Peer pressure to buy kids phones
Discussion
Vaud said:
So what happens to the kids whose parents cant afford smart phones?
I like the schools that mandate a reasonably priced uniform and ban designer labels. Anything that reduces the ability to compare.
Probably the same that happened in my day to the kids who don't get designer trainers for PE etc - they get mocked, or worse, bullied, by other children who are generally brought up to be obnoxious dicks anyway by the type of parents who don't think they can do any wrong and resolve all their problems with money.I like the schools that mandate a reasonably priced uniform and ban designer labels. Anything that reduces the ability to compare.
The "ban designer labels" thing - for some reason that has come up in conversation more than once with my mother in law, she is still angry 20-odd years later about a time when my wife was a teenager and went to a school trip only to be told her clothes didn't meet uniform policy, and my MiL had to go to buy clothes at Tesco! She'd spent "hundreds" on branded stuff etc to be told it was wrong. Bizarre world of parenting.
MYOB said:
Vaud said:
boyse7en said:
Her school bans phones completely. Phones must be in bags (not pockets) and must be switched off. Any pupils found holding a phone (on or off, in use or not) will have it confiscated and their parents can collect it from the school on the next Friday after school. It will not be given back to the pupil.
Sounds very sensible.Nobody forces the kids to play around with their phones in school...
Composite Guru said:
Kids can bee so cruel cant they? Hence why my ex gave in and gave him her old iPhone.
This. As a parent you are damned if you do, damned if you don't it sounds like. Give them a shiny new iPhone.. Spoiling them. Don't give them a shiny new phone and they get bullied.
I left school in 07. I think i had a crappy Sagem phone. was lucky to have £10 credit a month. Used to use the old ladys phone after 7pm when she had free texts!
I never took my phone in, i didn't need it. everyone i spoke to i saw in class or on break every 2 hours.
Back then though it was MSN all night after school. That was our social media outlet with myspace.
MYOB said:
Not to me. I would understand if the phones are confiscated for the rest of the day. But not allowing children to have their phones back until the next Friday could potentially raise legal issues.
A legal view:https://schoolsweek.co.uk/whats-the-law-on-confisc...
numtumfutunch said:
Why do you tolerate this behaviour from your kids?
Just what I was thinking. It's all well and good wanting the latest shiniest but then if once they get it, they don't see the point in protecting it 'because it's not cool' then no way would I consider indulging them lol. Well guess what's also 'not cool'... a broken iPhone!
You just know the only thing they're going to use it for is selfies of themselves with bloody dog ears on, anyway.
Shakermaker said:
Probably the same that happened in my day to the kids who don't get designer trainers for PE etc - they get mocked, or worse, bullied, by other children who are generally brought up to be obnoxious dicks anyway by the type of parents who don't think they can do any wrong and resolve all their problems with money.
True. My parents had very little money and I was the uncool / geek kid.My gran gave me some money when I was 14 (no paper rounds where we lived) and I bought a coat - the same one that the "cool kid" had (who was also a nasty bully). His parents threw money at him.
It was hilarious as he thought I was taking the piddle. His friends thought it was funny and instead of taking the piddle out of me, they mocked him for being like the geek. He stopped wearing it after a week.
I'd say I felt any remorse, but I'd be lying, he was a spiteful bully.
Would be nice if the schools could just ban the phones but what happens if they get confiscated then there is an emergency and the kid can't call their parents, emergency services.
It can't be easy for the schools. They're damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Of course, with iOS 12 now parents can set screentime limits on their devices so perhaps all social networking apps need to get banned on the phone during school hours, with limits outside of these. Problem is doubt most know that is an option
It can't be easy for the schools. They're damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Of course, with iOS 12 now parents can set screentime limits on their devices so perhaps all social networking apps need to get banned on the phone during school hours, with limits outside of these. Problem is doubt most know that is an option
bulldong said:
That's hilarious, I remember begging my mum and dad for a pair of Bauer blades. Eventually they caved in and I got them but spread across Christmas and Birthday. I agree though, pester power has always been there but you couldn't buy a pair of Bauer skates on credit, hence not everyone was able to have them just like that.
It wouldn't surprise me if manufacturers pay 'cool' kids to evangelise certain brands, I remember when I was in school the arbitrary rules over what trainers were 'cool' and what weren't - how did anyone know to begin with, was it just a matter of copying older siblings (I had none)? For example: Nike were cool but only if they were 'Air' ones and not regular. Reebok 'Pump' Hi-Tops - epitome of cool, then went to epitome of 'Naff' in the space of about a week. Just after I got some, sods law. 'Naf Naf' was cool, despite the name. Fila - if you had a pair of Fila basketball boots you were like God. Adidas was cool, I guess thanks to the Hip-Hop effect and Run DMC rapping about them. Reebok were cool with a certain demographic - the 14 year olds who already smoked 30 a day and were always in detention. But woe betide you if you were adventurous/stupid enough to show up with Hi-Tec trainers (but you were cool if you managed to bend the rules and wear black Hi-tec trainers instead of Clarks school clodhoppers), or Puma or *gasp* Gola.
Any of those brands was like social suicide and marked you out as having fleas and/or herpes.
vsonix said:
It wouldn't surprise me if manufacturers pay 'cool' kids to evangelise certain brands, I remember when I was in school the arbitrary rules over what trainers were 'cool' and what weren't - how did anyone know to begin with, was it just a matter of copying older siblings (I had none)?
For example: Nike were cool but only if they were 'Air' ones and not regular. Reebok 'Pump' Hi-Tops - epitome of cool, then went to epitome of 'Naff' in the space of about a week. Just after I got some, sods law. 'Naf Naf' was cool, despite the name. Fila - if you had a pair of Fila basketball boots you were like God. Adidas was cool, I guess thanks to the Hip-Hop effect and Run DMC rapping about them. Reebok were cool with a certain demographic - the 14 year olds who already smoked 30 a day and were always in detention. But woe betide you if you were adventurous/stupid enough to show up with Hi-Tec trainers (but you were cool if you managed to bend the rules and wear black Hi-tec trainers instead of Clarks school clodhoppers), or Puma or *gasp* Gola.
Any of those brands was like social suicide and marked you out as having fleas and/or herpes.
That brought a whole set of flashbacks to my school in the very early 90s.For example: Nike were cool but only if they were 'Air' ones and not regular. Reebok 'Pump' Hi-Tops - epitome of cool, then went to epitome of 'Naff' in the space of about a week. Just after I got some, sods law. 'Naf Naf' was cool, despite the name. Fila - if you had a pair of Fila basketball boots you were like God. Adidas was cool, I guess thanks to the Hip-Hop effect and Run DMC rapping about them. Reebok were cool with a certain demographic - the 14 year olds who already smoked 30 a day and were always in detention. But woe betide you if you were adventurous/stupid enough to show up with Hi-Tec trainers (but you were cool if you managed to bend the rules and wear black Hi-tec trainers instead of Clarks school clodhoppers), or Puma or *gasp* Gola.
Any of those brands was like social suicide and marked you out as having fleas and/or herpes.
Vaud said:
MYOB said:
Not to me. I would understand if the phones are confiscated for the rest of the day. But not allowing children to have their phones back until the next Friday could potentially raise legal issues.
A legal view:https://schoolsweek.co.uk/whats-the-law-on-confisc...
Vaud said:
vsonix said:
It wouldn't surprise me if manufacturers pay 'cool' kids to evangelise certain brands, I remember when I was in school the arbitrary rules over what trainers were 'cool' and what weren't - how did anyone know to begin with, was it just a matter of copying older siblings (I had none)?
For example: Nike were cool but only if they were 'Air' ones and not regular. Reebok 'Pump' Hi-Tops - epitome of cool, then went to epitome of 'Naff' in the space of about a week. Just after I got some, sods law. 'Naf Naf' was cool, despite the name. Fila - if you had a pair of Fila basketball boots you were like God. Adidas was cool, I guess thanks to the Hip-Hop effect and Run DMC rapping about them. Reebok were cool with a certain demographic - the 14 year olds who already smoked 30 a day and were always in detention. But woe betide you if you were adventurous/stupid enough to show up with Hi-Tec trainers (but you were cool if you managed to bend the rules and wear black Hi-tec trainers instead of Clarks school clodhoppers), or Puma or *gasp* Gola.
Any of those brands was like social suicide and marked you out as having fleas and/or herpes.
That brought a whole set of flashbacks to my school in the very early 90s.For example: Nike were cool but only if they were 'Air' ones and not regular. Reebok 'Pump' Hi-Tops - epitome of cool, then went to epitome of 'Naff' in the space of about a week. Just after I got some, sods law. 'Naf Naf' was cool, despite the name. Fila - if you had a pair of Fila basketball boots you were like God. Adidas was cool, I guess thanks to the Hip-Hop effect and Run DMC rapping about them. Reebok were cool with a certain demographic - the 14 year olds who already smoked 30 a day and were always in detention. But woe betide you if you were adventurous/stupid enough to show up with Hi-Tec trainers (but you were cool if you managed to bend the rules and wear black Hi-tec trainers instead of Clarks school clodhoppers), or Puma or *gasp* Gola.
Any of those brands was like social suicide and marked you out as having fleas and/or herpes.
Vaud said:
MYOB said:
Not to me. I would understand if the phones are confiscated for the rest of the day. But not allowing children to have their phones back until the next Friday could potentially raise legal issues.
A legal view:https://schoolsweek.co.uk/whats-the-law-on-confisc...
BrettMRC said:
But I remember the most fashion/trend baised kids were the ones with the nastiest tempers and usually from the lower rungs of society...
Oddly in our school it was the rich kids. Generally with 2 parents working full time and/or father working away in London, etc who tried to offset lack of time with money. tinytim123 said:
Would be nice if the schools could just ban the phones but what happens if they get confiscated then there is an emergency and the kid can't call their parents, emergency services.
Was there never any emergencies in the days before mobile phones? How did we ever cope....These days, an emergency situation apparently is the necessity to maintain a Snapchat streak - or so I was told during a weekend phone confiscation.
vsonix said:
It wouldn't surprise me if manufacturers pay 'cool' kids to evangelise certain brands,
There already is a massive industry built around social media "influencers".S11Steve said:
These days, an emergency situation apparently is the necessity to maintain a Snapchat streak - or so I was told during a weekend phone confiscation.
Surely the answer to that is "if it's that important to you, don't worry, I'll log in and post on your behalf... Remind me the name of that girl you like again?Vaud said:
BrettMRC said:
But I remember the most fashion/trend baised kids were the ones with the nastiest tempers and usually from the lower rungs of society...
Oddly in our school it was the rich kids. Generally with 2 parents working full time and/or father working away in London, etc who tried to offset lack of time with money. Even down to things like what was in your lunchbox. Tesco own brand Cola and Crisps and a Polar Bear bar? ha! Poor! etc etc.
Its very hard to tell the teenage version of yourself exactly where those same people end up in later life mind you...
BrettMRC said:
Vaud said:
That brought a whole set of flashbacks to my school in the very early 90s.
Same! 
I never gave a monkies TBH. But I remember the most fashion/trend baised kids were the ones with the nastiest tempers and usually from the lower rungs of society...
Another one here. Slightly OT, but I vaguely remember an IT lesson where we were put into groups and had to go out and do a survey on what trainers all the kids in our year wore, then make a database from the results. The 2 things I remember is one of the guys on my team was insistent that we didn't put Reebok down as a separate category (as he said they were crap), and I was insistent we had Gola as a category (because that's what I had). Results were in, there was only 1 person with Gola (yep, that would be me) and we had about 50 people in "other" asking why we didn't have Reebok as a choice
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