Tweens/Teens and Phones

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I have to confess this was a bad decision on our part. I think all we did was increase anxiety. And now I'm trying to figure out how to back peddle without giving in and her thinking she has a free ticket this year. At our school, a 90-100 is an A. Today she got a 89% on a social studies test and was freaking out.

Don't beat yourself up over it It's not an uncommon thing to do and hard to know how kids will react to it. Hopefully her anxiety decreases a bit

 

[design_mom]

Every school district is different, but I was surprised to see phones as a necessity for class in some areas. That would not fly in my area. The district has always provided devices needed for class from TI-95 calculators back in the '90s to hotspots for families without internet in 2020.

Our district does not provide devices (not chromebooks, not iPads, not calculators). They do have *some* school-owned devices that kids can borrow during class time if they are needed. However, there usually aren't even enough for every student in the class to have his own. They encourage students to bring their own and by middle school, they really kind of "need" a device that they can take to/from school. So much stuff is online now from assignments being posted on Schoology, quizzes being administered online, grades posted in PowerSchool, to online textbooks. They prefer for kids to have a Chromebook... but they kind of have to use what kids have (within reason, I guess.)

When everything switched to online in March 2020, the school district offered to loan the school devices to students who needed one. I think they said they loaned about 700 devices out in a district of about 22,000 students. (And I think most of those were to elementary families who had more than one student. In elementary, they probably can normally get by with one device to share.)

 

[SandyinMonterey]

Daughter got a phone in 6th grade. She got my old one, I got a new one. Most of her friends had a phone by 4th or 5th grade. We are pretty strict about her phone, what she's allowed to do. No Facebook, no Instagram, no snap chat. We do allow Tik Tok within the past year or so (she's now 16) but she is not allowed to post any videos or images of herself. When she first got her phone, if she got a text, I got the same one. For the most part, it's just friendly stuff but there was one group of people that were horrible. The curse words, what they said to one another....she never got involved in that.

 

[piglet1979]

I have to confess this was a bad decision on our part. I think all we did was increase anxiety. And now I'm trying to figure out how to back peddle without giving in and her thinking she has a free ticket this year. At our school, a 90-100 is an A. Today she got a 89% on a social studies test and was freaking out.

We don't really go along with letter grades. As long as they do there best they are fine. I don't expect that they will get an A on everything. With this though we have taken the phone from DS because he has not turned in homework or only turned in part of the assignment. If I would go by letter grade DD would be a wreck.