Cell Phones
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
+100 Your family is not that important that your rule overrides school rules. Get over yourself. This is so ridiculous. |
Anonymous
I'm the original poster of the bit about a family rule. I wouldn't just blatantly have my kids ignore the school's rules, but neither would I allow the school rule to mean my kids drive carpools to/from school or use the metro to travel to after school activities without a cell phone. To me that is not safe, and it is not an option I'm open to unless there are literally no other options for my children's education. If my kids' school had a rule that seriously conflicted with this particular major family rule I would either: (1) work out an acceptable compromise with the school officials. Schools in the area where I live that don't usually allow cell phones (elementary schools) all have a process whereby a principal can grant special permission via waiver if the parent can satisfy the official that the phone is for logistics/safety of the child before or after school. or (2) find a way to switch my kids to another school which would allow cell phones to be possessed in the building but not used during the day |
Anonymous
I'm the poster to whom you responded, and I agree that we are not important enough to be above the rules. However, certain family rules are important enough to me personally that I will seek out alternative school placements or work to have a school policy officially changed before I would simply choose to let go of the family rule in question. This hasn't come up since my kids' school allows cell phones, and maybe I would end up sending them without their phones and compromising our family rule if that was truly the best solution, but before I did that I would at least want to consider other options because I consider our cell phone rule so important for both safety and family logistics. |
Anonymous
|
I am curious to know why a student must have a cell phone on his person for "safety reasons".
It wasn't that long ago that the possession of a cell phone on MCPS property was a criminal offense and students were regularly arrested. I don't ever recall a student dying, suffering a serious injury, or being kidnapped because he didn't have a cell phone on his person. |
Anonymous
Please provide evidence such as a link to a newspaper article. |
Anonymous
In most circumstances I don’t think cell phones are necessary for kids’ safety at school during school hours while actively supervised by school staff; however I am convinced they are essential before and after school for reasons of both safety and convenience as described below. In order for my kids to have their phones during the commute to and from school, and after school, they need to at least be able to take them in the school building. If this is ever not permitted by their school, I will work to change the policy or I will make alternate schooling arrangements. Keeping the phone on their person is only preferable to having it in their locker (1) during a major family crisis, or (2) if there’s been a recent problem of theft from lockers, because keeping the phone with them is a very active defense against theft. I consider having a cell phone on one’s person or rapidly accessible to be a safety issue for several reasons related to my kids specifically, our family situation/schedules, and experiences I had growing up that are firmly in my memory as things I want my kids to avoid being faced with. These may or may not be reasons that would apply to another family, and perhaps as my kids get older or school policies change I might have to re-evaluate. But since you asked, my reasoning, in no particular order of importance, is: 1. One of my girls is very shy and struggles with anxiety. Being able to check in after school and confirm that the plan has not changed during the day, or to let me know if there has been a change such as a cancelled practice/meeting, is very helpful to her and she uses the knowledge that she can contact me, DH, or her sisters if necessary as a sort of lifeline to make herself more comfortable in new or challenging situations. 2. My younger kids will usually walk to school in the mornings with a somewhat large group of neighborhood kids, the oldest of whom is in 5th grade. I’m not particularly worried about safety -- the parents all checked out the route and had the kids agree on rules before making this arrangement, and we all think giving the kids this kind of independence is important if it can be done safely -- but if something unexpected happens on the way to school someone needs to be able to contact one of the parents or an older sibling for assistance. Therefore, there is a need for cell phones. And if the cell phone is needed on the way to and home from school, it must necessarily be in the school building with the kid during the day. 3. My older (HS age) kids generally get themselves to and from school, and to some other activities. I will occasionally give them permission to head into DC with a group of friends after school for a specific defined activity. I would never be willing to do this if they didn't have a phone so that they could call me in the event of a question or issue, navigate if they got lost, text for bus/train times, and call the police in an emergency. 4. In the highly unlikely event of a lockdown or other emergency (a real one, not a drill) my kids and I will feel safer if we can communicate. My mother is a teacher in another district and says that her district allowed students with cell phones to use them to text parents when they had a lockdown extend past normal school hours once, and again when they had a school-wide evacuation for a bomb threat. I don’t know if our district would allow this since we haven’t had an emergency like this so far, but if they did allow it I would want my kids to have phones so we could keep in touch and I could provide reassurance. 5. Our schedules are absolutely crazy, so being able to keep in touch and let the rest of the family know your plans, where you are, and your ETA somewhere else, is important. This is both a convenience issue and a question of safety. Someone not traveling with you should always know where you are and roughly when to expect you to check in or arrive somewhere else. 6. Cell phones are extremely important for when the above-mentioned crazy schedules cause a major change of plans There have definitely been times where my/DH’s work commitments forced this -- such as needing my sister to pick the kids up from school instead of my being able to do so like usual. While I did call the school in this instance, I also texted each child so they would have a message from me waiting after school to confirm the new plan. Delivery of notes or calls from the office to classrooms is not guaranteed within the last part of the school day, and I did not find out about the change to my schedule until well within that timeframe, so the texts to the girls were something I considered important in case the school failed to deliver the message or was delayed in doing so. 7. I do not ever wish to place my kids in a position where they are dependent on someone for the ability to contact an adult they trust for assistance if needed. I am raising young women who take responsibility for themselves to the extent possible and feel empowered to get help if and when they need it -- so I don’t want them stuck hoping that someone else has a phone, and extra minutes, and is allowed to let friends borrow it. This is important to me both because I want to raise children who feel confident and independent in their ability to handle situations and because I don't want to instill in them the idea that it is ok to constantly mooch things off others -- such as borrowing a friend's phone every time practice starts late. It is my responsibility as a parent to make sure my kid can contact me when needed, not the responsibility of someone else's mom or dad to provide the means for them to do so. |
Anonymous
| 98 percent of emergencies are more convenience. Practice ended early for me I waited for a ride..now kids call for a quicker ride. Kids used to make many more decisions and parents didn't expect constant contact. My ms kids don't have phones. They make it home fine. If the bus is 10 minutes late, I don't panic. |
Anonymous
Can't give you a link because the link goes to a Word document but here is what I have. It was a criminal offense until at least 2000. Pagers versus cell phones In the early 1990s, electronic paging devices or pagers became synonymous with drug dealers. Although pagers had other, more benign uses, schools and state legislatures quickly passed policies and laws forbidding their use in schools, often with severe penalties attached. According to the Education Commission on the States, 16 states have passed laws that ban student possession of pagers in schools. Of those states, five mention only pagers. The other states include cellular phones and other electronic devices. All the laws allow for school boards or principals to make exceptions, some for medical emergencies. [b]The Montgomery County (Md.) School Board passed a ban on electronic communication devices five years ago to comply with Maryland's regulations. For the first offense, principals could use their discretion for punishment. The second offense required principals to report the incident to the police. At the time, no one spoke out against the ban, according to board member Bea Gordon, because "pagers were the issue," she says. [/b] It was a different story when parents and students found out the ban covered cell phones as well. "We are hearing a great deal from parents who believe [the phones are] a part of modern-day life and students should be able to use them," says Gordon, whose district is in an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C. "We are approaching that point where we will have to make a distinction between pagers and cell phones." Montgomery County's state legislature tried to do exactly that recently by proposing Maryland's law be amended to allow cell phones in schools. That effort failed, Gordon says, with lawmakers from large, urban areas on one side and rural lawmakers on the other. "Those from rural districts didn't see the need for cell phones," she says. |
Anonymous
| The crazy lady on this thread posting about must having cell phones on them at all time IS the reason why kids shouldn't have them. Helicopter moms rather their kids be glued to a screen as long as they can be in contact 24/7, then be out and about making their own decisions, critical thinking and learning street smarts. You are ruining your kids in every sense of the way and you don't even realize it. |
Anonymous
I’m the poster you referred to as “crazy lady”, but I’m not entirely sure how I got that label. My one and only point throughout this thread has been that I think having a cell phone adds a layer of safety and convenience, so we always carry one if we will be going somewhere, and I support kids being able to possess, but not use, them in school so that they have them for before and after school. For kids and adults alike, I see having access to a phone as simply a means of having a safety net -- a way to call someone for help if something goes wrong that would require or benefit from outside input. Before cell phones were common I seem to remember that many people would carry change for the payphone, and with the general disappearance of payphones and most people we know getting rid of their landline I see having a cell phone as the modern equivalent. I object to a few claims you made in your post. First, I did not say that I want my kids or anyone else on the phone “twenty-four seven” or “glued to screens”; in fact I explicitly stated in a previous post that I require them to refrain from phone use at times and places where doing so is the expectation -- such as school, driving, at an event, or when socializing with others in person. Second, having access to a cell phone is not a crutch stifling my children’s independence. It is simultaneously both one of many problem-solving tools available to them and a means of actually increasing their confidence and independence. My kids have used their phones for such things as checking the weather to confirm that their plans involving outdoor activities after school were still a good idea, figuring out an alternate bus route to get somewhere when their original bus was significantly delayed and would have made them late, and googling a recipe on the way home then stopping by the grocery store and making a dessert for the family after dinner because they were craving pie and I never make it. They've also called me when they heard something through the extremely active tween/teenage rumor mill that led them to believe their dad may have been in a horrific traffic accident (he was fine, but any other day they would have been right), or called to chat with a friend or their sister while walking through someplace that gave them the creeps. Having a cell phone and thus the means to contact someone if there's a problem or change of plans is the reason that I am willing to allow them, at an appropriate age, to go many places on their own or with friends, or to go on multi-night school/extra-curricular trips. Finally, I really take issue with your claim that I’m ruining my kids by making sure they have access to a cell phone. It’s simply a means of ensuring that the family can communicate even with our crazy schedules, and a way of giving everyone of an appropriate age mobile access to the many useful tools the internet and various apps can provide. You and I are going to have to agree to disagree on this issue since our viewpoints appear diametrically opposed. I respect your opposition to cell phones and am in no way suggesting that you need to give them to your kids, but I fail to see why you object so strongly to the idea that other parents might feel differently or that my kids have and use cell phones before and after school. Most schools in the DC area seem to allow phones to be possessed at school if they are only used at these times, so my stance on this cannot be sufficiently unique as to merit my being called crazy. |
Anonymous
|
^^^WOW, this one is CRA CRA!!!
Alright lady, we get it. Your kids and you could not survive without a phone attached to your belt. Your novel length posts have shown us how important they are to you. |
Anonymous
My 8th grader has no cell phone, and she feels like the only one! What do you do without a cell phone? Plan ahead, be where you said you would be. Find phone if you need to contact me. It is very easy to find a phone to use. . . |
Anonymous
Yeah, but whose phone do you expect her to find? If your 8th grader is usually with a teacher/coach/other adult I guess it makes sense that she can borrow their phone since the adults are ultimately responsible for the kids until a parent can pick them up. On the other hand, if you expect your kid to frequently borrow a friend's phone and minutes I'm sure they (if they pay for it) or their parents aren't going to be thrilled. It sounds like your current situation is working for you, so that's good and I'm not suggesting to change it, but this is just something to consider... |
Anonymous
|
Cell phones for preteens and teens are for instant gratification. Nothing is thought about or planned. Just run around and I will text/call whenever I have a question or need something.
And really none of you helicopter parents are handing cell phones and letting them run the streets. I was 8 riding my bike 2 miles from my house to play with friends, baseball, swim etc... Today's 10yr old have phones and STILL need to be with adults, planned play dates, chaperones, etc... The phones are not giving your kid an ounce of independence except what selfie to put up on Instagram. |
Anonymous
I kind of agree with you and it's a trend I don't like. I tend to try to raise kids with a lot more independence then most of my friends or my kid's friends. But I notice that there's a lot of pushback from 'concerned' other parents about things like that kind of unsupervised play (all the recent threads here on supervision, for example). What do you think is behind the shift? Personally I blame the media for fear mongering and making everything seem so dangerous these days when really all the same sorts of crimes happened when we were kids too, and I blame the fact that we have a society where people call CPS for even the smallest of things. Some states have laws where kids can't even be alone in their own home until they're 14. It's ridiculous, and it makes parents afraid to be anything other than crazy overprotective. |