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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Original poster

If your child doesn’t have a phone…

153 replies

Atissue123 · 09/03/2023 21:53

How did you handle it? DD is 11 and in year 6 and we are currently planning not to get her a phone for starting secondary school. We may get her an old fashioned brick phone but definitely not a smart phone of her own.she does have other tech eg a laptop, computer games and access to an iPad. She uses all of those things responsibly.

There are many reasons for us not wanting to give her a phone yet but I’m wondering how others have navigated not giving their teen / tween one. I’ve read about having a ‘spare phone’ which They can used when they go out and need to contact home etc which seems a good idea but any other tips or suggestions on how to make this not ‘the absolute end of the world’ for a 12 year old when the time comes? I keep mentioning the fact that Apple and Microsoft bosses both don’t give their kids phones until 14 so I think she’s probably already expecting we will say no for some time yet. I will of course explain why we are choosing to do this with her.

i know it’s not the norm although interestingly I’m seeing more and more about this (ironically) in the press and social media because people are becoming more aware of the dangers of tech and social media at too young an age.

OP posts:
XelaM · 17/06/2023 07:32

firsttimemum1230 · 16/06/2023 23:36

I’m like 10 years off this right now but for me my daughter will be getting a phone in secondary school and potentially earlier if me and her dad don’t last because then he’d be ringing her phone for her not mine.

first and foremost her safety. Give her the chance and opportunity to be able to call for help or anything she needs.
sleepovers be able to tell
me she’s uncomfortable and wants to come home. Danger.

and also I wouldn’t want her to be different from others. In the way of personality yes but nothing more.

I think your daughter will thank you for such a normal attitude (I have a 13-year-old)

DaveClifton · 29/07/2023 10:15

Atissue123 · 11/03/2023 21:05

There are some incredible comments on here! What a divisive issue.

i can’t believe I survived living in rural England without a phone in the late 90’s getting a bus (that regularly broke down), and often dropped me in a village 1.5 miles from home so I walked back alone that last section relatively often. I couldn’t call my parents, no phone boxes and guess what I survived and they didn’t worry. We did all use to exist without constant communication, Google maps and wifi. Yes it’s helpful of course and I get it that kids want to be social but to think a child can’t navigate not having a phone to take a photo of something on a school board seems somewhat mad to me. What about asking a friend to email it to them or good old fashioned pen to write it down. What the heck do these kids do when their batteries die? Not know how to get home?

i think there have been some helpful points on here. It’s made me consider the ‘benefits’ to having a phone for both me as a parent and for my DD but also made me realise the real issue is educating kids to use them responsibly and actually more importantly to not rely on them for everything in life.

Hi OP

I have been reading this thread with interest as we are in exactly the same position as you. Our DD has just turned 11 and starts Y7 in September.

She doesn't own a phone either and we are not planning to get one for her yet either. She was the only child out of 80 in Y6 without a phone but for us, we don't know think she 'needs' one and she isn't overly bothered herself either. Like your DD, she has other tech and communicates with her friends via her iPad (iMessage), Switch online and Roblox etc. from what I gather from other parents, the various group WhatsApps are a total shit show of bullying, swearing, inappropriate pictures being shared etc and I just don't think she needs to be exposed to that nonsense yet.

I work at the school (non teaching) she will be attending so she'll get a lift to and from school with me every day, and if she arranges to meet a friend in town after school/have a club/play date etc then timings will be agreed in advance and I'll know where and when to collect her - personally I don't buy into the "he/she gets the bus so the MUST have a phone" view, and definitely not the stalking apps to know where they are at all times. That way madness (and a lifetime of paranoia and lack of resilience) lies, in my opinion. Her school has a strict no phones policy too, with no reliance on apps etc, so she literally has no reason to have one there either. The teachers I know at work spend so much of their time dealing with social media drama that isn't even happening during school hours. It's crazy.

Anyway, I wondered if you are still planning to not give your DD a phone? Just wanted to let you know that you're not alone! We are going to reassess at Christmas - if she's clearly missing out then we may get her an old iPhone but the only social media app she will have is WhatsApp. It boggles my mind that people let children as young as 7 or 8 have TikTok accounts (and then can't figure out why their kids have anxiety/other mental health issues) .

I know we can't put the genie back in the bottle and I'm an advocate of teaching children how to work with technology properly, but for us, 11 is too young to have a phone.

mauveiscurious · 29/07/2023 14:44

Our DCs had a brick in year 7 but it was untenable really quickly

We had the family sharing facilities on apple which restricted a time on apps and on social media. The phone switched off at 8 pm and then later as they got older.

I hated mine having a phone but they were doing other activities too .

This is the works they live in and making it a longer for experience isn't going to help her in the long term

TheaBrandt · 29/07/2023 16:09

Our teens conduct their entire social lives through their phones. Without them they would be socially isolated and they would hate us. The only family I know that managed to not give their kids phones in secondary school were frankly rather odd and their children did not have any friends. We did hold off until Easter of year 6.

Saltywalruss · 29/07/2023 17:13

Our teens conduct their entire social lives through their phones

Well if they ( teens) didn't have phones in the first place they wouldn't do that

DrCoconut · 29/07/2023 17:33

Could be different because DS is a boy but so far he doesn't have a phone. He will be year 8 when they go back. He seems happy with his social life which is mostly in school anyway. He wants a phone to play games on mostly I think but it hasn't been a big issue yet. I'm holding off for as long as possible because of the Pandora's box that is social media (for which he's mostly under age still unless it's changed). My family was almost destroyed by inappropriate internet use so I do have quite strong feelings on this.

TheaBrandt · 29/07/2023 17:38

Well No they wouldn’t but everyone else would and they would be totally left out! Then they would get a secret phone and hate you. Do you have teenagers?!

reluctantbrit · 29/07/2023 17:44

Saltywalruss · 29/07/2023 17:13

Our teens conduct their entire social lives through their phones

Well if they ( teens) didn't have phones in the first place they wouldn't do that

Well, that's just not the reality anymore.

Madwomanuptheroad29 · 29/07/2023 17:53

By not getting a child in her first year of secondary school a smartphone you will run the very real risk that she will get a secret phone.
I would be very conscious of the fact that kids of that age will do anything to be the same as her friends.
The risk is not only what she may do to get (fund) a secret phone - she will get in the habit of becoming secretive and that increases both vulnerability and risk.

lljkk · 29/07/2023 18:10

I keep mentioning the fact that Apple and Microsoft bosses both don’t give their kids phones until 14

Bill Gates' youngest kid is 20, so he last made a decision like that 7 years ago. Yes, things have changed. Do you really think youngest Gates had no access to email, tablet, pootas, sibling's phones before age 14? The current CEO of Apple (Tim Cook) does not have kids, neither did Steve Jobs, so I don't know who OP means by 'bosses' of Apple.

lljkk · 29/07/2023 18:13

I stand corrected!! Steve Jobs had 4 kids.
The youngest Jobs kid is now 25 years old.
Jobs last thought about phone access for an 11year old in 2009.
So compare to how useful phones were in 2009 when deciding whether a phone would be useful now in 2023 for an 11-14yo.

TheaBrandt · 29/07/2023 18:36

If you refuse to let a 12 plus child have a phone you need to not have one yourself either to model that behaviour.

Saltywalruss · 29/07/2023 21:39

TheaBrandt · 29/07/2023 17:38

Well No they wouldn’t but everyone else would and they would be totally left out! Then they would get a secret phone and hate you. Do you have teenagers?!

Yes I do. The point is that so many parents let their teens ( or younger) have smart phones even though they don't really want their children to have them. It's peer pressure really. If more parents say no to smart phones society would be better off.

Saltywalruss · 29/07/2023 21:40

TheaBrandt · 29/07/2023 18:36

If you refuse to let a 12 plus child have a phone you need to not have one yourself either to model that behaviour.

No. Adults can have/ do things that children can't have or do .

DaveClifton · 29/07/2023 21:44

TheaBrandt · 29/07/2023 18:36

If you refuse to let a 12 plus child have a phone you need to not have one yourself either to model that behaviour.

Hilarious.

If you refuse to let a 12 plus child have a bottle of wine then you shouldn't have one either. Or a fag. Or drive a car. Or go to a Frankie Boyle gig. Or watch Nightmare On Elm Street etc.

Do you see how parenting/being an adult vs beings a child works?

SuperGinger · 29/07/2023 21:48

Don't buy a brick read up on 3G sunset

Somanycats · 29/07/2023 21:54

I hope you have realised that this is a pants idea by now op. And if she has an iota of self respect she will acquire one within a couple of weeks. Surely she is going to get one and use it on WiFi only at the very least. And that is pretty much everywhere. On the bus, train, library, shops, school, friends houses, town centre. And if you don't know she has it, then you are in a much worse position than if you do.

OldNed · 29/07/2023 22:26

My youngest didn't have a phone until he was 16 and started working weekends. l offered to get him one, he didn't want one, said he wouldn't use it. He wasn't bullied, it was never an issue. He is popular, articulate has lots of interests, SM not being one of them, he chatted with friends through PC. He had no problem in telling people he wasn't interested in gettIng a phone, I think maybe some parents make not having a phone a bigger issue than what it is.
I hardly use my phone or SM to be honest, prefer doing other stuff, so maybe he takes after me.

entitledparents · 29/07/2023 23:20

Saltywalruss · 29/07/2023 17:13

Our teens conduct their entire social lives through their phones

Well if they ( teens) didn't have phones in the first place they wouldn't do that

Yes but they live in 2023

TheaBrandt · 30/07/2023 07:00

Silly examples. Those things are illegal for the under 16/18s.

Look I too would love to ban phones and that my teens would set off on bike rides with lashings of ginger beer and believe me as a parent of older teens we really tried. It led to misery and resentment by year 8. If you have socially focussed teen girls at secondary having no phone or SM is social suicide. I wish it wasn’t true either but it just is.

TheaBrandt · 30/07/2023 07:09

My 14 year old has a friend whose mother is quite fiery and removed her phone for a week as a punishment. Friend quickly installed all the teen SM apps on her school lap top and says how much She “hates” her mum and will now never tell her anything. She has a new secret boyfriend she’s not telling mum about. . So that backfired.

smilyfairy · 30/07/2023 08:14

My kids are now 19 and 20 ,they have learned to navigate a world in which smart phones are central to communication .
I actually think they and their friends have learned to manage it well , despite what the media thinks my children and their peers are not horribly isolated socially inept individuals but have developed skills to navigate much better than their 40 something mother and her friends !
Social media is a part of life for now, it is used to communicate , however my highly sociable university student dc never ever posts on social media she messages on various platforms mostly snap chat but is not at all bothered about posting .Her choice.
It's a tool to be used and the idea that our children and young people are doomed is so far the truth that I see .

TheaBrandt · 30/07/2023 08:31

Absolutely smily. My 17 year old rarely if ever posts pictures on mainstream SM like Instagram or fb. That’s what cringeworthy 40 somethings do. They have their own closed friendship groups on other platforms which they use ito chat to their close friends and share their daily ups and downs. It’s nice. Why would you cut your child off from that communication tool because of scare stories in the daily Mail?

DaveClifton · 30/07/2023 11:41

Just to be clear, I talking about just-turned 11 year-olds, not teenagers (as is the OP). I've already said that we will be reassessing our choice not to give our DD a phone every term, and it's highly likely she will get one by the time she's 13 - nobody is talking about cutting them off or "social suicide"!

DaveClifton · 30/07/2023 11:41

*I am