My 15yr dd says most of her friends have phone w/ texting

Ema of 5

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 11:39 am

amother OP wrote:

What grade did your daughter get a phone? When did you she start texting?

And let’s be honest - we all know what a “family” phone means.

My dd is in a pretty yeshivish hs and a very big percentage of her friends have phones with texting even though we all had to sign we won’t get it.

I’m not sure what “family phone” means. My daughter got a phone when she was in 7th grade, so my son must have been in 9th. They both needed to be able to contact us when they were ready to head home- schools almost an hour away from the house, no district busing.

amother

Darkblue

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 11:53 am

my daughter is in 9th grade and by orientation, school told us about Project MUST. basically mothers sign a pact to push off getting a cellphone till a specific grade that they agree to. this way they have no excuse that they need to get one cuz everyone has one.
https://crownheights.info/vide.....ghts/

amother

Mintgreen

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 1:55 pm

My daughter had an only talk flip phone which was “family phone” meaning anyone can use it for 9-11th grade
And now for 12 grade has talk and text phone as allowed per her school..
Yes have neighbor in top school lakewood that has had talk and text phone “family phone” since 9th grade…

My son on the other hand Lakewood yeshiva only rule no smart phones and cant bring flip phone to school. He had only talk for 9th grade and then convinced me to get text for only bein hazmanim and I fell for it and added it but after he didn’t want to take it off…

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 5:38 pm

amother Lilac wrote:

boys get phones older or younger?

As I said, it's dependent on the yeshiva situation.
My oldest wasn't allowed cell phones in Yeshiva so he only got one for travel when he had to travel alone without other bochurim for a family simcha.
My second has a required phone plan in his Yeshiva to make sure boys use that and reduce the likelihood of them having a non approved plan/phone so he's had since 9th grade.
I'd like to think that if my boys were in the local Yeshiva, they wouldn't need one so soon but it's hypothetical.

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 5:40 pm

amother Darkblue wrote:

We tried this but we didn't have 100% agreement and by the middle of 9th grade, there were only 2-3 girls in my daughter's class without (including my own) 😔

mamaleh

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 7:01 pm

Chayalle wrote:

I'm glad it works for you, but practically speaking, it means a family that has 3 daughters in high school has no choice but to pay a monthly fee for each of those daughters to have their own phone. Even if that would not be in keeping with their values and spending plan.

In my DDs school, each family must buy a phone (at a reduced price)-I don’t think you need to buy for each girl- and it is your choice whether to activate talk only, talk&text or not activate at all. The girls are not allowed to have any other phone. My dd definitely had friends who didn’t activate and there are quite a bunch that don’t have texting.

amother

Tulip

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 7:23 pm

Whenever I see posts like this I wonder what the next generation of parents will be like. Is it so hard to say no to your child? And yes, 15 is still a child. They don't always know what's good for them. My daughter is 12. All of her classmates have phones except 1. I keep saying no. She doesn't need it. We aren't doing cell phones until my children finish high school. We live in nyc and don't plan to send our kids to school out of state. I didn't get a cell phone in high school. And yes, many of my friends had them. My parents didn't see a need.

amother

Peach

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 7:49 pm

My 9th grade daughter doesn’t have a phone - her school doesn’t Allow one until 11th grade and then she’ll need a kosher phone.
However, she does have an old out of service iPhone that is Tagged and has no # or browser, that she uses for texting through an email address. All of her friends text as well, I assume from iPads or iPods or old phones or whatever. She also has some apps on it, like kosher.com and the Cricut app, 24/6, some other apps and games she wanted. My other kids are allowed to use it so it’s almost a family device but she is the main one who uses it.

amother

Ebony

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 8:02 pm

amother Razzmatazz wrote:

Can someone tell me which high schools in Lakewood allow/don’t allow/require phones? And which ones the girls have phone even if not allowed?
My girls are still lower elementary but this is interesting to me.

My dd is in Chedvas. They require you to get a flip phone at a subsidized rate but you're not required to have service on it. No other phones are allowed.

My nieces in Oros, Bais Yaakov and Bais Shaindel all say that there is a large amount of girls in their classes who have "family phones" that are exclusively used by that one girl. Those schools do not allow phones.

amother

Skyblue

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 8:07 pm

I live in Lakewood.
DD in 9th and DS in 11th do not have cell phones, though they say “all” their friends have.
This is the hill I’m willing to die on. They will not have their own phones until they have drivers licenses.
We have a very dumb, call and regular text only- no data and no picture text, “kids” phone that I give them if they go out with friends.

We have a house phone that DD uses all the time, no one else really needs it. And she can text friends from my phone if she needs.

It’s not so much of a frum thing, more of a good child brain development thing.
For context DH and I have full smart phones.

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, Oct 26 2023, 8:31 pm

amother Tulip wrote:

As the mother, let me give you the flip side.
We were told not to have our kids be the last for something when the majority has it, even if it's not our ideal as long as it's not horrible (e.g. dangerous)
There's a social aspect of being left out, there's a resentment factor that can come in, there's a balance between giving in on certain things so you can stick to your guns about others, there's an aspect of never being she'd to babysit because mothers just reach out to those with their own cell phones. There are way too many factors when dealing with teenagers to stick to only idealistic parenting. Decisions can't be made in a vacuum and context matters.
Phone usage is given as a privilege with rules for responsibility. Teaching healthy technology habits as a teenager is also chinuch.
Ideally my daughter's friends wouldn't have cell phones. But they do and we need to work with that reality.

And giving in to things like this make it easier to say no to other things like e-bikes or whatever.

For whatever it's worth, I didn't have a cell phone until I was very pregnant with my 4th besides my 2 years in EY for seminary.