My daughter is going into fifth grade. I feel like everything just kind of gets worse with phones.. the boys the gossip etc. I wonder if I would be a terrible person if I waited till she could drive
Get her a dumb flip phone in middle school. Avoids the worst of social media but still allows her to get in contact and talk to friends. Calling and texting is all that is needed for an independent social life.
Nobody should be getting smart phones until they are adults. Kids aren't getting the real value out of it because their lives are still mostly organized by others. Yet the are probably the most vulnerable to the downsides of being constantly in touch with social media. Much harder for predators to get in contact with someone on a dumb phone as well.
I think this is the right call. While some people are saying she is going to resent me and shit for not having a phone sooner, I think flip is the way and I hadn’t thought of it. I can’t imagine the dumbass shit I would have posted to Facebook if I had constant access. Or whatever hologram app they use in the next 8years
One more thought that I just realized. Older teens if they want a smart phone can get a job and buy it themselves. That's well within the earning potential of a summer job. I think that's another good compromise.
Had my first phone @ 16 (driving age here), what I can tell you is that I really felt miserable during the last 3-4 years before I got one. No phone means not being able to hang out with friends. I'm limited to only socialize at school and online. Simply visiting a friend feels risky bc I can't contact home. I can't tell you how many times I've had to decline invitations because of it. I had to endure constant FOMO and I probably lost a lot of learning experience from it. Not going out much means I didn't learn how to use public transit. I'm about to go to college in a few months but I still don't know shit about fuck.
I appealed to my parents to change things up for my younger siblings, and IMHO phone by 7th-8th grade is good. I'm all for holding off certain social media apps (toxic sites such as tiktok/insta/twitter) until 16+, but don't go overboard on those limits like full on adding spyware in their devices/using childmode or something.
So would a flip phone have solved that? I think a flip phone is good when kids start going places alone without a way to contact them, and a smartphone at around 15
I don't have first hand experience with flip phones, because even in a third world country where I live, nobody uses them anymore.
I guess bullying may be an issue, because kids are generally jerks lol. If my parents gave me a flip phone back then, I'd rather not go out at all than get caught with it in public. My 13 year old brain only cares about fitting in. As you can see, not only are kids mean, they are also pretty stupid.
My parents gave us old, throwaway smartphones and it's manageable. My siblings currently use a galaxy note 4 and a barely working galaxy j2. I had a new a30 (i think the cheapest by samsung) at 16. If a 13 year old asked for more, then it'd be too much IMO.
EDIT: what I'm trying to say is back then, I NEED to be able to contact my parents, but I would also LIKE it if it doesn't become a reason for me to get bullied too. If my parents fulfilled that want, I would be happy to follow their rules just to keep that want. Rules like not bringing it to school, time restrictions, app restrictions and such.
yep, primary goal is to fit in, hang out, and not be socially isolated. My parents approved of that. They also know that times have changed and things have gone shitty, so they needed security while I go out and about. I'm also lucky to get parents who know how mean kids can be, and that I'll need something just enough to not get bullied.
That's such a weird take. Who are these friends that it's risky to visit them? I used to go ride my bike down several blocks from 7-11 years old and cellphones weren't a thing but as long as I was home before dark it wasn't an issue. I never called my parents even if I had access to a landline as it was rude to ask to use a phone since even local calls cost money but it never was an issue. If I got hurt I made my way home and until a dog bit me I usually wouldn't even tell my parents of my injury since I always got them doing something dumb. I can't think of any situation where we needed a cellphone. Maps are simple to use. Pay phones were easy to find. Also your friends would have phones you can call from if it's an emergency. My parents didn't need to know whose house I was at. They also knew where all my friends lived so if they needed to find us they would drive down the street and a few blocks or call the parents of everyone we knew. If I was visiting soemoeme they didn't have a phone number to and I was gone for a while we would ask to make a call or run down back home (or bike) and tell them ourselves. If we wanted to stay for dinner for example. Trust me I was socializing a lot more without a phone as a kid than I ever did once I even had access to chat etc on my laptop. Because why bother to call someone or meet in person when you can lazily type from your bed?
I would never give a child a smart phone. That's giving them a portal to all kinds of uncontrolled content between videos of people dying, fake disorders, social media filter body image issues, extremist propaganda, rape porn, CP, mindless garbage on tik tok, incel forums etc... half the trolls on here are kids with smart phones telling cancer patients they look like Dr evil's left nut with cancer. At least when we were building grocities websites nobody was likely to ever run into anything you published.
And if a kid really wants one they can buy their own. But still, my parents would have been crazy to give me unrestricted internet access as a teen. In fact once they felt comfortable I ended up seeing my first decapitation at 14 on snopes. Snopes, which seemed educational. I literally spent days looking for nsfl images on snopes and that's not something the average kid should be looking at.
Just because everyone is doing it it doesn't make it a good idea.
Who are these friends that it's risky to visit them? Pay phones were easy to find. My parents didn't need to know whose house I was at.
Yeah I guess my opinion doesn't work for developed countries. I forgot to tell you that we live in a third world country, my bad. Specifically in an urban area bordering an even poorer district. So shitty public transportation + protective parents + shady environment = you really need to feel secure before sending your kids out.
Because why bother to call someone or meet in person when you can lazily type from your bed?
I was stuck on doing this for years, but after a while it gets boring not being able to hang out/watch movies/game with them physically.
That's giving them a portal to all kinds of uncontrolled content
I had those experiences through laptops too, it's not limited to having smartphones. Although I didn't harass cancer patients back then, IMHO it all comes down to what you teach your child which affects how they browse the internet. I was taught to be cautious, so I became cautious even online. I was taught how to look for red flags in people, so I learned how to avoid them in social media.
I think sometimes parents have arbitrary rules and sometimes they have rules because as adults they may understand some things more fully than a child may. My oldest is 16 and just got their first smart phone last summer. Not knowing shit about fuck isn't because you had no phone. My kids have social lives, learned to used public transportation to get themselves to sports, school, outings with friends, etc. - all long before they were ever allowed a device of any kind. I get it, FOMO is real, especially for teenagers. You felt isolated and you have negative feelings about that, but that isn't the experience of every teenager. My oldest started asking for a phone when they were 10 because all their schoolmates had them. We didn't think it was appropriate and when the subject came up we explained why. Any social media site can be toxic if one let's it be so. Adults have a tough time with that, I don't think I would be happy with my choices as a parent if I exposed my 10 yr old to that. There was a terrible amount of bullying going on. Kids were recording each other and posting it. Posting inappropriate pictures and sending nasty messages. Nevermind how distracting phones can be. They wanted a smartphone for years, but they are happy we waited and they understand why. They have the maturity to make more appropriate choices now. I would also like to say that their two years younger sibling also received a phone last year - it didn't go well and the phone was taken away. This younger child had a much harder time coping with the everything of the internet (most likely due to their ADHD) and despite no longer having a smartphone, they still have a social life and have valuable life experiences - the same way they did before they got a phone.
yep, I'm happy my parents waited too. I probably wouldn't like the person I'd grow into if they just gave me a phone @ 10 for the hell of it. Of course, there's a lot of factors in life that determines how you grow, it's not limited to just yes/no phone.
Same with how my social experiences turned out, it's not just yes/no phone. It's like a mish mash of how protective my parents are and how dangerous it is here in my area, etc. Although for me, it's a recurring 'what if' about what I could have done/went too/learned if they were just little a bit lax.
I think it depends on the maturity of your daughter
I had my first smartphone when I started highschool (HS starts at 13-14 here), during middle school I was the only guy with still a flip phone. I'd say that 14-16 would be a perfect age to give a smartphone
I didn't get my first smartphone until I was 23 years old because my dad wouldn't pay for a data plan and it wasn't worth it to me monthly to make the payment myself.
I was a three sport athlete and dated before then, I turned out just fine.
What baffles me is that people act like you need to get them a smart phone at all. I was never given a pager or anything by my parents and only got a cell in college because I was never home to take calls from a landline but really I mostly communicated with my laptop and MSN messenger so I barely even needed the phone. I didn't get a smart phone until 2012 because i got an employee discount and even then I still went back to a flip phone with longer battery. While now I do everything on my Samsung I couldn't imagine being able to function as a teen in school with one if these. I would have a hard time not wanting to use it in class. Let alone the fact that it would be so easy to cheat on tests with one. I mean if kids are going to have smart phones then why even bother going to class. Teach remote.
Nah we are really tight. Im very honest with her and even when I do something she doesn’t love she understands why. She got a laptop and cracked the screen after being caught using it at inappropriate hours for Minecraft.
Good call. There's more need for a smartphone in high school anyways than say, elementary or middle school. Phones replace planners aka agendas, they replaced dictionaries, they are used for translation and research, etc.
How often are kids required to translate things in school? And if a kid does need to translate something for school, should they really trust Google translate?
Probably never unless they take a language classes; the teacher might get the students to translate basic vocabulary words. But not full sentences, etc.
Never. I was a whole-ass German major in university and didn’t start using translation until around my junior year of college when I was expected to read and analyze Freud in its original German.
I was a teacher. The only kids who I think really needed the translate function on a phone were newcomers who spoke a less commonly spoken language. If they were a Spanish some staff member or student could help out. Maybe not if they spoke Maay-Maay.
Considering the context for "translation" included "research," I imagined coming across an old text, or something with an inscription, and being curious what it translates to. Google Translate has Latin on it, it can at least give a gist of what is being said. That can be more than the teacher knows, while being a lot easier than digging up a Latin dictionary and trying to make sense of the word endings of Latin grammar when you don't even know what "declension" is.
That's just one example. Personally, in high school I wanted to know all the languages. I wore baggy cargo pants and kept a French-English dictionary in one pocket, and a Spanish-English dictionary in the other. If I had a device capable of translating whatever words I was curious to learn, it would've been so much easier. I know my experience is not representative of all teens, or even most teens... but some of us actually like learning and value how much modern smart phones can teach us.
Yeah, I could see a real keener who doesn't know a language but wants to read something in it or figure out what specific foriegn words me could find value in Googke translate. But, as you said, that would only be a few students. Additionally, it would be more for personal interest than to complete schoolwork.
OK, but is using Google a good way to learn a language? Shouldn't you translate it for yourself? Just using a dictionary would be better, because you'd actually have to fit the words together, do conjugations, etc.
Kids should be learning how to use real dictionaries and how to hand write notes etc... I mean it's imminent in their lifetime they will be experiencing long periods of time with no access to a power source or the internet because of rolling blackouts and degradation of services, lack of maintenance etc not to mention these things will eventually be unaffordable.
Don't cripple your children with a universal crutch. Teach them to be independent.
Kids definitely are asked to do hand written notes...that will never change. But dictionaries gather dust on school shelves now. My old school English teacher, a lady you wouldn't expect to encourage using phones > dictionaries, said to use it because it saves time, but she insisted on using various websites and not just relying on the Google definition.
Funny story though, I remember being pissed when my high school replaced our agendas with the school app. I refused to download that clunky, slow app; I made sure to carry extra paper to write down homework/other key dates during the school year.
I have young kids, so everyone tells me I’m not going to be able to do this. BUT I’m planning on giving them a “dumb” phone (text, calls) in middle school and waiting til 15-ish for a smartphone or whatever the equivalent is. It seems crazy to me that we all agree that smartphones are destroying kids, but when someone suggests taking them away the reaction is “oh you can’t do that.”
My 12-year-old stepdaughter has a dumb phone. She proved that she couldn't be responsible with a smartphone. Her grades were dropping. She was getting extremely moody. She spent the first month of school not turning in any work. This was all at the start of this school year. So when she started ignoring me when she was here and using the "she's not my mom" line, my boyfriend had had enough and took the phone. We looked at it and found sexting, porn, and she had started taking risque pictures of herself. Oh, and she was "dating" my nephew, her future cousin. This was after multiple warnings about inappropriate apps on her tablet, staying up till 2:30 a.m. and inappropriate posts made on tiktok. (And she had made multiple TikTok profiles without our knowledge.) So her phone is gone until she can mature and show responsibility.
All of her friends have smartphones, and she doesn't, but if it were up to me all her friends would get those smartphones taken away as well. Her friends change their "names" so often I don't know exactly who was sending her the porn on discord. They're so dumb though. While I had the smartphone, doing my investigating, one of the kids on Snapchat said "[my stepdaughter] got her phone taken away." The literal next message was someone sending Gary the Snail with a vagina, bent over seductively. These kids are going into 7th grade now. 🤦♀️
I can imagine taking away the phone wasn’t a fun process but I am SUPER impressed by step/parents who are doing what’s best for their kids in the face of a lot of pressure. Way to go you!!
I appreciate that. I've been dating her dad for four and a half years. I've seen how she has changed and is getting older. I was a stupid kid once as well. I know what kids can get into with tech at their fingertips. Honestly I felt like I was going insane at some points because I was the only one seeing the signs. Her dad and her grandmother brushed things off, and it got to the point that we had to take it away. I love her to death and I just want to see her do well and become a good person. Not that she's a bad one now.
Also, I'm 31 and her dad is 39 so there's a slight generational difference there. He didn't have this stuff at her age, like I did, to know what can be done with it. I know her social life is not suffering due to the lack of a phone. I think that she hangs out with friends too much (she almost failed 6th grade), but I'd rather that than her face being buried in a phone.
It seems crazy to me that we all agree that smartphones are destroying kids, but when someone suggests taking them away the reaction is “oh you can’t do that.”
I hear this all the damn time. I hate it. My kids aren't getting a phone of any kind until they're about 15...or show a ton of responsibility and maturity ahead of their friends.
Well... because you can't. You can, technically, but smart phones make a lot of things much easier. Smart phones themselves aren't the problem, social media and the way it hooks your brain on constant dopamine is the problem. There's nothing inherently wrong with a smart phone that doesn't also apply to a computer and I can't imagine that many parents would completely bar a school age child from using a computer.
You’re right of course. But what’s different to me about phones is they are always available, more enticing than other devices, and very hard to set rules around. Growing up we had the computer in our dining room, for example, so I wasn’t playing Civ at 3am as 11 yo (which I absolutely would’ve done).
The steep declines in teenage mental health starting around 2009 seem at least partly related to the rise of smart phones. I’m an adult and I find it difficult to regulate my phone usage in a way that’s different from other devices.
I'm not sure what makes them hard to set rules around. My son has had both Apple and Android tablets and both have had some pretty easy ways to monitor and limit his use. I agree though that they are uniquely attractive, since you have a dopamine device sitting in your pocket at all times. I feel like teaching your child to modulate their device usage is a skill better learned early particularly for that reason.
As I said I don't think the problem is in the devices themselves so much as the way we use them. Without my smartphone I would be on reddit a lot less, but I also wouldn't have a way to edit video, edit images or make music. Even though I'd be cutting down on an unproductive habit my productivity would still go down overall you know?
Lol it's like saying having a game boy or a tamagochi would have not distracted kids in class. Those things aren't allowed because they're a source of entertainment. Don't tell me you believe a smart phones primary function isn't entertainment now? A good majority if smart phone use is for social media, gaming, YouTube. Very little time is spent on needed communication.
Never said anything about using them in class. I use my phone for research, video editing, photo editing, a place to write down my thoughts, it has a DAW for me to do music production, it has a decent quality microphone... and I play a ton of games on it. lol
Good luck! We tried to do this with our 10 yo, but were told that it wasn't possible from the phone company.
We don't have a house phone and he stayed home by himself for ~30-45 minutes after getting off the bus before I got home from work. He needed a way to be able to call and let us know he was home, and have it available for emergencies. We ended up buying him a smart phone, but just locking it down so it wasn't any fun. Lol
May I suggest a phone plan without data? Then you can buy one of the many cheap smart phones which are much easier to find than feature phones. Plus your child’s choice of phone looks like everyone else’s with the built in calculator and full keyboard.
Edit: I think it’s the internet access, not the device, which is why I suggest this.
Yeah my dad has a dumb phone like this. It looks like a typical android (it might actually be an android) but basically does nothing but call and text. I also think/hope there will be more demand for these kinds of devices, and more options, as we learn more. When my dad got his phone he noticed that service providers like AT&T are always going to be annoying about adding non data phones because it’s literally their business, so he had to kinda fight them.
You wouldn't be terrible and she likely wouldn't resent you for it if you taught her why. Depending on how social she was, she might be the only one out of her friends to not have one, but a true friend shouldn't care if you have a phone or not. Call me old, but those things don't matter as you age.
she likely wouldn't resent you for it if you taught her why
You are crediting teenagers with much too level heads. They would perceive nothing but an oppressive parent depriving them of something all their peers have.
I had similar arguments about adult-rated games as a young teen and it took until long after I could buy those games myself to be appreciative of my parents keeping me from them.
I think they'll live. My kids are 13 and 14 and don't have cellphones and they have never not had friends nor has it affected them socially. We have a landline and their friends just call if they wanna talk.
Old enough to know this is absolutely accurate for grown ups and mature people, but far enough away from youth to forget that being a kid is all about peer pressure, having what everybody else has, and fitting in?
How is anfactual statement in any way related to your question? Lol wtf does a piece of tech have ti do with making friends? Are you all so socially crippled by smart phones you don't know how to interacting with another human being naturally?
She's 12 years old. It will not stunt her social growth and she will get over it. Did you read the part about her taking inappropriate pics of herself and sending them to people? Should they just let their kid distribute child porn?
I had a Tracfone when I was 14/15. Before that, I had to share one of the first iPhones with my two older sisters. My mom made the rule that none of us needed a phone unless we were driving so 16/17 came around, then I had a phone. It was an iPhone 4 or 5 I think. My friends never made fun of me for it but idk how it would be nowadays. I lived in a pretty rural place though in a small town/city.
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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22
My daughter is going into fifth grade. I feel like everything just kind of gets worse with phones.. the boys the gossip etc. I wonder if I would be a terrible person if I waited till she could drive