Kids, Mobiles & Social Networks

Hoseman

I want to open a discussion on the wonderful topic of mobiles, social networks and kids to get feedback from other parents.

I have a 12 year old daughter and she travels to school (takes half an hour approx) so she has a mobile. At primary school she was, with 1 other girl, the only one from a class of around 30 to not have a mobile which I found odd if I'm totally honest.

There is a lot of peer pressure for using a mobile and social networks but I don't want my daughters face stuck in a phone for long periods of time. At the end of the day I want to ensure she's safe (travelling to school) and also with her online activity. At the moment she has an Instagram account and Ive just learnt she has opened a Twitter account which I'm not happy about. That's it from a social point of view but she does have chat apps too.

Ive explained a few times about being safe and that what she does online is public. Not to reveal her location to anyone. She was taught this at school but I wanted to re-iterate this point.

There needs to be a balance of course but I'd like to know how other parents manage this. Any tips/advice from anyone in the same boat or that has been down this road?

z.n

We opted for basic (no internet) payg phone plus an ipod touch. Phone gets used for texting but DD can see balance go down. Ipod gets used at home with various filters etc in place via router. Internet goes off at 9pm so as not to disturb bedtime. Accounts opened on fb but that's it (so far as I know)- and mainly used for IM friends.

Armorica

Of the four children, only the 14 year old girl is online/social. (Teen boy is into youtube videos/xbox rather than anything social).

My gmail account receives copies of her emails. From this I can see any signing up for accounts on other sites and messages received through facebook. They tend to use their phone through wi-fi, for which we use OpenDNS to filter the worst excesses.

moomoomama27

My middle child, a daughter, is almost 12. She has a mobile, she had it once she started to walk herself to school. We top it up once a month, and it lasts her the duration. It's not a fancy phone, it does what it needs to. We have rules with it, she must text once she gets to school so I know she's safe, and it's then there for emergencies, it gets handed in once she comes back from school, and until all homework us done, then she has it back, and texts a few friends etc, looks at cat video as etc on YouTube She must return it to me half hour before bedtime, and it is then returned to her in the morning when the routine starts all over again.

We had a talk with her, and the above was agreed with her input, not all dictated by us.

I don't believe any child under 13 should have Facebook, so social networking is not a problem. Internet usage at home is monitored and we have parental controls on the computers etc that the youngest two use.

hgotsparkle

I think a lot of it is down to young kids having the latest smart phone.
I know of some 8 and 9 year olds that have the iPhone 5, plus an iPad! I don't even have that!
If kids were given basic talk and text phones until they're able to pay for their own contract, and time online is supervised, then they won't be glued to it so much, but thats not going to happen.

I hate that we live in a technological society, everything is now aimed at being online. I don't want to do everything online.

I had a Nokia 3310 when I was 11 and started going to secondary scool but that was because I was walking with friends there and back. Smart phones weren't really a thing then, being back in 2001 but it served its purpose.
The PC was loacted on the upstairs landing so anyone walking past could see what I was doing, and I wasn't allowed my own PC in my room until I was 17 and bought my own. I don't even spend much time on a PC now, only when I'm at work or OH is watching football so I play a game on the tablet.
If they see i as something thats the norm, they'll be engrossed by it.

Hoseman

I agree about kids having the latest smartphones... really?

I have a Samsung Galaxy SIII that is spare now and I dont want to give it to her as her current smartphone (Huawei) is pretty rubbish and this will just open up a whole new world of possibilities. Im tempted to donwgrade her to a non smartphone.

The other thing we need to consider is all the data that is being collected about us through all these apps/social networks. As adults we can make that decision. Kids don't have a clue really and are unlikely to care.

j.e.j.

It makes you wonder how on earth we all managed in the days before mobile phones, doesn't it :rotfl: We all managed to get ourselves to and from school without too much difficulty, though granted there were more phone-boxes around then if you needed to call someone.

Personally, fwiw I wouldn't let a 12-year-old have a Twitter or Facebook account. I'm too old to know what an Instagram account is , but I have my doubts about letting a child on there, too.

It must be difficult for parents now, because you don't want your kid to be isolated from their peers, yet you know what's going to happen once you open that Pandora's box that is the internet. She's just going to be on there for hours at a time.

Janepig

DD had a phone last year (I think she was ten), it wasn't a fancy thing, not smart phone or anything - it was the cheapest phone you could get on a capped contract from Tesco. She then got DS's old Blackberry when he upgraded, but barely uses it, it's only now that she's in comp that she rings me when she's on the way home or if she wants a lift home etc...

What she does use to death is her ipod touch, and personally I prefer the combo of a cheapy phone and an ipod. She can message her friends and go on all the apps she wants on her ipod. She never texts her friends from her phone. She's also not encouraged to use it in school either like she might be if she had a better phone. She also doesn't take the ipod to bed either - bed time is no phones, no tv, etc..... One of her friends is still posting on instagram at gone midnight! No wonder she's always late for school.

I don't know how any of her friends' parents can afford iphones and the like for their kids. I've been pricing them and there's no way DD will be getting one.

To be honest I wouldn't know how many of her friends have phones, etc.... You know what kids are like anyway, "oh yes, I've got an iphone at home, my mother never lets me bring it out" excuse for the ones that never get seen.

Jx

bylromarha

Lots of kids in my year 2 class have an iphone - they have their parents hand me downs. Parent upgrades to iphone 5, child gets iphone 4.

Had some online safety training a few months back, and the guy used a great system with his family. They have a card which any child can turn from green to red which is a sign for the parent to go to talk to the child and ask lots of questions of them, so the child can agree or disagree with a yes or no answer. ie "I know something is bothering you. Is that at school?" "no" "Is it at home?" "no" "have you seen something you don't like?" "yes" "have you seen it on tv?" "no" "The internet?" "yes"...you get the picture. Thought that was a really powerful way of helping kids feel safe online as "there's a boy on my twitter feed who keep wanting me to meet with him, and I've sent him 2 pictures already" is a big sentence for a 13 year old to launch into. But breaking it down in that questioning way makes it easier for them to say.

Conversely, he also told us about the secret facebook and gmail account he discovered his daughter had, so don't think you've got it all monitored as a parent, as his daughter got round him, the online safety expert, for 4 months. Monitoring is a poor 2nd best to teaching online safety.

Thanks to those who've said how you deal with it in your house. My son is off to secondary next year, and he copes pretty well with peer pressure at the moment. It'll be a whole new ball game at secondary!

tyllwyd

I've got a 15 year old daughter and she was quite late to have a smart phone, but she's had a laptop since she was about 11.


I think trying to police too tightly what social media accounts etc they have is counter-productive - it doesn't take them long to work out that they can create any number of new webmail addresses and sign up to things without you knowing. And they are teenagers, so is it really fair to stand over them every second watching what they are saying online - they need a bit of space to learn to grow up and how to interact. They are growing up in a very different world to my generation (40's) and they need to learn how to look after themselves and what can go wrong online, and part of being a teenager is trying things out.


My approach is to be very clear in a general way - don't give out personal information, don't think that pictures/messages online are private or will stay private, be aware that there are lots of crazy people online and don't get drawn in, and if there is a problem, come and tell me. If they are forbidden to interact online, they might be too scared of getting into trouble with you to come and tell you when they need help.


It's not perfect but we have to learn to trust our teenagers a bit, I prefer to give guidelines and advice rather than forbidding.

adjests

We have conditions similar to those MoomMoom describes above.
My daughter was the only one in her junior school not to have a phone – but we gave her one when she started secondary/senior school. She had to carry out household chores to ‘earn’ money to buy a phone – the contract I pay for.
Things move on and unfortunately for us having a mobile phone is vital part of their social interaction. I imagine it would be a whole lot worse if she was the only one without one in secondary school. You should have seen the look on her face, when I said “you could write her a letter”.
I don’t understand giving a child an iphone but then many parents do. Her three closest friends all have iphones, 2 of them have the new iphone 6 and then the friend’s mother moans about not having any money.
I sat down and explained some ground rules – don’t be mean in texts/email, no selfies etc etc. She’s pretty sensible at the moment, but I’m waiting for the teenage tantrums to really kick in. She’s been told, If I’m unhappy in about phone use, I’ll stop paying for the contract and she’ll have to fund the her phone herself. My biggest problem is the in-laws who bought her an iphone 5, fantastic paperweight. That’ll teach them.
If you’re really worried about use, have a look at apps such as Applock, Life360, Norton parental control.