The kids aren't ok and in fact they're hungry: Schools begin mobile phone ban

COMMENT: There's a major detail that seems to have been missed with this ban - and I'm very sure schools didn't think of it beforehand.

I was bracing myself for a tirade when my 16-year-old returned home from the first day of term four this week, and I most certainly got it.

Monday was the beginning of public schools banning the use of mobile phones during school hours, and the anticipation had been building since the announcement earlier this year.

'It's f**ked," my son announced as he walked in the door.

Well, that was to be expected. But I didn't expect him to follow it up with this:

"So many kids didn't get to eat all day."

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RELATED: Phones banned across NSW public schools from term 4

School mobile phone ban causes chaos

At my son's school, the ban doesn't mean the kids can't have their phones on them - they're just supposed to be on Airplane mode and can't touch them from the moment they're at school, until they leave.

I'm no parenting expert, but you don't have to be one to know what the ban is trying to achieve: less distractions to learning. Less opportunities for being on social media and bullying/being bullied.

Also, a lot of kids are addicted to their phones and need support in practicing more healthy usage.

Yep, I get all of that. As a parent of a teen, I understand the concept of this ban. But I don't agree with how it's being done.

There are two problems. One of them is what my kid raised when he came home on the first day of the ban - I'll get to that below.

But the main one is my personal issue because as parents, we are responsible for this age group's phone usage in the first place. We can't just take it away like it's 2003.

Nama with an excerpt of her son's school's mobile phone ban policy. Image: supplied

Most of these kids lived through the COVID-19 rules of screen usage - meaning, there were barely any. They were tweens at the time of home restrictions, then online learning. It as a time when concerns over limiting screen time were generally not the biggest priority.

Movies went straight to streaming. There was more online gaming, more FaceTiming, and a whole lot of texting. 

Then, we released them back into a completely changed world; where doing classwork, checking timetables, doing tests, organising which room band practice would be in, even class discussions, had all moved online.

And now, this week, we've ripped all of that away... and expect them to accept that seamlessly.

That doesn't sit well with me. I find it confusing, especially because the "outside/real world" will be such a contrast. It feels... archaic.

Wouldn't better education on mobile phone usage be more productive than a blanket school ban? 

A good example of how problematic this contrast was is what my kid was talking about on Monday.

Nama and her son. Image: supplied

"I bought my friend lunch"

The night before term began, my son and I dug out an old, crusty debit card that is linked to my everyday account.

That's because we'd received an email from the school making it clear that phones could no longer be accessed for buying food from the canteen, as had been the situation for years. Kids would either need to bring cash or remember to pre-order food online.

To kids these days, cash and coins are bizarre - so crusty credit card it was. Simply because a standard way that people pay for goods and services these days - tap and go - would no longer be available with the phone ban.

My kid explained to me there was a "nice" teacher on tuck shop duty at recess, and she understood many students hadn't been organised with the new rules and allowed them to purchase food with their phones.

But the teacher on lunch duty wasn't so lenient, feeling kids needed to learn; and so my son bought food for a mate who had neither cash nor card.

I'm not sure making kids go hungry was one of the intentions of the ban.

Today, I received a message sent from my son's laptop saying "card's not working, couldn't get lunch".

So that's what the mobile phone ban has meant to us this week: my son couldn't buy food, but he could still message me about not getting food.

Go figure.

The way I see it, the ban needs to sort itself out and really define what it's trying to achieve, before the kids - whose behaviour it wants to improve - should be expected to get it without question.

Originally published as The kids aren't ok and in fact they're hungry: Schools begin mobile phone ban