High school girls and smart phones

amother

Brunette

Sun, Oct 22 2017, 8:26 pm

I dont live in flatbush. My dd attends a by school that officially has a no internet rule. They do understand the reality of teens these days. They encourage filters on the phone. They have programs to encourage time limits.

My dds school has a school chat and grade chat. Anyone without access to it is left out. There is one girl in dds grade that isnt on the chat.

We got dd a phone in 9th grade when we realized that her friends all had phones or ipads.

Reality

Sun, Oct 22 2017, 8:50 pm

My daughter wants one. My dh is adamant that she doesn't have one in high school. She is now in a school where most girls do not have smart phones. If they do they are quiet about it. She keeps on saying that in h.s. she needs a phone. It is driving us all crazy! I was trying to get a feel for how accurate her assessment is that everyone in high school has.

On a side note who is paying for the phone you or your daughter? It really is an expense all these additional phones.

amother

Brunette

Sun, Oct 22 2017, 10:13 pm

Reality wrote:

I know there are apps you can install to restrict how much time they spend on the phone. You can also restrict which apps are downloaded.

We have cricket plan. It was fairly inexpensive to add her to the plan. We got her an older model phone, got it for free when we added her number to the plan.

Reality

Sun, Oct 22 2017, 10:18 pm

I don't know what we will do. Right now we are at a standstill. My dh thinks it is completely absurd for someone so young to have their own phone. My daughter is worrying that she will be a social pariah. Well we have a whole year to go around in circles on this one!

amother

Forestgreen

Sun, Oct 22 2017, 10:20 pm

amother wrote:

My daughter is in 7th grade and has friends at prospect, bybp, and bydrm that have smart phones her age and younger.

My daughter is in BYBP. Any student found having Internet access faces immediate expulsion so I doubt that the students that have smartphones are in the majority. I'm almost sure that having a cell phone is against school rules but I don't have access to the handbook right now to confirm that.

amother

Forestgreen

Sun, Oct 22 2017, 10:21 pm

Reality wrote:

I think that it's common for the high schoolers in the schools that you mentioned to have a phone.

amother

Maroon

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 12:09 am

I am a parent in one of the schools you mentioned.

According to the school, girls are only allowed to get phones on Rosh Chodesh nissan in 11th grade. That is the official time. But girls do have phones before that. Some even smartphones.

chanchy123

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 4:51 am

amother wrote:

Just wondering, what is the reasoning behind this?
I am from a completely different world.

amother

cornflower

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 5:20 am

Is there any way she could have time with a smartphone/iPad for a short time every evening, just to stay relevant with things like Instagram and Snapchat? This way you could monitor her activity because she’ll give it back to you every night. And then she could have a basic phone for a longer period of time for texting and talking to her friends...

amother

Burgundy

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 7:03 am

We live OOT, and my 10th grader goes to a BY that has strict rules on paper. But I looked into it and found she was right that a lot of girls really do have smartphones. We gave her one this summer. It is heavily filtered, and she only has certain times that it can access the internet. She doesn't take it to school. She uses it mostly for keeping in touch with camp friends, for accessing books, and for the maps/finding her way when she is out and about.

amother

Ruby

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 8:29 am

Reality wrote:

We don't live in Brooklyn, so I can't tell you about the schools that you're asking about. Our school allows phones but my husband and I felt strongly that our daughter shouldn't have one until 11th grade. I only realized once she got her phone just how left out she really was. She wasn't doing great socially as it is, and not having a phone and not being on the class chats really exacerbated the problem. You know how kids are always saying that "everyone" has it and we're so sure it's not true, of course I didn't believe her. I had tried to find out from other parents if it was true, but I guess I must have asked the wrong ones. It really was true that most of her class had phones and I still feel guilty about it.

It's a few years later and the school changed their rule to no phones. I have a daughter in 10th grade who has friends with phones, but she says most of the class does not have phones. I let her text those friends on my phone so she's not completely left out. I'm not telling her this Wink

, but as soon as she tells me that "everyone" has phones, I will probably get her one, event though it's against the rules.

SixOfWands

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 9:55 am

There was a recent thread in which we discovered that a lot of homes no longer have land lines, and that therefore when a high school girl without a cell phone babysits, she has no way of calling in case of emergency.

You also need to ask yourself whether your child goes out on his or her own, ever. If so, s/he may need to reach you, or reach someone else, while out. In Manhattan, there are four -- 4 -- old style outdoor phone booths left. You simply cannot count on public phones.

Cell phones are no longer luxuries. They're necessities for teens. The question should not be "if." It should be "what kind."

amother

Amethyst

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 10:33 am

chanchy123 wrote:

Just wondering, what is the reasoning behind this?
I am from a completely different world.

I think the girls start driving around then, and once you have a license, I believe at that point a cell phone is a necessity, not a luxury.

Chayalle

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 10:35 am

SixOfWands wrote:

I authored that thread. I don't allow my teen to babysit in homes without a landline.

I allow my teen to use my phone (not a smartphone) for texting and grade messages, so that she does not feel left out. She will get a phone next year as a senior, when her school allows it.

There definitely are lots of girls in her grade who already have phones, but she's not the only one who doesn't.