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

My DSs schools already have a ban in place. DS1's school allows phone use at break and lunchtime only. DS2 no phone use at all. I'm 100% behind these policies and think it's ridiculous that all schools don't have them in place. How can kids learn effectively with that constant distraction in their pockets?

Edited to say: yes Esther Ghey was amazing on R4 yesterday. Ditto Merope Mills today - two mothers who've lost their beloved children in dreadful circumstances and who have campaigned ever since to make positive changes for everyone - such impressive women.

I agree so much. This 'behaviour is communication' is behind much of the poor behaviour tolerated in schools. If lessons were 'more interesting' it would not improve behaviour, it would enforce the message that behaving badly lead to rewards like 'fun' lessons. Reinforcement of bad action.

Brianna's phone addiction seems to have seriously messed with their head and made their life, and their mother's to a great extent, a misery, but it didn't make them a murderer.

I guess we're talking about Brianna's mother here because of what she has vocalised, but the murderers got their ideas and motivation from somewhere. Can we not blame them for this instead of they two Gheys?

someone said that they didn't think that books and reading had ever been considered a bad thing. My comment was to demonstrate that yes they had.

@Tessisme I think it’s a huge shame Brianna was around these two though. Other dc were not and her phone addiction drew B into contact with them. It’s a total nightmare of course but I was horrified about the phone not being taken away.

as someone from the pre home computer generation, the same thing was said about home computers.

In no particular order:

(1) The blame for Brianna's death lies 100% with the two killers;
(2) Brianna's getting so caught up in the trans cult, including DIY self-medication and so on, was probably in part a function of excessive phone use - but I doubt that phone use during school hours was particularly to blame;
(3) We know that the killers' obsession with death, violence, etc was fuelled by content they'd viewed on the dark web - though again I'd be surprised if any of this content was being viewed during school hours;
(4) I strongly support a total, zero tolerance, phone ban on school premises during school hours;
(5) It's very much up to parents to control phone use outside of school hours. It's very easy to set up curfews, total usage limits, and to limit the apps that kids have on their phones [e.g. not allowing the 'onion browser' which kids use to access the dark web].

No one here is blaming anyone other than the killers for Brianna’s murder.

This is the feminism and women’s rights board, and the link between what kids look at on the internet and claiming a trans identity has long been a topic of discussion. Children can be groomed online.

But this isn't realistic, and actually will end up with further isolation of the child- who will then disappear further into the internet on their laptop at home.

We have to move with technology and put in safeguards.

Exactly this. Couldn’t say it any better.

This.
My DH works in a phone free school and the kids have their timetable on the computer and also get a paper version (can request a print out if they lose it at the office).
Any phones seen are removed until the end of the week and a parent has to come and sign for it. And some live two counties away! No exceptions. There was one case of a kid having a phone confiscated and he got the train home, ticket on his phone. The office had to call his parent, to leave a meeting and travel 1.5 hr to pick him up in person as they would not release the phone. He soon learned. I imagine the blocking he got at home was worse than losing the phone.

Absolutely. Wonderful women whose actions will save countless young people’s lives both physically and mentally.

Brianna’s mother said yesterday she was constantly using her phone during school ho

Agree with all this. I will say about phones, though, that maybe part of the thinking is that, if schools set an example by banning them, parents will follow suit and will feel more emboldened and confident to ban or limit them at home as well; and that maybe children not using them at school will go some way towards lessening their dependence on/attraction to them.

Well yes. But let's not turn this into a discussion about passing. The poor woman has lived an utter nightmare, we don't need to pick apart her dead child. This is a discussion about smart phone bans.

Meant to, yes. It's one of the reasons (of many) that I'm opposed to uniform - and this is coming from an educator.

We are in a COL crisis and some parents are going to be broken by the cost of kitting their child out for secondary school, as we've just done. Ridiculously proscriptive and exacting specifications, even down to three separate colours for uniform, PE and 'games' socks (all extra money). Separate pairs of trainers and football boots. Everything must have logos, no plain substitutes permitted. And the hideous feel of the polyester fabric, especially of the PE kits, which for years I've avoided buying for environmental reasons. Then there's everything from calculators to the myriad different pens etc they'll need, and doubtless there will be books in the future too. My own job has entailed spending nothing less than thousands £ on books.

Part of my education was in the US - I've rarely seen a school with a uniform there - ditto on the continent. And in both cases, academic standards tend to be higher than in Britain. And gods help you if you have a kid with SEN. The cost of diagnostics in my DS's case was nearly £1200 for dyslexia/dyspraxia reports (we are in a low-funded LEA). Adding ridiculously expensive smartphones into the mix is an insult on top of all that. It will really cause some to struggle.

I know the fixation on uniform is baked into UK culture, but IMO it's completely unnecessary. As UK parents, why do we put up with this? Sorry for the thread derail - but it's a particular bugbear of mine.

I listened to some of the podcasts of that case. From what came out in court it seems that, quite aside from the gender presentation, Brianna was an extremely vulnerable teenager who lived life in a total fantasy world. So much so that interaction with organic beings rather than pixels was quite a traumatic experience, even as far as going out and getting on the bus alone.

This was a kid with extreme social anxiety and some very serious emotional problems. I believe from memory there was some form of formal intervention. Esther Ghey was at her wits' end to know how to deal with it all.

Easy to criticise her parenting decisions now, as some posters on this thread are doing. Not so easy when you're a single parent and every option you have seems to carry negative, even dangerous connotations.

All she has left is trying to help other kids avoid a similar fate. Whatever mistakes she may have made, I applaud her.

While I understand the comments along the lines of "This was said about books/home computers" I think we adults don't understand what the internet can be like for kids.

We grew up with the internet in a very different form to how it is now - there was no social media until I was in my mid-20s for a start, there were forums and groups but that was it. The way the algorithms work means that what we see and what the children of our generation see are incredibly different things, things that simply weren't there (or were very VERY hard to find) previously. We see the internet as largely benign and it isn't.

Sure, books can propagate dangerous ideas, but they are what they are and it's plain to see for everyone. A book doesn't lead you down a rabbit hole and allow you ways to access other information that your parents won't know about, or let you contact people who'll do you harm. When I hear my friend's teenagers talk about stuff they've seen online it boggles my mind as to what they're being exposed to.

I feel desperately sorry for Esther Ghey, she's suffered a horrific loss and I can understand her wanting some good to come out of the horror, particularly if she feels that her failure to stop her child accessing harmful content contributed to Brianna's death. But - much as I can understand the reduction in 'pester power' if everyone's in the same parenting boat - banning phone use in schools won't help anything if the kids switch them back on at the school gate.

I know what fucking board this is. What is your point? Are you saying BG wouldn't have been murdered had they not been trans? That's pretty disgusting when you think about it.

Some misguided and unhappy young people are going to claim and think they are trans and a lot of it is internet fuelled. No need to state the obvious.

This thread is so focused on BG's internet addiction and I still don't really understand why. It's what the killers saw on the internet that should be the main issue?

Parents. Shame the parents. Why is it always the mothers fault?

I agree but.

This thread is about Briannas Mother being a terrible parent. I don't see anyone shaming her father.

There is no need to be so rude.

It was clear from the reporting of the trial that the killers originally had another child as their intended victim, one who wasn't trans. In the comments made by the judge, it was stated that transphobia was only part of the motive for one of the killers. So Brianna's trans status was not necessarily the motive, probably more that Brianna was seen as incredibly vulnerable and therefore an easy target.

In terms of internet addiction, I Brianna's internet use is being discussed in this context in terms of the cause/contributing factors to vulnerability.

No need to swear at me.

Feel free to start a thread discussing exactly that in another board. No one is stopping you, and it’s clearly very important to you and I’ve no doubt an interesting discussion would be had.

But please don’t police threads. This one is specifically is discuss the campaign that Brianna’s mother has started, and the context around that.

Wait, aren’t trans activists constantly using BGs murder as proof of the constant peril of being murdered that trans people face??

I suppose phone addiction could potentially be linked with less engaged family around you?

I know if my family annoy me, I take refuge in my phone. Same could be said I suppose if your immediate family are otherwise alienated from you. Whether you're in the same place physically or not.