How strict are you with your Year 7?

[Goldilocks3Bears]

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a Y7 who is now walking to/from school, with a phone, and making loads of new friends and joining in school clubs. Don’t get me started on the cost of lunches and asking for money daily for snacks.

How strict are you in terms of them roaming, what they spend, phone use etc?

DD has her lunches paid for and £5 a week for other expenses (snacks, drinks etc) which is on a GoHenry card so I can see what she's spending. I pay her mobile phone bill which is £7.50 a month (250 minutes, 2GB data, unlimited texts). She has occasionally met a friend for lunch somewhere like Yo Sushi or Starbucks at the weekend - I will give her a little extra for this but it's not every week, more like once a month or so.

She is allowed out on her own at the weekend (gets back quite late in the week so not really practical) as long as she's home by 6 - she sometimes goes to the park to meet old friends from primary but that is about it. I think when the evenings get darker I would want her home by the time darkness falls, so about 5pm.

My yr 7 walks to and from but we live 10 mins tops away from school. I let her go into town (we live very central) with or without friends but I keep an eye on 'find friends' to check she's where she's supposed to be. She doesn't go out in the evenings or anywhere unless it's prearranged or run past me & then usually we'll drop off & pick up.
Phonewise she has similar to previous poster (giffgaff) and she doesn't have phone or iPad after half 9 at night. We keep downstairs & charge overnight. Sometimes if she's chatting to her friends on FaceTime or watching Netflix at the weekend we will extend that curfew. Usually off by 10.30 in that case.
Lunches we pay for and monitor to make sure she's not buying too many cheesy bagels at break time. We give money for drinks/lunch/entry on outings with friends but she's expected to buy most stuff she wants (slime making crap for example or pound shop junk ) from money she's gifted at birthdays and Christmas. She can earn extra by doing jobs but rarely does.

Yes, phone downstairs here too. DD needs loads of sleep so is normally fast asleep by 8.30 - she has found starting secondary really tiring, mainly mentally I think.

I can also track her location so I know she's wherever she should be.

DD can also earn extra money with chores but rarely bothers!

I top up up the lunch card monthly with enough for about 2 or 3 lunches a week depending what they buy, other than this I provide plenty at home so they can take a packed lunch. I have made it clear that I am not funding buying lunch on a daily basis as this is an expensive luxury especially when I take packed lunch with me to work.

Dc is only allowed to buy lunch once a week until half term when we will review the spend and ‘junk’ level of the choices. She makes her own packed lunch night before.
Has my old phone on £8/pm contract which we pay for.
Walk to and from school and to evening after school activities. Texts when gets where going. Calls if going to be later than expected.
No electrics after 8pm and In bed reading by 8:30.
This weekend she will be meeting a friend In town and we have given her boundaries on this.
She doesn’t get an allowance but has plenty of birthday money saved up.

She has to be very careful who has her number- only giving it to people she trust with the request they not pass it on without asking her first. She also is to make people aware we can and do have access to her phone anytime we want and will see anything sent to her.

Lunch has a daily cap of £5 and I can see what she gets. I don't have the time for lunch boxes and she doesn't have the time to get it from her locker and go back to eat it, they only have 50 minutes lunch break, which includes going from and to classes and re-organising backs if they have stuff in there lockers.

We are happy to fund the lunch but she takes a snack with her, so normally she spends around £3-ish.

Phone, currently she is on a monthly rolling contract, expensive but we can change it at any time and it will depend how much she uses it, still early stages.

She gets pocket money and is expected to pay for the odd drink when she meets with a friend, luckily there is absolutely nothing between school and home so it is just on the weekends.

During the week she hardly goes out as she has 2 after school activities and homework and currently is also quite shattered when she is home. We go by "let's see how it develops" and adjust from there. She normally is in bed around 8.30pm and alarm goes at 6.30am

Only rule, phone lives downstairs.

Thank you all. Very similar to what I am doing. I have a bedtime target for 8pm sleep as there’s a lot of growing going on and with clubs and the new homework, it’s needed.

I just started sending snacks for DD this week. At £2.50 for four, a box of Nakd bars is way cheaper than what is on offer at the school canteen. Got her some yoghurt rice cakes too. We have had lots of chats about healthy eating! DD tells me some children in her class are having doughnuts with icing at break every day. I've just told her she has to make her own choices and that isn't healthy. She normally chooses the Nakd bar or similar over a cake but has decided to get herself a treat on Fridays, which seems completely fine to me. She's also been good about choosing fruit and veg with her lunches so am happy to trust her.

Sorry, just read the thread title, and my thoughts were not at all, for the first time in years I have top set y7 and they are delightful. A raised eyebrow is quite sufficient.

Tell me parents of year 7, how many of your kids have accounts on social media (snapchat; Instagram; twitter; whatsapp)?

DS has to walk through town to get to school. A couple of times he's called me to ask if he can pop into a games / computer shop to browse for 15 mins with his best mate. I'm fine with that.
He has unlimited texts and calls so it's not a concern.
He's currently taking a packed lunch. But when he's more confident he'll change to hit food. He's practised using the cafe and bought some biscuits and crisps. I put a tenner on at the start of term and it's only gone down to five pounds.
No smart phone or social media.

DD has none of those, apart from WhatsApp, which is basically just texting. I allowed her to get it so she could join a group chat with her old class from primary. She also has a group chat with her new Y7 class which is v helpful for checking up with the others about homework etc. I do monitor it, so she's well aware that I will revoke this privilege if anything remotely inappropriate goes on.

Yes 8pm bedtime here too unless she’s doing an activity like cricket or Guides that keeps her out of the house longer.

We are finding a lot of homework (last night three lots all in for today) and so bedtime is creeping up to 9pm some nights. DS is shattered quite honestly. He has whatsapp and there are lot of group chats going on but we have a no devices upstairs rule now and all devices handed back to be charged downstairs by 8.30pm

Interesting. Not yet yr 7 but aware this is the year everything changes.

Currently not too keen on a smartphone (amd whatsapp is moving from 13 to 16 age limit).

More worried about phone issues than I am walking to school at the moment!

DS has an unlimited phone contract which costs us £12 a month. Plus a tablet for school but that doesn't have a sim card.

Ive also opened bank accounts with debit cards for both DC (13 and 11) since we've had a couple of emergency situations where school bus has broken down etc. Plus they have a local public transport card and an emergency fiver which they have to keep with them at all times.

What I find most difficult is that in primary most parents have the same rules but suddenly in secondary some kids are allowed a lot more freedom than others. Parenting styles seem to vary so much as they get older.

This can cause conflict if your DC have friends that want to hang out in town everyday after school or if their friends have social media and your DC do not. It is hard to find a balance especially when you are hearing that the are the only one not doing something and feeling left out. I am constantly questioning myself.

Phone and social: old smartphone so I can track location and vice versa. Spend about a tenner a month.
All apps are provided via my family sharing and I’ve set age and time restrictions. No social media allowed except WhatsApp and I regularly check messages and when people start getting nasty in groups we talk about it. He naturally has a low bullshit threshold so as soon as any of his mates start chain mailing stuff he takes himself out of the chat.

@rosieposy4 I assume you are a teacher? When you say “top set” - are these a mixture of abilities that happen to be a great bunch or all the super clever kids?

@Cauliflowersqueeze My DS has WhatsApp but nothing else. He is nagging for Instagram but I've said not yet.

No roaming here as they are not allowed to take their phone to school
They might pop into a shop on the way home but that's it

No social media apart from WhatsApp
Bedtime is 9pm

Are you guys all okay with whatsapp even befofe theyre 13 (soon to be 16). Do you lie about their age?

It seems to be theyre using imessage here but ive never had an iphone so dont know about it!

Im interested in apps that allow you to know whats on their phone though and stop them downloading things?

Our Yr 7 has no phone - but we're getting one at Xmas maybe - and school lunches paid for. No social media as it's no good for you (I work in social media so know what I'm on about!).

He has a £20 note in his blazer but hasn't touched it all term.

He reads in bed from half eight then lights out about 9.15. He's up at 7am.

He is in the top set and really sensible and good - we haven't had to tell him off for anything apart from the usual come on do your homework.

Sorry for sounding smug. Our other DC are naughtier but this one is bloody lovely and requires minimum parenting.

Are you guys all okay with whatsapp even befofe theyre 13 (soon to be 16).

whatsapp is just text messaging with free photo sending. I don't have an issue with it.