So eldest OAB is heading for high school, and it will be 24 miles away. There are regular issues with the buses to and from the school, which added to ‘keeping up’ with him having some tech / a phone means we are considering a phone for him.
Old skool me says he should man up, have 10p for a call box etc etc, especially in light of managing bullying, porn etc – a bunch of parents here have just discovered a bunch of the kids passing around all sorts of sexts, images and links etc….
New school me says we should embrace it with a cheap PAYG, but manage it and monitor it (looking at Bemilo or at Vodafone with Guardian and Vodafone Family).
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So, your experiences of an 11 year old having a phone.
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Anyone use Bemilo or the Vodafone with Guardian and Family – again, your experiences.

If you don’t get it now, you’ll end up getting it in 6 months time. In fact, I’m surprised he isn’t pestering you for one already…

My daughter got her Blackberry a few months before her 12th birthday, she’d been going on about one for ages, and about half the girls in her class had a phone when she got hers. That was 15 months ago, they’ve all got one now.

Get a cheap Android and definitely PAYG. Don’t even think about sticking him on your contract, unless you’re loaded.

Oh, and the porn / bullying / whatever thing: I don’t monitor my daughter’s phone, but then I’ve been telling her for ages about the importance of not sending anything that you would be embarrassed to show your parents, or have all over school. If there were any indication of problems I wouldn’t hesitate to take it off her and check it out, and she knows that.

Both of my children got mobiles for their 11th Birthdays, both on contracts as part of the present. We just thought that when they needed to phone they would always be out of credit.

the pro’s

We can almost always get in touch if needed for last minute changes of plan after School, which happens a lot at high school, saves a bit of trouble.

Cons

Bit pricey, annoying when they forget to charge them

There has been ( so far ) no trouble with them getting them taken off them at School.

On Balance a good thing for us as a family.

EDIT. The above is from my POV, the kids love them of course ( Daughter more so than son)

PAYG and close monitoring a must. My daughter, who is communicative, thoughtful, and doesn’t tend to hide anything, got a string of texts asking her if she was still awake at about 10 the other night (her bed time is 8:30). Her mum looked picked up the phone, and none of us, daughter included, could figure out who it was that was texting.

So, yeah, PAYG and a close eye on what comes in and goes out.

No kids should have mobile phones

Most adults shouldn’t have them either

Complete waste of time and money that allows people to be completely disorganised

You’re right plumber.

Though, billions of people think you’re wrong.

Actually billions of people haven’t considered there is an option

****

spot the people who don’t have children and work to co-ordinate. . .

I will be getting my son one when he is 11, as he will sometimes have to travel across sheffield on his own on a bus – as I did when his older brother and sister went to senior school.

it will be basic, and primarily for safety.

Disorganised – thats laughable

Can you get a tarif with no internet or MMS?

It’s inevitable they’ll need one, just check the history if ur worried. Find the GPS apps interesting for tracking their movements too.

plumber – Member
No kids should have mobile phones

Most adults shouldn’t have them either

Complete waste of time and money that allows people to be completely disorganised
🙄

So eldest OAB is heading for high school, and it will be 24 miles away. There are regular issues with the buses to and from the school, which added to ‘keeping up’ with him having some tech / a phone means we are considering a phone for him.

we are not far off being in the same boat – but I would expect if there are really issues with the bus the school will be notifying you. The mobile makes it easy for him/her to “miss” the bus and expect you to bail them out.

Old skool me says he should man up, have 10p for a call box etc etc,

old school you is very out of date. You can’t get a call for 10p anymore… 60p minimum I think – and if (s)he is calling your mobile (assuming (s)he can remember the number) then it will be less than a minute for that – give you no change and get charged for being answered by your voice mail. It may actually be cheaper to get a phone! Not to mention that finding a payphone is near impossible when you need one.

especially in light of managing bullying, porn etc – a bunch of parents here have just discovered a bunch of the kids passing around all sorts of sexts, images and links etc….

i’d guess there is also bullying of the kids who don’t have cool phones?

Schools may notify more these days – sending out general texts to parents. however the school mine went to always insisted the buses were nothing to do with them and really didnt get involved.

when there’s 1400 pupils all going in different direction the emphesis is on the parent/child to sort out the journey.

Didn’t really have a problem with missing the bus ‘accidentally’ – made it quite clear that wasnt an option.

I can honestly say I havent had any worries about mobiles and bullying – but they didnt have facebook on their phone…..and lets not get started on kids and facebook

Cheers all for your opinions.

Eldest,now 13, got a mobile when she was 11. Very handy for when she does after school clubs, forgets kits, etc. Plus she is always texting her pals – not sure she actually talks on it though!
Started on PAYG but that was.a pain so now on the same deal as me from Tesco, £7.50/month.
Youngest daughters are 11 in May and will get a very cheap mobile each (already have iPod touch each) but probably on PAYG to start with to see how much they use it.

I’d always taken the ’10p (or more!) for a phone box’ line, but when our now 12 year old started going to secondary school on the bus we changed our minds, and it has worked out well. We bought him a basic Nokia and a PAYG SIM from Bemilo.

I was very underwhelmed by Bemilo at first, and we were going to drop it for a normal PAYG SIM, but he likes the feeling of safety and asked us to keep it! The parental controls were pretty unsophisticated, but they’ve just revamped their website and it is now much more nuanced. We can control the times he can use the phone, switch internet access on or off, and if we want to restrict calls and texts only to approved numbers we can do so. There’s a monthly fee of about £3, but I reckon it’s worth it. He’ll outgrow the restrictions before too long, but we can then just port his number across to a standard SIM.

I travel a lot for work and really value the extra route to communicate with my boy while I’m away – it’s great to get texts from him in the morning. He’s growing up in the 21st century and this is what kids do; I love the fact that he can comunicate with his mates, and with us, in this way. In my day I hogged the home phone in the hallway for hours on end, and I have no desire to relive what my parents went through with me!

And as for disorganisation he always used to lose scraps of paper with reminders on, but now keeps them all in one place on his phone and is much better organised as a result 🙂

[/quote] Old skool me says he should man up, have 10p for a call box[quote

60 pence min fee for a phone box

Reading other threads on here if you go for a contract do put a cap on the amount of bill they can run up or you’ll be posting on here about your daughter/sons £700 moobile bill…

You can get a parental contract with Vodaphone that offers some monitoring security etc, but most decent phones can be set up so you can track them and also monitor what they view on the internet and search for etc.

We could have used Bemilo for Ms Sandwich when she was a teenager. A good idea, starting with just time restrictions (no school time/bedtime calls) and reviewing would be the way I would approach it. Other restrictions on use if the service is abused. A basic phone too when they are young and upgraded around 13 to something a bit better.

60 pence min fee for a phone box

That’s if you can find one that takes cash. They’re mostly card-only round here.

Also have an interest in this thread
Eldest goes to ‘big’school in September
Modest peer pressure as usual suspect spoilt kids have better phones than me whilst in primary school!
Several mates already travel alone by bus with simple PAYG phones, this is appropriate IMHO

Deal we have struck is that she can have an old Nokia from the man drawer on PAYG in September and allowed to build up trust for a potential cheapish Android handset at Crimbo

A kid with a contract is asking for trouble, the Android will be bought outright and Giffgaffs goodybags look perfect, plus the GF is already on Giffgaff so free calls there as well

The trust thing is the biggie though, she currently has an email account which is being used approriately as far as we can tell. The agreement here is also that she gives us free access whenever we ask to police it or else its suspended. We havent asked so far……….. Yet.

Cheers

Eldest (15) daughters secondary school has a rule that you’re not allowed to use your phone at school, any being found with power on or used are confiscated – very fair

Youngest (12) daughters secondary school has a ‘no phones at all on school premises’ rule, which I think is unrealistic – if you’re working full time and trying to liaise around kids going to friends or after school clubs, or as with the other week everyone being sent home because of snow. I know most kids do have them, just keep them hidden.

Both are on a 100 minute contract, simple phones and never had a problem – when they had PAYG, they never had credit at the times they really needed the phone

More simple the phone, the better the battery life, and they always forget to charge them,

Your lad will either be at home, at school, or on the bus. If there is an issue with the bus there will be someone at the school on hand to sort it out. No school is going to let kids ‘free-range’ around highland Perthshire/Stirlingshire unsupervised.

Porn is an issue, but a much bigger issue is the bullying that goes on through Facebook and AskFM etc, as well as the potential for disruption/distraction in class. Any phone with a camera can cause issues for kids/teenagers too – from inappropriate photos to happy slapping.

IMO (as a PT Pupil Support) no child absolutely needs a mobile in school, although there is considerable pressure to have one. I have NEVER known a kid get a hard time for not having a phone, but I have seen many many disasters due to inappropriate use.

I have NEVER known a kid get a hard time for not having a phone, but I have seen many many disasters due to inappropriate use.

I suppose nobody at your school ever gets slagged for their choice of trainers or clothing either…

giffgaff (on O2) has a goodybag that allows 300 texts PLUS a bit of talk time every month. Means my daughter can text her mates on average ten times a day which I think is easily enough but she keeps talk time even when she’s exhausted the txt numbers (so she can phone us if she needs to – kids never call each other IME)

Has no parental controls as such though

When i started secondary school, which was about 7 years ago as i’ve just left. There wasn’t much pressure to get one, but obviously as you got a bit older there was. Sadly, it’s how kinds interact now, even with when you’re with friends they’re constantly texting other people, which can get annoying. A child without a phone would be a quite a disadvantage socially. I think if your child has a long journey to school, it’s pretty imperative to have one, in this day and age anyway, as it’s a social norm now. From my experience a child without a phone would be bullied for not having one, and you’re naive or slightly ignorant to think otherwise.

you need to check out the school playground more closely.. no1 daughter in year 5.. told us everybody has phones in her class. we asked parents and over half the girls in the class had thier own phones inc. one 9yr old with a iphone five thing..

Trainers and clothing are on display all day every day, and everyone can see them all the time. Occasionally there are issues, but rarely. I stand by what I said about never having known a kid get a hard time for not having a phone.

I deal with Facebook and text issues on a daily basis, often involving the wider community – including parents(!). I have kids on my caseload who have social workers allocated to help the whole family deal with their issues slagging each other off on Facebook. I’m talking intra-family here – members of the same family slagging each other off to the extent that it spills over in to the wider community.

The key issue is does your child know what constitutes responsible use, and can they stick to this?

EDIT: I would point out that I have occasionally encountered kids getting a hard time because they have a “cr@p” phone, but even this is unusual. Kids who have the latest phone are far more likely to have it stolen or be broken, especially if they flash it about.

Hi All
We have an 11 year old and recently go him a HTC desire C on contract, its capped and insured. We can also track him through an app called http://www.yougetitback.com we can find its location via the same app on our iphones, we know where he is, even now he is on a scout hike around bollington and can see him via google maps and I know his exact location, we can also lock the phone from this app as well so if its taken from him or he looses it we can find the phone and lock it remotely. The contract is cheaper, £5 on PAYG doesnt last long. We just try and educate him to use it wisely.

poly – Member

I suppose nobody at your school ever gets slagged for their choice of trainers or clothing either…

You probably think school uniforms would alleviate that problem, don’t you?
😆

🙄

No kid needs a mobile. They’re just an expensive toy to a child.
If you must give in and get your child a mobile, you can always get one that doesn’t have internet connectivity.
That way you can avoid the guilt that comes with the shitstorm that giving a child unsupervised access to the internet will inevitably bring. 💡

Personally I detest mobile phones. They are a symbol of a lot of things I don’t like about people today. I hate the fact I live my life by the mobile and its reminders about everything and its calls to remind me about things. Why on gods earth would I want to encourage my kids into this process?

My 10yr old wants one and I have so far succeeded in keeping him away from too much to do with them . My compromise was a phone I had in a draw which we topped up with £5 credit. That lasted 6mths. He gets the phone when he goes off to play footy at a pitch out of sight and we call him to let him know its dinner time.

Absolutely no reason for a kid to have one other than pandering to peer pressure.

A kid with a contract is asking for trouble

Why would that be?
Tesco contracts can be capped which is what I’ve done with our so she can’t go over the £7.50/month. Shouldn’t need to either with 250 mins, 2000 txt and 500mb data!

It does txt’s and phone calls.

What else does the kid need?

It does txt’s and phone calls.

What else does the kid need?

And snake!

Eh?
You hate phones,there’s no need for a child to have one (other than peer pressure apparently) and have kept you son away from them.
But you’ve given him a phone to use so you can call him.
Make you mind up.

Absolutely no reason for a kid to have one other than pandering to peer pressure.

Doesn’t that apply to most things children want?

I can’t see what the fuss is about. My daughter has had a contract phone since she went to High School. Porn/bullying/excess call charge issues are all about parenting skills not the fact of having a phone.

you need to check out the school playground more closely.. no1 daughter in year 5.. told us everybody has phones in her class. we asked parents and over half the girls in the class had thier own phones inc. one 9yr old with a iphone five thing..

My son had his first phone in Year 4, aged 8, once he started playing out, going to friends houses etc.

I don’t see the problem, why fight against progress and technology? Mobiles make life so much easier when you have kids and all the organising, meeting up, clubs etc.

Also, it allows them to communicate with their mates. So much better than having to walk all the way round to their house to play, only to find they are not in!

The issue is not “does a child need a phone?” but rather “does a child need a smartphone phone which does more than calls and txts?”

(Which is where the internet/pr0n/facebook/etc comes in)

Answer: No.

Answer: No.

I agree. My youngest two want phones for their 11th birthday – I suspect they’re not expecting an old Nokia each 🙂