British Education Minister Bridget Phillipson has said all schools must comply with new government guidelines and ban the use of mobile phones throughout the school day.
According to a BBC exclusive report, the Minister stated in a letter to schools that “it is inappropriate to use mobile phones as calculators or research tools during lessons, breaks, and lunchtimes.”
The Minister’s warning is sound, but she also needs to address an important point to families. This isn’t about mobile phones used in schools themselves, but about the phones given to children as early as one year old and never taken away again.
Families are now using phones to silence their children. Families give their crying children mobile phones or tablets to play games or watch cartoons, feeling relieved and unaware that their children are becoming addicted to phones.
In the past, lullabies were sung and stories were read to children before bedtime. Now this has disappeared. There are almost no families left who read stories to their children before sleep. Families who give their children phones while they watch television have even forgotten how to sing lullabies to them. The minister should actually warn families about this. It’s only natural that children who grow up with phones become addicted to them.