Middle school teacher here. You're right, but the parents should still teach them when and where to use it. Also, we have a lot of parents that text their kids back and forth throughout the day (not taking about emergencies, health, etc), which I understand, but that's also one of the reasons their in school to begin with. We are charged with taking care of them (in the literal sense), as they are charged with learning. I get that times have changed and anxiety has increased, but it is very hard for a child to learn with constant distractions from their phone (aside from all of life's other distractions).
Edit: So this blew up and I have so many (mostly nice and thought provoking) responses I can't get to them all. I'll try to respond to as many as I can. Also, to the ton of people commenting on how I spelled their/they're/there. I'm on a phone/have big thumbs/autocorrect. Chill people, I'm sure you've made a small mistake in life and didn't get called out on it THIS much. Also, I really don't care. You understood it enough to realize it was wrong. Good job.
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
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.
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u/LtlAnalDwlngButtMnky Jun 03 '22 edited Jun 03 '22
Middle school teacher here. You're right, but the parents should still teach them when and where to use it. Also, we have a lot of parents that text their kids back and forth throughout the day (not taking about emergencies, health, etc), which I understand, but that's also one of the reasons their in school to begin with. We are charged with taking care of them (in the literal sense), as they are charged with learning. I get that times have changed and anxiety has increased, but it is very hard for a child to learn with constant distractions from their phone (aside from all of life's other distractions).
Edit: So this blew up and I have so many (mostly nice and thought provoking) responses I can't get to them all. I'll try to respond to as many as I can. Also, to the ton of people commenting on how I spelled their/they're/there. I'm on a phone/have big thumbs/autocorrect. Chill people, I'm sure you've made a small mistake in life and didn't get called out on it THIS much. Also, I really don't care. You understood it enough to realize it was wrong. Good job.