Any year 7 without a phone?

[lighttherapy]

DS started at secondary school in September and has settled in happily. His school is a fifteen minute walk away and he has made new friends both at school and on the walk. He's a social butterfly!

He doesn't have a phone as we see no need for it. The walk is a straightforward route in a residential area, well lit, about 10 minutes straight on one main road (just houses on both sides, no shops, no roundabout) and then turning into our quiet side road.

He recently met up with old friends from primary school at a birthday party (communicated via mums whatsapp) and came back saying all of them have phones and they want to speak with him. He also said that before school broke last week his new friends at school and on the school walk have spoken about coming to each other's place during half term for playdates. Now he has no way of communicating with them to arrange any of this. I have no numbers either as they're all new friends.

What should I do? I recently read on the newspapers about some schools / parents commiting to avoid giving them phones until Y9 which I quite agree. I intend to leave him phoneless and use all his social skills in person until then. He's not really begging for it but part of me feels guilty for not letting him be with his friends outside school.

Anyone else with a phoneless Y7-Y9?

It's more of an issue during school holidays than term time as he sees his friends during the day aldready.

We're on second day of half term and with me having time to overthink while DS seems to have forgotten what he wanted

But half term is only a week and Xmas break will be longer and there will be birthday parties of new friends.. Not so easy isn't it..

so we'll see

So are you happy that you are relying on other people to let you know if your son has an accident on his way to and from school? You seem only to be focusing on the social life aspect not his safety and ability to contact you in an emergency.

I don't totally get the argument that they need to have one once walking to and from school alone. My 11 year old (year 6) doesn't have a phone yet and has been walking home from school alone since the start of year 5. He knows he is to come straight home and if he wanted to go to the park or a friend's house he would need to come home first (he never wants to anyway). There is an absolute ban on kids taking phones to our primary school, bags are searched sometimes, and as far as I know none of the kids take them. I do think the air tag is a pretty good idea though. I'd be a bit worried if DS was coming home to an empty house and I couldn't check if he had got home safe - it hasn't happened yet as his big brother is generally home if we are both out at work, which doesn't happen often in itself (both hybrid) but it could happen sometimes. Probably going to get DS a phone for Christmas but he won't be taking it to school.

My year 7 boy meets up with his friends in person all the time. Lots of trips to the park to play football.

Which isn't to say there isn't a fair amount of sending memes and emojis! But the phone is definitely facilitating his in-person social life at the moment. I completely understand your concerns about smart phones (I share them, and do everything I can to mitigate) but certainly my child, in the school and social group he's in, would be isolated from his peers if he didn't have a smartphone. Appreciate that this varies from school to school though: a friend's DS in a different area has just got a phone for the first time in Y9, and it seems to be completely the norm there.

thank you @Wincher

I know plenty of primary school kids walk/cycle to school without phone from Year 4 onwards with some on more complicated route than DS

DS walks with a group of kids with about 4 living on our road

Genuine query. I don't have airtags but I have heard of them. If the tag is in a bag doesn't that mean you can locate the bag but not necessarily the child? If the tag is on a child, won't it's presence be detectable to other people? (a thread about a parent considering using an air tag when her child went on a school residential seemed to imply safeguarding concerns because by implication the other children would be tracked too).

Do the group of children your son walks with have your contact details for an emergency?

I guess so. I was walking with DS and his friends when I got a message saying an AirTag that wasn't mine was travelling with me - must have been in one of their bags. Seems like a good feature to avoid a stalker planting one on you! But yes, it only tracks the bag not the child (could be handy if they leave it somewhere!)

Yes, DS2's journey from primary school is more than twice as long as the journey to secondary will be and involves crossing a major road. We do live close to the secondary though!

To be fair we do walk him to school still so we at least know he's got there ok. Though that's mainly to give whoever is WFH some fresh air and a leg stretch before work, he's perfectly able to walk alone!

DH and I actually chatted about trying to give our kids a late 90s childhood ie. with the internet but not social media until older, and with a phone as a medium of arranging in-person meet-ups and 1:1 text messages (not groups until older).

Our Y8 has a Nokia brick - perfectly sufficient to text his friends and arrange to meet up in person. Almost all his friends have bricks, only a few have iphones. It only needs charging once in a blue moon, it costs £20 not £350, and doesn't break when you drop it - what's not to like.

We don't track him, because I want him to check in with me when he gets to where he's going and I worry if he knows he's being tracked then he won't bother to text to say "at my friends house" or whatever. And I also don't want to track him without his knowledge.

That would be very weird to be giving out your mums phone number.
Or the reverse of that for a mum to have a bundle if kids numbers in her phone.
That could be leaving the Op / Mum open to accusations.

The holiday thing is part of my logic for getting him a secondhand / dug out the back of a cupboard phone and number now, if you ask around I bet someone has a spare phone he could borrow for a few months.

Leaving a new phone for Christmas or potentially birthday.
Your obviously an Apple family, I believe the new SE phone is due out in springtime. If that is any interest to you which might mean the existing SE will have deals to be had.

You can't rely on other kids making a call your kid isn't OK. That's a totally unfair approach.
If you want the benefits of mobile phones then you need to provide your own kid with one.

I was in year 7 in 2004 and I had friends asking for my number then (I didn't have a phone!). I did get one for Christmas but it was awkward until then and that was 20 years ago!

It doesn't need to be a smart phone but I do think he should have some way of communicating and arranging stuff with his friends now.

In our area they would miss out on social stuff if didn't have WAp etc and Snap when a bit older. My DC have groups for their sports, friends meet up, just chat etc
They also use to pay for stuff & have tickets on etc
I don't track them but on the odd occasion when on a trip / sports fixture it's useful to get updates or see where the bus is to know what time they'll be back.

@StampOnTheGround it's scary how quickly things moved on.
Just before smart phones took off, 10-12 years ago kids were all using Blackberry's because they were quicker to text on!

Mine is in year 6 and doesn't have a phone.. I don't want him to. He's negotiating for year 7, but I've set up a smart phone free group in the hope we can hold out.

His friends the same age barely look up from their phones now. It's really sad to see. There must be a way round it?!

@Resisterance you keep their age under 13 and use parental controls.
Google Family link or Apples equivalent. Limit the time they can spend on each app and in total, and have a switch off time. Exactly the same as you do with tablets or ipads

I don't know any kids in first year of high school without a phone.

He will be very left out of the social chat.

It's harming them by not allowing or trusting them to become independent. It's teaching them the world is a scarier place than it actually is. It's not allowing them the chances that previous generations had to deal with tricky situations on their own, and to build resilience and confidence.

The world is actually dangerous for 11 years old who are far more often victims if they are on they own. Do you think that those stabbed teens or missing teens were not resiliant?
My son has Family Link and is not petrified to leave home and he is not less confident than his peers. But I know where he is

The world is not dangerous for a sensible 11 - 14 year old. This pov is in itself damaging. Where are you getting your stats on if they are on their own, I'm interested to see?

@StampOnTheGround you were Yr 7 in 2004, so 11, born 1993 now 31, potentially old enough to have a secondary aged kid???

Does that mean we are now onto the SECOND generation of kids who have grown up with mobile phones??

So two generations away from the generation who made fixed arrangements, "get you outside x shop at y time?" To the "get you at x shop about y time"

WTF I've just aged decades in the last 10mins.

@lighttherapy I remember being quite lonely during secondary school holidays in the 1980s. I did have my friends landline numbers (we all had address books) but nobody had answer machines then, so I'd be lucky to catch them in - or else if they had family members who were always on the phone their lines would often be engaged. It was a nightmare trying to meet up with anyone if they didn't live in my immediate neighbourhood. I think my social life could have been a lot better with a mobile phone and text messages, but could easily have been ruined by unpleasantness on social media. The answer? Non-smart phones - aka 'bricks'. I hear they're becoming fashionable again. 🙃