Flip phone in fifth grade for older DD, cheap smart phone in 7th grade for DS. Neither of them got a "nice" smart phone until HS.

Given that both of them have teachers who regularly tell students to pull out their smartphones to use for research during class, they are practically necessary. They mostly use them for texting/messaging their friends, Instagram, Internet and the occasional snapchat (which usually feature one of our cats) or the equivalent of a selfie. I had to ask my DD to uninstall Tinder when she was 16, but that's about it (she thought it was funny and showed it to me right after she installed it).

Anonymous wrote:

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

What planet do you live on? A kid that age needs a phone to have a social life if anything.

My son has a friend (Asian) who is in ninth grade and still does not own a phone. DS is kind enough to invite him over to play xbox now and then (he lives close by), but for the most part, this boy has no other friends. His parents are ultra protective and too cheap to give him a phone. At some point it becomes unsafe to be without a phone.

Oh wow. I'm so glad you're DS I'd SO KIND to invite an Asian over to play once in a while. How so generous of you. You must be so proud

11 years old, mid 5th grade, flip phone. She is not the only one with a phone but is in the minority. We got it for her so we could have her text us when she is walking somewhere on her own or with a friend. I am very wary of a smart phone. She sometimes gets random texts from unknown numbers and she shows me and deletes them. We have had many talks about safety and the Blacksburg tragedy is sadly a very teachable moment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That book was written in 2002 and based on life 15 years ago. The electronic world has changed a lot since then.

There was an update a few years ago.

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1. DS was 8 or 9. I check his messages and internet history. He doesn't google much - mostly information asked in school. He doesn't text anyone. He calls his father or me everyday when he gets home from school. He does have a lot of game apps.

4th grade because of a so,ewhat unpredictable activity schedule and a couple weeks abroad to see extended family - we wamted an easy way to skype a few times

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got her a cell phone when she started taking the train to school by herself towards the end of fourth grade. That was a flip phone. Had it through fifth grade. Summer before 7th grade, she was given a used iPhone from Grandma that broke a couple months later. Late December, Grandma gave her an iPhone 6. DD will be 13 this month.

We live in SF, I'm a single parent, and DD is taking trains and buses all over on her own. I feel better that she has a phone. When she didn't have one, I got so many calls from random numbers from her borrowing people's phones.

Agree with that -- especially since she might also need a map app and the like. Lots of useful tools on a phone for kid alone, not to mention your ability to track her location (not fool proof, but it helps).

Interesting - I have never tracked her location or even thought of it. She's not the type to lie about where she is and is good at showing up places on time or calling when she's running late. If I feel that changing, maybe I'll consider tracking.

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

What planet do you live on? A kid that age needs a phone to have a social life if anything.

My son has a friend (Asian) who is in ninth grade and still does not own a phone. DS is kind enough to invite him over to play xbox now and then (he lives close by), but for the most part, this boy has no other friends. His parents are ultra protective and too cheap to give him a phone. At some point it becomes unsafe to be without a phone.

Anonymous wrote:I got her a cell phone when she started taking the train to school by herself towards the end of fourth grade. That was a flip phone. Had it through fifth grade. Summer before 7th grade, she was given a used iPhone from Grandma that broke a couple months later. Late December, Grandma gave her an iPhone 6. DD will be 13 this month.

We live in SF, I'm a single parent, and DD is taking trains and buses all over on her own. I feel better that she has a phone. When she didn't have one, I got so many calls from random numbers from her borrowing people's phones.

Agree with that -- especially since she might also need a map app and the like. Lots of useful tools on a phone for kid alone, not to mention your ability to track her location (not fool proof, but it helps).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8. She was on the adv swim team practicing 4 nights a week--1.5/2hr practices including dryland training. If anything happened at the pool and it needed to close, she could call me to come get her early. There are 60 or so kids practicing. Using the front desk phone wasn't practical.

Or the coaches's cell phone
Or another parent's cell phone
Or another child's phone
Or the front desk phone

How did you survive when you were a kid without a cell phone?

NP: Our lives were very different from our kids' lives. And public pay phones.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8. She was on the adv swim team practicing 4 nights a week--1.5/2hr practices including dryland training. If anything happened at the pool and it needed to close, she could call me to come get her early. There are 60 or so kids practicing. Using the front desk phone wasn't practical.

Or the coaches's cell phone
Or another parent's cell phone
Or another child's phone
Or the front desk phone

How did you survive when you were a kid without a cell phone?

The same way I survived without having a computer to type school papers, or having Google and online resources to help with school projects, or really any kind of technology outside of TV and a landline phone...

Just because I "survived" without them as a kid doesn't mean it's wrong for my kid to use those things...

Good come back. I was thinking the same thing. It's fine to wan different for our kids.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That book was written in 2002 and based on life 15 years ago. The electronic world has changed a lot since then.

Anonymous wrote:Just an fyi, Make sure you all talk to your kids about what is appropriate and what isnt.
A 14 yo came to the Police Station where I work yesterday to report that a male friend sent a pic of a 13yo naked to him and told him to post to social media.
They all attend a middle school in our area ( dont want to be specific)

Tell her your kids that no one is to take a pic of then naked, or in a swimsuit, underwear, anything. And if your kid gets a pic like this they need to tell you.

Good advice. And have the talk often. Be specific. Once my son got a picture of a partially dressed girl. He thought the best thing to do would be to tell her best friend so her best friend would talk to her mother. It's not bad logic for a 9th grader, but this could have been a disaster.

Another rule I have is that you can't send photos without my approval. Once one of my kids was taking pictures and didn't realize his privates were showing. The pictures were not of his privates and he just didn't see it. Another disaster averted.

Just an fyi, Make sure you all talk to your kids about what is appropriate and what isnt.
A 14 yo came to the Police Station where I work yesterday to report that a male friend sent a pic of a 13yo naked to him and told him to post to social media.
They all attend a middle school in our area ( dont want to be specific)

Tell her your kids that no one is to take a pic of then naked, or in a swimsuit, underwear, anything. And if your kid gets a pic like this they need to tell you.

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

Same as all 3 of my sons, the last one now a HS Freshman. And yes, they were near the last if not the last in their grades. So many elementary school kids have them now, but being very familiar with all the sites and apps you can access with a smart phone, I still don't think it's smart to give kids their own before middle school. We had a throwaway phone ours could take before then for "safety" concerns and if we needed to be able to reach them before then. Somehow they all survived -- and we're glad we waited.