Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A crafts place for 12 year old sports friends? Sounds really boring, I'd be on my phone, too.

A bit babyish for 12. Sorry op.

Better than the limo restaurant parties followed by basement hangout with boys and girls unsupervised for 12 year olds. That was common 10 years ago with my oldest. Not sure if still popular. My younger one is not into boys.

If only there were options in between. Oh, wait! Good news! There are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A crafts place for 12 year old sports friends? Sounds really boring, I'd be on my phone, too.

A bit babyish for 12. Sorry op.

This. More like 6 or 7.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A crafts place for 12 year old sports friends? Sounds really boring, I'd be on my phone, too.

… crafts are boring? Only if you spend too much time watching TikTok.

Yes. Crafts are boring.

-don’t have TikTok

Anonymous wrote:
Too late but this is a wholesale parenting fail:

https://www.waituntil8th.org/

Let this serve as a warning to parents w/ younger children who don't yet have phones.

I’m sorry, this is well meaning but not realistic

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cannot believe all these 6th graders have phones. Bad parenting

Do you have a child in pubic middle school? I can think of one kid who doesn't have a phone. K-8 agree they aren't needed.

I know plenty of kids, including my own, who have Apple Watches instead of phones.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cannot believe all these 6th graders have phones. Bad parenting

Do you have a child in pubic middle school? I can think of one kid who doesn't have a phone. K-8 agree they aren't needed.

My DS didn't have one until he started 8th grade. He was the last kid in his grade to get one (verified by teachers who collected them every morning in homeroom).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you should have collected all of the phones from the girls. That is what I would have done. Everyone puts their phones in a basket and gets it back when they leave. I mean c'mon....this is terrible, your poor daughter.

+1.
And I have to say, judgment and all, SO many crappy, lazy parents out there!

+2

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A crafts place for 12 year old sports friends? Sounds really boring, I'd be on my phone, too.

Why, are you 12 years old too? And just because some middle school kids enjoy running around after school doesn’t mean they can’t be interested in other activities. You make sports friends sound like a bunch of low IQ grunting Neanderthals who don’t know how to do anything that doesn’t involve kicking a ball around and when confronted with something different they can only stare at a screen and hope it goes away.

Plenty of kids who don’t care about sports have gone to sports birthday parties and participated and had a good time. People, stop making excuses for poor manners and ignorance.

+10000

Anonymous wrote:I think a craft party may be boring for 12 year olds?

My son and his friends still run around. He has had all active parties like sky zone, laser tag, paintball, etc.

Whatever your opinion, or a kid's opinion of the party, may be, that doesn't mean you need to accept kids being on their phones. We're all so intolerant, and so are kids, of boredom. Be bored! It won't kill you. It's better than needing your phone for constant dopamine infusions. I give limited screentime for my kids, and they are still playing this ongoing imaginative game, even at ages 12 and 9.

I'm sorry for your daughter, OP, and I recommend collecting phones at the door for parties like this. We did and the kids didn't make a big deal and my daughter said she was very happy not to have them. None of her friends made a peep of complaint.

Everyone's kids and their friends will be different, but you are the parent and have the right to choose how things go down in your house.

Anonymous wrote:A crafts place for 12 year old sports friends? Sounds really boring, I'd be on my phone, too.

In that case, it might be more polite to decline the invitation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A crafts place for 12 year old sports friends? Sounds really boring, I'd be on my phone, too.

A bit babyish for 12. Sorry op.

Better than the limo restaurant parties followed by basement hangout with boys and girls unsupervised for 12 year olds. That was common 10 years ago with my oldest. Not sure if still popular. My younger one is not into boys.

OP,
And it is this kind of situation that our kids don't get (smart) phones until high school, and they must have good grades as well (3.0 minimum.) When friends of kids come to the house they know phones get put in a basket at the front door.

That sounds horrible. I'm sorry, OP. Those kids have no manners.

Similar happened to my kid in 6th when having a group over for pizza and movies. The girls with phones were huddled up on TikTok the whole time. My kid was miserable.

In 7th now, they all have phones and much of the novelty has worn off. Lots of video and photo taking, but they actually interact more, which is a relief.

Anonymous wrote:A crafts place for 12 year old sports friends? Sounds really boring, I'd be on my phone, too.

A bit babyish for 12. Sorry op.

My dd was in a friend group like this. It was awful. The one party I stayed at because I was asked by the host mom to hang out with her (been friends a long time) the girls were messaging other kids not at the party about how much fun they were having, but they weren't actually having real fun, they would just gather together in different areas and pose "as if we're having fun." And then look at YouTube shorts.

I asked my friend if we should do something and she was like "no, I told dd I wouldn't interfere with her party and they're all so excited about their new phones (first year of middle school), let them have fun."

Except they weren't.

Thankfully my dd thought that scene was boring and has found a new group mostly without Internet access on their phones (locked down or dumb phones or just watches). They're not the popular girls, but I think she's relieved to be out of that clique. And I'm not as close with that mom as out parenting philosophies diverged quite a lot throughout middle school years, but that's a different story.