Advice on phone for a child

[EdwardTeach]

My daughter is in the final year of primary school. We have successfully batted off all requests for a phone to date, to the extent that she no longer asks! However I think it would be sensible to get her a phone soon, as I would like her to have a phone by secondary school, as it will be a reasonably long journey and I would like her to be able to keep in touch with friends that go on to different secondary schools. This will also give us half a year to establish sensible use.

I am looking for:

- cheapish phone reccomendations
- Tips from parents who have given their kids phones!

 

[DataVampire]

Hate to break it to you. But as you know its a slippery slope. children can be so cruel. (Especially the females)it will cost you. it would be wise while not ideal to see what other children have or better still what her friends will have. The reason for this is simple I know when we decided to do this for my daughter. we went to the cheap old phone. her friends and other children constantly made fun to the point where it was bullying. in the end, she "accidentally" broke it. It's a strange world when you have to fit into what other people have, lets be honest your looking at a semi-current iPhone or Samsung.

When I travel to work on the bus the school kids I see are using iPhones and Samsungs. Also make sure you get insurance lol.
Anyhow hope it helps somewhat.

 

[EdwardTeach]

Hate to break it to you. But as you know its a slippery slope. children can be so cruel. (Especially the females)it will cost you. it would be wise while not ideal to see what other children have or better still what her friends will have. The reason for this is simple I know when we decided to do this for my daughter. we went to the cheap old phone. her friends and other children constantly made fun to the point where it was bullying. in the end, she "accidentally" broke it. It's a strange world when you have to fit into what other people have, lets be honest your looking at a semi-current iPhone or Samsung.

When I travel to work on the bus the school kids I see are using iPhones and Samsungs. Also make sure you get insurance lol.
Anyhow hope it helps somewhat.

Thanks for the advice.

With regards to what you see on the bus, I am a teacher and I am no longer shocked at the expensive kit my students are bringing to school. I even saw a girl with a Luis vuiton rucksack! (this is just a state school). I came from a wealthy family, but we would never have had that much money spent on us at that age. The bar has definitely been raised. Airpods are ubiquitous, and they alone cost more than the nicest Walkman back in the day!

I did do a subtle enquiry about her friends phones yesterday. They mostly don't seem to have anything too fancy yet, a few nokias and Motorola etc. I asked her if she gets teased for not having a phone, and she said no, and they are actually envious of the tech she had at home. I think we will get away with something like a Motorola g8 at this stage. She will be enormously delighted and surprised with any phone, as I have stuck to the line that she won't get a phone until she is 16+! (in my dreams)

 

[Squink]

A second hand iPhone 6s can be bought for £100-ish if you shop around. They're a good size for smaller hands and while they no longer feel premium compared to newer devices, they're still nice and they run the latest version of iOS. I'm not a great fan of Apple as a company, but their devices are consistent across the range. Just make sure you get the 32gb model instead of the 16gb.

If the 6s works out, you have the option of the SE or the 12 Mini down the line, both of which are a child-friendly size.

 

[sandys]

from my experience Kids don't expect much from phones, so long as it can play some games, I started my daughter off with an old cast off an LG G4, **** phone these days but needed to see if she could be responsible with it before buying something fancy and by fancy for me that was a phone that wasn't apple purely because an Apple phone is more of a target for the bad element, no one has given her any grief about her xiaomi on the bus, kids all seem to use whatsapp so no problem with imessage which was a concern I had that she would be excluded on that basis but it has been fine as although there are a lot of iphone users, there are loads on even worse android phones, no one gets any grief.

I probably helps that the school doesn;t allow phones in school, so they are only used to and from.

Only issue I had with the Mi phone was that the ads in the browser brought up some unsavory stuff, though this comes down to my daughter trying to find manga rips off of dodgy websites when the free episode ran out on funimation and of course you get pop ups and tracking cookie issues, so had to button down a few things on the phone, she has learned not to do that and have her paying a subscription with her pocket money.

 

[OspreyO]

We used a dumb nokia with no camera. But it has premium games on it. So had to block that on the sim when I realised.
One has already died. So not that robust anymore.

When we tried older smart phones. They would drain the battery playing games on it.