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

@DolphinnoisesNo expert actually knows this of course. They cannot. They look at evidence they have seen and built it up to be a national picture. The question is, which dc are they seeing? The addicted ones. The normal use ones are not seen or counted. So they don’t really know about most dc. Just the problem ones.

As a non phone user It is noticeable how quickly people become accustomed to doing everything on their phone. Not a criticism of you ( honestly!), but you can look at the weather forcast the night before on a computer, or on the actual morning in question. I do that myself, every day. Likewise train tables when necessary.

I have a desk top IMAC and that's it. I communicate eiter via landline phone or via email. People know to contact me generally via email. I look at them regularly and respond.

One other tendency i've noticed is that phone use has tended to make people more unreliable and prone to last minute cancellations or delays; as they assume everyone else is on a phone and that arrangements can therefore be flexible. I find it very flaky. I ended one budding friendship due to this. To me it signalled disrespect and a lack of commitment.

People have also lost the ability to read maps or to navigate around their own city, and rely totally on a screen or a sat nav to tell them where to go. People are putting their faith and trust into their device and are lost without it.

I agree, I had friends who weren’t allowed to watch tv, heavy metal music was the work of satin, Grange Hill was going to corrupt us all... There is always an outcry about something.

I also agree with who mentioned this child was accessing their phone at home so how is the school responsible when the parents weren’t stopping it.

My DDs school have strict rules, phones that are seen on school premises are confiscated, it dosnt matter if they are on silent or turned off. Children can seek special permission if they need to contact parents. At the same time though a lot of school work needs to be accessed by devices 100% of homework is now online, for some children that means using their phones.

It’s a balancing act that parents need to take responsibility for as well as tighter regulations. Schools have enough to deal with they can’t be blamed for children using phones that parents actually buy and will kick off about if they get confiscated.

i actually think reality shows are worse, the open judging of people unrealistic expectations of body image and wealth, I hate them.

this is very true and not just about phone use. I remember doing a workshop about elderly care. We were all working in that field. We were asked what percentage of older people went into residential care. Answers varied between 30% and 60%. The actual figure? 5%! It was pointed out that we only see the people who need us. Its possibly the same with phone use although I think limiting what is accessible to children is plain commonsense.
To be clear, the residential care figures are an example and I have no idea what it is now

I feel very sorry for Esther Ghey’s loss, but her proposals would not have saved her son.

When my DDs were younger, their behaviour was awful when playing on the PS4 (or rather when we told them it was time to stop), so we vastly reduced how often they were allowed to play and made it clear that any poor behaviour when asked to come off would result in even less playing.

If my DDs (now teens) were addicted to their phones, or if school was calling me multiple times a day about it, I would simply remove the phone or, if I couldn’t physically do that, cancel the phone contract and change the WiFi password. Any tantrums about that would be dealt with, not indulged.

Why Esther Ghey failed to parent her son is a mystery to me, but banning phones in schools is not the answer (my DDs school has an “off & out of sight on school grounds” policy, which I wholly support).

Have respect for the dead. Brianna used female pronouns for herself. Its grotesque and disrespectful to call her a boy when she didn't feel that way about herself.

Although the removal of the phone in and of itself might not have saved him, the issue is wider than that around the hyperfocus and isolation experienced by addictive use. By not having that around for the 6 hours a day at school, your brain gets used to resetting and lowering of the focus and lowering of the obsession. This helps in lots of ways in terms of general emotional welbeing.

Even Esther Ghey knew that being trans didn’t help Brianna beyond making him superficially happier.

Pronouns don’t belong to individuals, alive or dead, to misuse as they see fit.

And forcing others to deny reality, especially when discussing such a serious issue, is what’s grotesque.

Whatever Esther Ghey did or didn’t do, and I agree she was probably scared of her son, this is a good campaign in my opinion. School is a different setting to home with a different purpose, so making this rule there has got to be a good start

I do agree with the principle of parental responsibility. However, I think Brianna Ghey was let down by all the adults in his life, including school.

Anyone remember that weird and frankly disturbing post the headteacher put up, gushing about how he would come to school with nails done and 'lashes that went on for days'? What the hell kind of teacher writes about one of their pupils like that?

I can certainly see the benefits of putting phones out of commission in pouches during the school day when it comes to issues of concentration/distraction and being more socially engaged face to face. But most phone use happens outside school hours. I feel incredibly sorry for Esther Ghey. Her pain is unimaginable. But I doubt that placing phones in pouches during school hours would have saved her child. Two terrible human beings planned and carried out this murder. Sadly this kind of thing, albeit rare, has been happening long before the advent of mobile phones.

Yes, they certainly wouldnt say it about a girl, she would be in detention 'for days'.

I think one of the other difficulties is that another narrative that has taken hold is this 'behaviour is communication' so when children lash out and are violent, while there is also a message that its not appropriate, the bigger message from professionals or well meaning adults is that 'the child is communicating'. It undermines the main message which should be that you dont lay hands on someone and if you do the consequnces are hugely serious.

Actually the child may just be wanting their own way and using violence to get it. We dont say that a violent man is 'just communicating'.

So a young person hitting his mum, threatening her becuase the answer to a boundary is 'no', is looked at, particularly for children with a disability or who are ND, as somehow significant and that its a communication rather than just plain old manipulation.

I have no idea why my post was hidden. It was a link to a website about novel reading being considered a bad thing in the 1850's and some parents in the 1950's/60's thinking that a child "who always had their head in a book" would grow up a weakling.

There’s a thread in Chat at the moment “more women killed by their sons than strangers”. I don’t know how to link to another thread 🐘
Food for thought

Why is this child's phone addiction to blame for their murder? Isn't this straight victim blaming?

My son's school has a complete phone ban and has had for quite a long time before he started there in 2015. This is an all boys comprehensive in non-leafy south east London. It was well enforced. If they can do it, any school can and I support it.

I don’t think you can compare books to smartphones. The damage being done to an entire generation of children through smartphones is well documented.

It isn’t. But Esther Ghey has rightly identified the impact excessive phone use had on both victim and killers.

Indeed. Which is why hiding Brianna’s sex in this discussion is so unhelpful.

Ir's a shame the mothers of the 2 teenagers who murdered someones child didn't parent better.

Phone use in school is only part of the problem, parents will still need to have sensible rules about phone use at home too but it's easier to implement rules for schools than for home life. No children should be using their phone during the school day.

He was a boy. He did not feel like a girl - how could he, is wasn't one. He felt 'different' from what he thought others felt, or others told him he felt. That needed exploring.
His transness had nothing to do with his murder, he was just the random next choice on the list. However, his mother seems to have gone along with the 'girl' illusion without ever asking him what he meant by this.

In death we owe the dead truth. He was a boy. A misled and traumatized boy, betrayed by those around him, but a boy.

Of course. But they aren’t laying their parenting bare. Esther is and fair play to her. Brianna was an hugely vulnerable child who was let down by pretty much every adult in his orbit, inclining his mother. Very likely the same can be said of his killers.

And I believe she is in touch with one of the mothers of Brianna’s killers.

I don't think kids should have their phones out in school because it's disruptive to education, but surely the real problems we're talking about here - bullying, social media etc - are problems that arise mostly in phone use outside school? Just banning phones in school isn't going to change much.