A MOTHER of two has launched a campaign to ban smartphones in schools for children up to the end of Year 9, or 14 years.

Clare Fernyhough, a mum of two from the Winchester area, says the use of phones by children is harming their development and mental health.

She is also concerned for parents who are caught between giving the phones to children when they are too young and seeing them bullied by classmates for not having them.

Clare got together with her friend, and fellow mum, Daisy Greenwell, in February to launch a campaign called Smartphone Free Childhood. Both are withholding smartphones from their children until they are 15.

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It is getting nationwide support and a 'Parents Pact' petition has been signed by nearly 48,000 people, including more than 2,000 in Hampshire from 283 schools.

In the Winchester area, most support has come from Princes Mead, Kings Worthy, with 114 names; followed y St Bede primary with 94, The Westgate secondary, 86, Weeke primary with 72 and St Peter's RC primary with 46.

They both agreed that they weren't going to give their children phones when they started school but they recognised the difficult dilemma they now faced.

Clare said: "We either give our children access to an adult product that opens the door to harmful content, addictive algorithms and the anxiety machine that is social media. Or, we risk alienating them from their peers at a crucial stage of their development."

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They set up a WhatsApp group to support each other in the decision to hold off on buying smartphones and within 24 hours, thousands of other parents had joined the group after an Instagram post by Daisy went viral. 

The original group quickly maxed out 1,000 members, so they encouraged people to set up local groups to build the conversation in their areas. Within hours more than 60 Smartphone Free Childhood WhatsApp groups had launched the length and breadth of Britain each with up to 200 members, kicking off a national conversation about the harms of smartphones for children.

Now, the 'Smartphone Free Childhood' movement has over 150,000 parents signed up, with Hampshire being the biggest community outside London.

Clare, who trained as a psychologist, advised that these problems consist of viewing harmful content, loneliness, increasing anxiety to cyber-bullying.

The 'Parents Pact' was launched this week, where parents will agree to delay giving their children smartphones until the end of year 9. This pact saw 20,000 signatures on the first day and is currently at 47,500. 

Clare said the "positive response has been overwhelming, I have been contacted by parents in floods of tears who are so grateful to have  found a community that shares their concerns."

The next step of the initiative is to establish the "Smartphone Free Schools Movement', which will aim to encourage schools to make a pledge to not allow smartphones. After that, Clare says "We will keep pushing until we get real change. Childhood is too short to be spent on a smartphone, we are fighting back against big tech."

You can learn more about the movement here;
Smartphone Free Childhood