Smartphone use is banned within the gates of the Junior School at Queenwood in Mosman.
“I don’t think we’ve really had an issue. Girls have brought phones and put them in a box,” says Head of Junior School Anni Sandwell.
“But it has meant, after school, we don’t know what they’re doing.”
Last year, Sandwell decided to change that. Armed with sociologist Jonathan Haidt’s popular book The Anxious Generation, which links social media and phones to heightened rates of teen anxiety and depression, Sandwell wanted to make a pact with parents: don’t let your child have a smartphone, full stop.
In an age of helicopter parenting, with many families tracking their children’s locations remotely, Sandwell did not know how parents would react. But she was pleasantly surprised.
“These parents were all really keen for their children to have a safe and happy childhood,” she said.
Haidt’s argument is that, before the 1990s, children experienced more risk and physical injuries, but fewer psychological ones. Now, children are overprotected in the real world, and under-protected online, where real danger lurks.
Queenwood mother Dr Rachel Holbrook had not given much thought to the growing presence of smartphones among younger students before reading the letter.
“I then knew that I had to; I had to take a position and stick to it to protect my daughters.”
She sat at the dinner table and spoke to her children about why they were not going to have smartphones until at least year 10.
“I didn’t want my girls to have a camera, and I didn’t want them to have the internet just because of all that they can access. You are basically giving them access to everything.”
Parents went one step further and created their own group, Queenwood Unplugged, to share resources and support with the goal of keeping their daughters phone-free when entering high school.
At school, Sandwell said some parents were more lax than others.
“We have caught two girls this term using phones. We haven’t had to put the fear of god into them because they’re scared of losing their phone,” she said.