Reply to Group chats- advice for a 5th grade parent?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We have always said that we would resist phones/group chats (like on an iPad) for as long as possible after seeing DD’s friends’ older siblings deal with tween group text drama.

But now I’m sort of at a crossroads and wondering how to balance sustaining friendships vs. avoiding the pull of group texts, the need to check them all of the time, and the potential drama.

DD is switching schools this year as are many of her old friends, so already they are struggling to keep in touch. She has a landline but her friends are reluctant to call and some don’t have access to a phone at their house. There are a lot of texts between the girls on parents’ phones, which is fine but also kind of annoying.  Meanwhile she just switched teams for her swim club at the start of the summer and is in a mixed aged workout group with girls in 5th-7th grade, but with the majority in 6th and 7th.  They are together 4x/week so this is a huge part of her life. She says everyone is on a group text save for one other girl in a group of 12, and they send silly selfies and things and talk about it before and after practice and she’s left out. Some of the girls have phones and others use watches or iPads.

I can see that her social life is on a collision course with the rules we’ve laid out. On one hand, DD says she knows that group texts would be annoying and she’d feel like she had to check it all of the time. On the other hand, she’s making two big transitions this year and I do want her to be able to keep old friends and make new ones, and I don’t want to ignore the fact that this is a way that kids socialize. At her age I definitely was starting to talk on the phone with friends and we all lived close enough to see each other frequently.

Any advice?[/quote]

OP, kids change schools and friends, that is a part of life.  Her friends can call her on the landline if they want to keep in touch. Fifth grade is too young for a phone, I know some people do it but I hear more negative stories then I do positive stories. Bullying in chats. Racist langauge in chats. Kids taking pictures of other kids in the bathroom and sharing them in chats.

I understand the desire to find a way to help kids stay in touch with friends but she will make new firends. Her old friends have a method to reach out, they will use it, or she will call them if they really want to stay in touch. If none of them can bother to use the tech at their hands, then they are less invested then you think. Kids have moved and changed teams and done all of those things for ages. The vast majority have made new friends at their new schools and on their new teams. The sadness at moving and discomfort of starting over is temporary. The damage being done by social media, texting issues, and the like is proving to be long term.

DS is in 8th grade, he has an Apple watch. Half his friends have phones, and we watch those kids walking down the street staring at their phone. Or picking up the phone as soon as they finish practice or hanging out whenever it beeps. Some of his friends are in the group chat on iPads and parents have had to email other parents because of racist language an inappropriate conversation. These are not kids being raised by racists or homophobes, they are repeating crap that they hear at school. One kid defended using the N word because "he had a pass from a class mate so he was allowed to use it."

They are young, with poor impulse control, influenced by their peers, and being given a device that allows them to blast out and post poor choices that can hurt other people and their futures.

We do check in with DS to see if he feels like he needs a phone and he has said no. I have asked about missing events or hanging out and he has said it isn't an issue. Maybe it is a boy/girl thing. Maybe it is my kids personality. He is active, has a good number of friends, and doing well in school. But I would avoid the phone for as long as you can. I understand that it seems a simple solution to a multitude of changes but I have yet to read a study that says early introduction of a phone is good for a kid.

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