PHONES & KIDS

you don't know how comforting it is to read that you're also having these thoughts. i realise literally everyone has these questions and battles but it's incredibly... helpful to read your thoughts about it.

we're in the exact same boat. our 10-year-old has one of our old phones that has wi-fi but no cell connection. schools are still all-online here so phone/ipad is basically the only way for them to be in touch with friends. we let them use some borderline apps (snapchat, tiktok) bc so far they've demonstrated responsibility in terms of staying in safe areas of those apps (only being snapchat friends with people they actually know, having a private tiktok account with safe settings on, etc.). but it's definitely a slippery slope.

9 year old, ipad, definitely uses it to talk to people we’ve never met, but at least we know it’s other kids. she can’t have a phone until she’s 13 and all the other age restrictions online are lifted.

I mean it’s very much about keeping up with the joneses in terms of ensuring she has access to the platforms her friends are on, and it’s also about ensuring she knows how everything works and can start thinking about how to interact online.

Whatsapp is supposedly 16 and over lol

I was very confident in the 13-y-o thing but the realities of secondary school have shaken that conviction

I have Downtime enabled on both which is actually a huge help but it does mean that every five minutes I’ve pinged for access to something. Also their homework requires them to have access to YouTube which is just enraging because there’s no simple way to turn access on or off to specific websites, so I just have to have it on. It’s insane. It’s like setting a hungry kid in front of a big bowl of M&Ms and saying “don’t eat those! I’m going out of the room for an hour now”

Ha, our 13-year-old recently updated her Twitter account from 2004 or whatever to 2007 and immediately got her account suspended.

Her takeaways were 1.) She shouldn't have been on there in the first place and 2.) Why should it be so important to give a social network an accurate birthdate anyway?

We take our kids' (12 & 14) phones at night during the week - at 10pm. X-box fuckery aside, it's still the single biggest cause of conflict in the house. I teach secondary (12-16 in the UK) and it's a daily message that we're doing the right thing, though: the kids who clearly have their phones at all times are a nightmare of exhaustion and stale electricity.

I think that 10pm rule is a good one. We recently accidentally left her laptop that she has for school purposes in her room one night. She stayed on it until nearly midnight & was predictably a bear to deal with the next day.

My friends' 12 year old has Snapchat but not Tik Tok, but apparently keeps up with all the Tik Tok influencers through instagram. Largely however he learns & uploads dances on Dubsmash. This is all I know from my world of young person.

Can you guys get this all sorted out in the next 5 years please, then tell me the answer, cheers