What age did you buy your child a phone?

[dangerrabbit]

DD is in Y6 and many of her classmates are starting to get phones. I work with teenagers with behavioural issues and see the negative impact of phones which makes me want to hold off until she is older. However DP disagrees and thinks I have an unrealistic view of teenagers due to working with those experiencing difficulties and wants me to seek advice from the parents of a broader range of teens as the majority of our friends have same age or younger kids.

What age did you buy your child a phone? Now your child is older, what age would you have bought your child a phone at and what do you recommend to parents of tweenagers?

Our dc got extremely basic, cheap phones when they started Y7. The phones were on a family plan which was very generous with calls and texts, but stingy on data. They saved up and bought themselves higher spec phones when they chose to. This would have happened around Y8/9, though IIRC one of them was quite content with her phone and didn't upgrade until Y10.

The benefit of this plan is that not one of them has ever lost or destroyed their phones. They paid for it so it had value.

The family plan is now generous enough in data that I, dh and the older dc never run out, but youngest (14yo) runs out of data every month. We all have the same data allowance.

Our dc walked to and from primary, and were collected from all play dates and after school activities. They had no need for phones before Y7.

We didn't ask for passwords, but reserved the right to look at their phones and the content. And if they didn't give us access, or tell us a password, then they would not get the phone back. And no phone meant no going places without us. Other than school, of course. All the phones are part of our Norton account as well. We used a parental controls security app for a few years, but I cannot remember what it was.

Summer term of Y6, ready for secondary. All dc have had a secondhand phone (my old one at the time). With appropriate parental controls…

DD got hers for Christmas just before she turned 11, so Y6. Slightly earlier than we planned but we could see another lockdown coming and wanted her to feel less isolated. It worked, she handled that lockdown so much better and was much happier.

Now, 1yr on, she doesn't take it to school (her choice) and frequently doesn't look at it for several days. She has what's app but no other social stuff and we have parental controls requiring us to approve any apps she downloads. We can, and she knows we do, check her messages.

She's generally very sensible, hates any kind of upset and steers clear of trouble so it's not been too hard so far and it feels as though we're getting it about right. But we'll see!

Y6 birthday for mine. It meant the people being communicated with were people we knew/whose parents we knew so it felt like a good time to support sensible use of a mobile. When they first got mobiles we locked them down so there was no internet access and only limited apps. We also talked about only passing on numbers with that person's agreement, likewise with sharing photos and understanding that passing on chain messages e.g. about Theresa from 1601 coming back to kill someone's mum if a message wasn't forwarded to seven people, would be taken as an indication they weren't mature enough to handle a phone. Phones have always been out of their rooms overnight and DC2's phone still has an automatic switch off at 8.30pm.

What I would say is that it's much easier to be a sensible 11-yr-old than it is to be a 16-yr-old that resists some of the stuff that happens online. So much homework, socialising, shopping etc happens online that it isn't simply a case of just ignoring their phones for a few days. My DCs' school sets homework on an app, they are encouraged to listen to podcasts, Snapchat is how they know if so and so is in the meeting place they had arranged etc etc. Being the 16-yr-old who switches their phone off at 10pm takes a lot of guts - even if they're a Mumsnet teen who does loads of extracurricular activities and is on track for all grade 9s at GCSE - because it means they're not around for their friends.

Age 9 a basic payg phone for orchestra (she needed to call for pick up as time varied but no smart phones then) first smart phone age 12 when previous phone broke and she was travelling overseas with orchestra and wanted to FaceTime

In Y5/6 - once they were walking home by themselves so they could message me if any problems.

I actually think what is more important than their age is how you let them use it. Don’t just hand a phone over without any restrictions or keeping an eye on what they are doing on it.

We have a rule of all phones / screens to be left downstairs at bedtime. All the DCs have to let me know their passwords. When they were younger I would check their messages every now and then - this was part of the deal. Sometimes there have been issues with friends & social media, which I have helped them to resolve. We have restrictions on the WiFi so they can’t access dodgy sites at home.

I have friends who were adamant their DCs wouldn’t have any phones until Y7, and then just let them have one without any idea of what they were doing on it!

Y6 because she was working to and from school on her own and also walked to some after school activities alone.

It was an old-style one which meant she could only text and call but in a way it backfired as she was bullied about it. We got her a sim for the old iphone she used as an ipod by Easter.

It's about rules and restrictions. At secondary school, nothing really works without WhatsApp but DD knows that we can check her phone all the time, she has to tell us the password and there are restrictions about Instagram and with whom she is friends/chats.

She is now 14 and we don't check that often but it definitely was necessary in the early days when they negotiate the minefield of social media.

Tech is part of life, you need to teach your child to be responsible.

A dumb phone in Y6. Smartphone at 13 /Y8.

P6/Y5 He was spreading his wings out playing in our housing estate going to meet friends and playing in the parks around the estate. We looked into getting him walkie talkies (this was 10 years ago) to keep in touch when needed, but the signals were poor, so we got him a nokia dumb phone instead. A couple of friends got them that year and they used them to text each other and make arrangements to meet up. He was told if he took care of it and never lost it we would get him a better phone the following year.

P7/Y6 he got a very simple, mini smart phone (Samsung Young I think it was) that he didn't do much on other than text and take blurry photos as he didn't have a data plan. He didn't have any social media at this point.

S1/Y7 he got a smart phone and data plan.

All of mine were bought one at age 10, really basic to start with and upgraded as they got older.

I have access to their social media (all now teens) up to a certain point. I don't check their phones but I have them on life360 and the login to their socials.

Mine had to wait until 26th birthday. If they went out after school they could borrow a spare phone. No way I want my kids on phones all day. They did sport instead and 4 activities each week plus homework. Then once completed they could go on laptops.

16th not even I would make them wait until 26.

As other posters have said we got ours phones just before high school. But the really influential thing I believe is when you allow them social media which we held off until 13 which i believe is the SM sites recommended min age. I would say avoiding social media for yrs 7 and 8 is the key… those are the really wobbly years

Last term of year 6 so he could keep in touch with his friends when he left for senior school. There’s a class What’s App in his year 7 where they chat about homework etc so it’s useful for him to have a Smart Phone.
Plus we can track where he is at all times using the Find My iPhone function.

Mine had to wait until they were in their early 30s, and only then with parental controls switched on.

@Elderflower2016 I found that despite WhatsApp saying 16 now, most secondary school children use it.

We found that there were huge differences in social interaction between children with and without WA. Maybe lockdown forced the issue as well, DD had it when she was 12 from Christmas 2019 onwards and not only meant it she could stay in touch with a group of friends, chatting togehter, it was also necessary for talking to school mates about the homework, school lessons etc.

In my opinion parental supervison and some control is the key, not the age on its own. Ensure you lock down your settings and check how they are talking to each other, we had fall outs on a WA group as some texts were misunderstood so it's also about teaching how to use it.

My son is nearly 14 and still doesn't have one. I worry about him as he is a game freak and will never be off of it. He says he is the only one in year 9 withouta phone and one mum chirped in, well that isnt a bad thing. And the other said she have her dd year 7 a basic argos call and text as she worries about the things teens can access nowadays. But we are now considering a basic call and text phone. So if anything happens. But he is a home bird. He only goes out to the shop or to school. So I still don't know.

Summer term of Y6 was our general rule (but bought it forward for the Y6 of 2020 so they had a phone through lockdown 1).

Generally I think that was about right - there are pros and cons, of course, but it seemed a reasonable balance between engaging with the world as it really is, and not going too early.

Phones have always been left downstairs at night. I am so glad I instigated and stuck to this when I hear of some of their friends who are up all night responding to messages. I have people's passwords.

I think generally it is easier to relax your rules than it is to introduce them, so I'd put plenty of structure around it at the start.

Those who say that the tech ppl from Silicone valley ban their own kids from having smartphones like they are some sort of authority on what makes a well balanced child - have you read the Independent article someone linked above? Here’s sn extract (I think the idea that we should be copying these people is laughable - they sound like utter loonies!!!)

"I have a huge TV in my living room and I think we had a baseball game on in the background - we weren't even watching it or interacting with it," she recalls. But then something curious happened; one dad, "another figure in the tech industry", was sitting on the couch, holding his baby, which began looking around the room, and its mother obscured its view of the screen, saying: "No, you're not going to see television at all until you're three years old."

"She thought the baby being on this couch would be permanently damaging to her child," Lacy laughs.

Ours were given theirs during the school summer holiday between years 6 and 7.

Cheap contract phones for less than a tenner a month with unlimited talk minutes but a cap of no more than £1 on overspends or data. If they hit that then it would cut off until the refresh date the following month.