprehensive I'd put money on the majority of the other kids having iPhones of some vintage.

If you want to mark your kid out as odd and hamper their social life then by all means get them a brick. Sad but true.

Much better to start on the smartphone now while they're still young enough for you to monitor its use.

Basic android smartphone with parental controls is the answer. Also see limits for total daily screen time and time for specific apps. My kids can't download any apps without my permission and I check their phones very regularly. We were clear we bought the phone, we pay the contract, so it's our phone that we're letting you use. Break our trust and we won't let you use it.
But no phone at all would be social suicide and make homework very difficult.

They don't though, high schools use software to set homework. Yes most have apps, like Arber or GoforSchools. But shock horror you can actually login to them from a computer through the webbrowser and track homework that way. There is no actual requirement to have a smarth phone to do this.
Although DS has a smart phone he does all his online work on the home computer as it's easier to have a bigger screen. Some kids may only have a smartphone so have to do it that way but it's certainly not the only way you can do it.

I refused to have another app on my phone so login via the website.

My dc's school emailed things to them during the day and there were certain apps. Some had tablets (fsm kids were given them) mine had cheap smartphones (think 3 years old)

I think the horse has bolted. She will miss out on so much socially if she doesn't have have whatever the current way of keeping in touch is. Lots of kids are sensible with thier phones- we only hear about the extreme cases...

Yes, there are risks, and there's the potential for online bullying, but you don't deal with that by wrapping them in cotton wool and preventing them from accessing the digital world.
It's like in my day when parents didn't let their kids play out because of the risks - those kids' could never develop the friendships others had because their parents were mollycoddling them.

But I really don't think that "the digital world" is the same world as the one you play out in!

@Acornsplop

But I really don't think that "the digital world" is the same world as the one you play out in!

Of course it's not the same, but there's the potential for significant danger in both! In some ways the physical world is more dangerous, and in some what's the online world is. I really don't think the online world is inherently more dangerous than the physical world, especially if properly safeguards are put in place.