Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really disagree with a lot of what has been
posted here. If I send a child or teen to a sleepover with a phone it is for his/her use, and I want them to habe access to it without needing to ask or turn it on. I would be really put off if someone took something that belongs to my child.

This.
My 10 year old dd was at a sleepover at a good friends house for the first time, and texted me at 1am that she didn't feel comfortable there and wanted out of that house immediately. Luckily the issue wasn't as horrifying as it sounded, but when you get a text like that from your daughter, you're grateful that she has access to communicate with you without going through the parents.

I'm curious-- what was the issue?

And how did you pick up your DD without going through the parents of the host ?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take their phones away after a set time, but if you insist on no phones then your kid will be friendless soon.

Taking phones away at all affects friendships. They'd all rather go to Suzy's house because Sally's mom takes everyone's phones away. It also affects friendships with parents who don't want you taking their child's property away.

Oh come on now. It's the same as having a rule that everyone takes off their shoes at the front door. Let's not be nutty here.

Yup, and you are the parent who will eventually let their kids drink underage so that kids will go to your house Sally's mom doesn't allow booze.

My DS was doing sleepovers at a friends house where the parents do not restrict anything, ever. The kid is on his computer at all hours of the night playing games and watching TV shows...I know this because I have seen texts from him at the wee hours even on school nights. Whenever DS sleeps there, he is a basket case the next day. We stopped letting him sleep there. We asked him why this boy doesn't have any interest outside of gaming/computers. And eventually he figured out that friendship was an unhealthy one. He rarely hangs out with him now. Hopefully he will have the same attitude about the parents who serve alcohol.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take their phones away after a set time, but if you insist on no phones then your kid will be friendless soon.

Taking phones away at all affects friendships. They'd all rather go to Suzy's house because Sally's mom takes everyone's phones away. It also affects friendships with parents who don't want you taking their child's property away.

Oh come on now. It's the same as having a rule that everyone takes off their shoes at the front door. Let's not be nutty here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just turn off your wifi router. Keeps out the pornography, helicopter parents can still text or call.

Um, most smart phones have a feature called "data." Nope, I never turn off my wifi. Kids have to follow my rules. If they need to call, they have access to a landline.

Sure, but streaming video on your 3g or 4g is terribly frustrating, chews through your data and runs down the battery. It's a huge impediment.

Why would any thinking parent give their kids phones with an unlimited data plan anyway?

NP- there are data plans that are not unlimited you know this right?

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who believes their child needs a smartphone is a GD idiot.

Anyone in 2015 who cannot understand that smart phones are a permanent phenomenon of this generation is a pathetic parent lazily avoiding guiding her child's appropriate usage by pretending that technology does not exist.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just turn off your wifi router. Keeps out the pornography, helicopter parents can still text or call.

Um, most smart phones have a feature called "data." Nope, I never turn off my wifi. Kids have to follow my rules. If they need to call, they have access to a landline.

Sure, but streaming video on your 3g or 4g is terribly frustrating, chews through your data and runs down the battery. It's a huge impediment.

Why would any thinking parent give their kids phones with an unlimited data plan anyway?

Look at the you tube videos. Some age 9 kids are answering questions about themselves with their friends (eg 100 questions no one ask tag)


Too much revelation of personal details in my opinion but its hard to stop them from happening when someone else's kid brings a cell phone. So i would go with one of the other PP, to lay down rules before they show up at your house

Anonymous wrote:Just turn off your wifi router. Keeps out the pornography, helicopter parents can still text or call.

Um, most smart phones have a feature called "data." Nope, I never turn off my wifi. Kids have to follow my rules. If they need to call, they have access to a landline.

Just turn off your wifi router. Keeps out the pornography, helicopter parents can still text or call.

I am shocked with the level of worry about molestation at sleepovers. But I have only reached the tween/teen age with a boy, so perhaps it is different with a girl???

First of all, if I had a young tween, I would not be allowing them to sleep over anyone's house unless I knew the parents well.

I do agree with not having phones after a certain hour. The only thing they would accomplish is keeping the kids up until wee hours and having exhausted grumpy kid the next day. I have a boy, and our rules are no phones in the bedroom at bedtime. During sleepovers, phones are relinquished at 11 or midnight (or however late I am able to stay awake lol). I have never had anyone complain about it, other than that they wanted to continue to watch youtube.

As for the paranoid helicopter parents here, you are foolish to believe your kid's cellphone is protecting them at a sleepover. If they need to have their phone at a sleepover all night, check with the host to make sure it is ok. That is your responsibility, not the responsibility of the host. In most homes, rules are rules, and another kid's parents are not going to convince me to make ridiculous exceptions.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who believes their child needs a smartphone is a GD idiot.

Define needs. Can my children function without one? Absolutely. Would my children's quality of life be significantly reduced without one? Almost certainly not. Does having a smarphone add a great deal of convenience to my children's life and genuinely make their, my, and our family's lives easier? Absolutely.

Benefits:
- email (and synced family calendar) access
- dropbox/google drive mobile access supports efficient completion of homework and other responsibilities
- ease of navigation so I can more comfortably and safely grant my children independence sooner than I would be willing to without a smartphone
- internet access to look up information whenever it's needed, not whenever they happen to have wi-fi and a computer
- numerous safety features, at least some of which are unavailable on flip phones

Drawbacks and potential risks:
- potential for legal trouble if my child makes exceptionally dumb decisions (sexting or cyber-bullying)
- a small but very high impact possibility they could more easily make the dangerous choice to run off to meet someone they've met online ("more easily" because they will have other internet access anyway)
- loss or breakage of the phone is a more substantial financial loss than loss or breakage of a flip phone

Obviously it's a decision with pros and cons to be considered on both sides. The potential risks are IMO relatively low likelihood but extremely high impact, which means they must be taken seriously. The potential benefits, in our case, were an everyday positive impact on DC's and my lives. Our decision was fairly clear.

Would I have been an idiot for believing that my kids "needed" (i.e. literally couldn't survive without or would have seriously reduced quality of life without) smartphones? Absolutely. That's just overly dramatic

Am I an idiot for thinking my kids need smartphones in the "can and in our case should have them" sense? I certainly don't think so.

Different families will have different risk-benefit analyses and thus may well make different and equally valid decisions.