Anonymous wrote:Seems to be MS around here. With all the news about the killing in Blacksburg a lot of my mom friends are rethinking the access to social media/smart phones etc.

The writer of "Queen Bees and Wanna Bees" says parents should delay as long as possible. You might want to read the book, OP. You also need to know your child and how much they are into social media. There can be a lot of damaging interactions on social media. When you allow your child to interact with ANYONE in the world without knowing or supervising them... it can be dangerous. Even if your child isn't sneaking out at night, there is damage to a young person's self esteem when anonymous people post mean things. Tweens and teens are naturally going to seek attention and the internet often is unkind.

Oldest was middle school. Middle kid was when he started coming home from school alone and he did carpool for activities. Youngest will probably be middle school because she's not likely to come home to an empty house given that there are so many of us and she does the same activities as her older brother and he has a phone. She's not happy but she has an iPod touch which has all phone capabilities if you're in wifi.

As soon as they were getting dropped off at sports practices or other places and getting picked up after and/or getting rides from other people. I wanted a way for them to reach me if something didn't go as planned, ride didn't show, practice was cancelled... it has been at about 12 for my kids. (Also, just a dumb phone. No smart phone until high school.)

when they stopped being in SACC and we started having carpool for sports/school. I needed/wanted to know there was pick up . Think for the times you would have had a quarter/dime to call on the pay phone when I was younger. There are no longer pay phones. We got a republic wireless phone and have screen time (a parent control) on it. It was between 6 & 7th grade.

Mine has a basic texting phone but those are getting harder and harder to find. I don't want him having a smart phone because we have a lot of issues with not managing screen time at home well so the last thing he needs is a game/video device he can use everywhere. He has an ipod he can use at home so he's not left out of the Instagram stuff and that seems sufficient.

6th grade, flip phone, one of the first.

By seventh grade almost everyone had smart phones. He was one of the last to get one of those in mid eighth.

We got it in sixth to foster independence. Eveything was drop off and our kid has severe allergies to multiple things.

Anonymous wrote:What kind of phone? Flips/basic or smart?

I looked around for a flip phone and they seemed to hard to find and not any cheaper than low end smartphones (note some people report that flip phones are "socially unacceptable" to the MS set but that wasn't really something I cared about). I ended up finding a cheap smartphone that cost $50 without contract.

12 - 7th grade. She was one of the last in her grade to get one.

Ours is in 8th grade & apparently only one w/out a phone.

Seems to be MS around here. With all the news about the killing in Blacksburg a lot of my mom friends are rethinking the access to social media/smart phones etc.

What kind of phone? Flips/basic or smart?

When I first started letting them stay home alone, so, around third grade. I decided they needed to at least be able to contact me if they needed something, and we didn't have a landline like my family did when I was growing up.

Anonymous wrote:Entry to middle school seems to be the rite of passage in my Arlington circle.

Same here. 5th grade very few kids had then. 6th grade most had them, including mine.

Entry to middle school seems to be the rite of passage in my Arlington circle.

Thanks