[user104658]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

I get what you're saying but I still think that a child that age shouldn't have a phone, granted my kids are older now and thankfully it was perfectly acceptable that a child didn't have a phone until after primary school back then.

It's complicated because I agree that in an ideal world they shouldn't have phones and it was far, far better when they didn't but the reality in the 2020's is that it's normalised, so the balance becomes the risk of having one vs. the impact of being the "unusual outlier" whose parents are holding out and one of the only ones who doesn't have one. The way social groups form and communicate in the final years of primary school now, again unfortunately, revolves around the "context" of conversations that they have ongoing in group chats. Lots of social info flying around, lots that they'll all be doing the normal kid-gossip etc about the next day and the kids who weren't able to join in can sadly be very, very quickly left socially isolated at that age. I've seen it happen to multiple kids. There's no way around it. It's one of these situations were there's a "tide of normality" that's a massive net negative for everyone, but can't simply be opted out of without other consequences. Like I said I think it completely changed at an accelerated pace from 2020 to 2022 because of COVID restrictions (as did so many things like remote working). I'd MUCH rather that it was how it was before that... but it just realistically isn't... so all that can be done is a focus on safety and not being complacent.