Esther Ghey, school phone ban

[Davros]

I heard her on R4’s Today programme this morning. I thought she was great, really impressive. I wonder how far down the rabbit hole Brianna would have gone if this campaign had been around then.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgng2l7d36o.amp

The whole phones in school thing is a complete distraction. Some school 'celebrity headteachers' are making a big show in the media about their 'groundbreaking' new idea when they're already banned in most schools and have been for years.

The vast majority of the 'bad stuff' with phones happens outside of school hours.
This is where parents need to step up and do their job of keeping an eye on what their child is doing. If they can't manage one child, how do they expect a school to manage up to 2000?

Editing to say that parents are the ones who buy the phones for the child and the ones who pay for the contract (in most cases). They need to just stop doing that if they are worried about what their child is doing with them. Providing their child with a phone, and then complaining about the school about what the child does with it when they decide to break school rules is ridiculous. From Esther Ghey's own admission, the school had tried to stop her child using their phone, they weren't just allowing her to use it.

Surely they can't do that? School is meant to ne free. They shouldn't be making a smart phone part of the required school uniform.

Have the row then. If I had seen those photos online of my child the phone would have been in the bin.

You’d only need to do it once. Take the smart phone off the child and replace it with a brick (if they really have to have a cell phone at all).

No child ‘needs’ a smart phone. It’s not an abuse of their human rights to deny them one. The very fact that the reaction would have been / was so violent reinforces exactly why the phone should have been removed.

Esther Ghey wanted someone else to assume the parental responsibility she should have been exercising herself.

To be fair, this is a reasonable point. Peer pressure is horrendous at that age.

I agree 100% with a smartphone ban in schools

I also agree with the PP who wonder why the hell Brianna’s mum didn’t remove her smartphone given she was receiving multiple calls a day about the misuse of the phone in school. You can’t expect schools to do everything.

Yes it is but there is a line surely. Brianna’s mother was getting numerous calls about misuse of phone and she herself believed Brianna had a harmful addiction to her phone.

Surely at this point the damage being done by letting her keep the phone outweighs the damage from taking it away?

I so agree with a complete smartphone ban in schools. Social media is addictive and also shouldn’t be available at all to under 16s. It’s not only the effect on the individual pupil but on the culture of a school community, plus phones lead to increased (and more public) ways of bullying children. Children also shouldn’t be taking pictures or videoing other children without their consent on school property where a child has no choice but to be there and can’t escape. There are multiple serious issues with it, and the government needs to take action. Lots of schools have already done it, so it can be done.

Trans as a social contagion didn't take off with books or tv or computers or even the internet. Until smartphones and social media. That's the difference.

I know a school that has banned smart phones (at school and requested the same at home) up to about 14yo so far, and they may extend it further. They found in the trial there was a lot of support from parents because it is so much easier to say no when you aren't the one person stopping your kid from socialising the way all the other kids are, and instead it is just what everyone does.

No, you really can't say that. Whatever EG did or didn't do as a parent, the death is on the hands of the killers and no-one else.

@ThatBlackCatthats a fucking awful thing to say.

I agree with her but it shouldnt come as an alternative to the parent enforcing phone boundaries.

Im usually shouted down on this site when I say that I dont agree with kids having smart phones. Its not comparable to books and tv as someone said above, they are regulated to some degree. The internet isnt really and that is accessible to kids via a phone if not by computers at home too, most parents dont understandthat kids get round the controls

Brick phones are enough and as a culture we have sleep walked into a situation where we are exposing our children to things that they cannot control, they cant manage or effectively risk assess etc.

The examples above of schools making kids use apps or smart phones is part of the problem, as per transport making it impossible not to use them. All of that needs to change with a culture of no phones for kids so that its easier to enforce.

If you say to your own child, you're not having this, even if they dont need an app for lessons or the bus, they have exposure to unregulated and unlimited internet via their friends so it needs to be all schools and all parents who do this.

Parental controls on phones should be MUCH more widely known about and enforced. My DCs phone has a daily time restriction, a block on all SM and Tiktok and I can put downtime on for sleep and during school hours. I control their phone use - not my child.

It sounds like she was suffering from domestic abuse at the hands of her son. It’s not unheard of.
You’ve got to remember her son was likely stronger than her, she was probably petrified he would punch her in the face, not just the wall. Taking the phone off him would’ve been best, and yes many parents would be able to do that with their sons, but it sounds like all pushing it would’ve done is get her a black eye or worse.

I think that it should not be beyond the wit of man to create a kid friendly smartphone and kid friendly versions of popular apps.

Browsers which just won't connect to sites containing certain words, or load pages containing porn. Camera apps which won't take pictures of naked body parts and messaging apps which won't send or receive anything suspected to be a nude or pornography.

Phones which just aren't compatible with social media apps.

Then it could be illegal for a child to own a regular adult phone.

Would need cooperation from the industry though.

We have a phone like this. There is still a little bit of access to things but it's got no camera. I have to unlock the app store on children's phone on my phone. So no apps can be added without me doing it.

Well I genuinely believe it. Sorry the truth is awful to some.

Yes and this is the whole problem with the trans narrative and culture which is that 'because Im trans, you have to let me do what I want or I'll hurt myself and/or others'

When we should be saying as a society that a huge number of children who are ND, usually ASD, have a disconnect within themselves which is leading them to think they are in the wrong body or are a different sex to the one they actrually are. Its a symptom, not the condition itself. The treatment is better psychological intervention for children with ASD or those with the traits (if not diagnosed) to understand themselves and accept themselves and their bodies.

Phones are more than just a resource, though...they have become, almost, an all consuming fetish which many cannot seem to live without. You see people all of the time walking along the road looking at their phone. People feel insecure if they are not attached and on-line. Very unhealthy, and living in a wi-fi soup is not good either.

Do you have a pre-teen or a teen yourself?

I'm going to go against the grain here. I have used mobile phones in schools and colleges.

There are times when it is appropriate, online quizzes, photography class. Some will randomly put students in to a team, so there is no 'I don't want to work with him/her'. I had a childcare class that I gave the task of making puppets and then filming a short film using the puppets to explain something to a small child e.g. a trip to the hospital.

Also diabetic children often use an app monitor their glucose.