My 5th student begs me for a phone; I hold

My son is approaching the end of the fifth year. It is actively begging me for a phone Before the end of the school year so that he can stay in touch with his friends during the summer, but I am very hesitant. Since he claims that all his classmates have a phone, I know he feels excluded.

In the Netflix shows “adolescence”, “ Jamie tells the psychologist appointed by the court that he “needs” an Instagram account to examine the accounts of his classmates. My son expressed the same level of need when he asks me for a phone because all his friends have one.

As a school and secondary school, I witnessed most of the behavior displayed in “adolescence” In real life. For example, I saw the emotional repercussions of the private photo of a student, intended to be seen by a single person, publicized throughout the school.

My son is only in fifth year, and I already feel like I am not not to protect him from the phone culture

Last month, my son’s school had to inform parents of an incident brought to their attention by the parent of a classmate who was Intimidated on a group cat. I must say that I was not as surprised by the news as I wish, even for students who are only 10 and 11 years old.

The test was a bit of a reaffirmation for me that I do the right Decision not to make a phone to my son yet.

That said, it is almost impossible to prevent him from being exposed because of his friends, who share their social media accounts, their internet content and communications with him while he is at school. It really bothers me, but it is difficult to fight when so many classmates have received this kind of uncontrolled access to smartphones and everything that accompanies them.

Due to having been a teacher, I may have developed a more prudent state of mind around the use of the phone

I think that because I was a teacher, I was given a different perspective on how ubiquitous and distracting phones can become among students. Perhaps one of my most constant and potentially volatile situations with the students was to have to ask them several times to store their phones.

Due to young people who grow up with phones, there is one element in their life that I simply did not have to manage at their age. My students and my son think that I do not “understand”, which, in some ways, is true. My point of view of having a phone at their age is only as observer, and what I have seen is not appropriate.

From what I remember by growing up, it was quite difficult without all my peers having phones.

Having an open relationship with my son is all I can think about staying in tune with his thoughts

For the moment, I’m just trying to talk to my son every day about as many subjects as possible. By facilitating conversations with him, I do my best to keep the communication routes open so that I can remain as aware as possible of what he lives and thinks. If, for example, to evoke the 80/20 rule of the show, then I would have the opportunity to speak with him and to challenge the credibility of this belief.

Talking regularly to my son is the only way I think I can prevent him from following the wrong path because I know that I will have to give in possibly and make him a phone. I just have to hope that when I cannot keep him completely away from this world, he will have maturity to manage him to have an adult in his life for which he can turn to get advice.