Taking away DD's phone.

Doing the right thing!

OP, please know that you are NOT a 'monster' for taking away your daughter's phone. No child NEEDS a smartphone.

I'm of the older generation, and have watched as each generation has given their kids more and more things which were originally aimed at ADULTS! Dressing little girls in 'sexy' outfits, letting little girls wear makeup out of the house, giving kids TV in their bedrooms, and then the nightmare which has arrived with the introduction of smartphones. As each of these things has been introduced to our kids, so society has broken down a little bit more, but everyone seems to think that their kids NEED these things otherwise they will be bullied. When the fact is, that bullying is far more common now than it's ever been, and also the fact is, that with the introduction of smartphones and the internet, our kids are not only being bullied at school or in the street, but in their own homes too!! There is no longer any escape, so we have to protect them for their own sake.

If her behaviour is that bad in just over a month of owning a phone then I totally agree with your approach.

Buy her a brick phone for call and text only or some really tight parental controls on the phone.

I would take the phone, I'd also feel mean but I don't think she's left you any choice.

I would worry though why she's being like this , maybe it's just teenage hormones but I think I'd try and spend some relaxed one on one time with her to try and get to the bottom of it.

I'm not saying this to make you feel bad but Dd was bullied by previous friends when she started high school. It broke her heart. BUT the difference is that the parents, even when presented with the evidence, made excuses and lied. The fact you haven't done that shows you're a good mum.

You have a very unhappy DD.

The phone isn’t the issue.

My DD is the same age as your DD. She has an old style flip phone - no internet, just texts and calls. It’s so boring, and probably embarrassing, that she doesn’t take it to school. She is probably one of only a tiny handful of kids at her school without a smartphone. She has encountered no problems whatsoever in terms of being teased or bullied. But I think whether a child is bullied or not often depends on the personality of the child. My DD doesn’t really take any shit so has avoided being picked on. An apparently vulnerable child may be teased for having no phone, but if it wasn’t the phone, it would be something else. The lack of phone isn’t really the issue.

So many of my school mum friends are in similar positions to you, OP. Their kids are regularly in despair over something on Snapchat. There’s no escaping the social difficulties secondary school presents when you have access to social media. The poor kids don’t get any time to calm down or get things into perspective, because it’s a constant barrage of interaction, and all with the added “bravery” that comes when typing behind a screen. Well done for being firm with your DD. Stick to your guns. I think we will soon see a growing tide of people refusing to give their kids phones. Society will look back in amazement that children were ever allowed access to them.

Our local secondary has banned smartphones on site. They’re not even allowed in pupils’ bags. They are allowed a brick phone (switched off) and the school provides a Chromebook for homework.

Why does your daughter need a smartphone for homework? Surely they’re the most distracting devices out there? I think it’s so odd that it’s become the norm to use them for leisure and for work; it just can’t work.

Could your daughter use a laptop/family computer/your laptop with her own login?

Her behaviour and its causes need to be explored, at first it was the fault of the "bully girls" she was hanging around with so you stopped her seeing them, now it's the fault of the phone so you're stopping that, you need to get to the root of her feelings and behaviour. I am in no way an advocate of smart phones for children btw far from it , but addressing the symptoms isn't going to deal with the cause

If someone mugged you walking down a street you wouldn’t turn and kick a shop door in, would you? I think if she’d hit the person who grabbed her phone it would be slightly more justifiable, though obviously not ideal!

@coolkatt as a teacher I promise you that 90% of socially unacceptable behaviour these days, especially around friendships and bullying, comes from smart phones. I’d give her a brick.

I agree with others - the phone isn't to blame in this. Those behavioural attributes aren't related to a phone at all. Something else is definitely going on.

If you have time this weekend op I'd recommend doing at least one of the following:

Read this article www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1lve0d8nq3o.amp
Google smartphone free childhood
Look up the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Is there something else going on here. The big issue for me is this. It's the big elephant in the room being skirted over. This is not typical.

Has she completely transformed overnight or have there always been challenges?

If all the apps are removed from the phone and she is downloading turn that's a big problem and she can't really have a phone other than a Nokia brick. She can sense you are wobbling. It's understandable but she knows you doubt yourself and your decisions. You have to be totally commited to what you decide. It's a very dangerous road all this. If all the apps are removed and she over rode that then no to the phone apart from a brick.

Hi OP

I really feel for you in this situation, but I too wonder if it’s not just the phone that needs to be looked into. You say she’s banned from going near some troublesome girls “at night”. What is she doing out at night unsupervised at 13? Also, “she’s never done this before” - that you know of, surely?

She sounds immature so perhaps getting in with the bully crowd was to “big herself up”? If that’s so, I think she will be safer with less autonomy than she has at the moment in all areas, not just her phone. Maybe it’s time to go back to the kind of rules that were in place when she was in Junior school and by imposing more structure you will hopefully do away with the “dead” time when she’s undirected and looking for mischief. Personally, I would maybe put more emphasis now on study and less on makeup, etc.

It would be best if, for a while, she had no phone at all, and when she has her next phone just the old brick one because she has problems with the other kind. Libraries have PCs for homework if she needs to go somewhere after school for access.

Also, apart from supervised clubs, she’d be grounded!

Lots of children have phones and manage to not bully anyone or kick glass doors in...

We can completely blame the phone/apps here but maybe it might be worth looking a bit deeper?

Mine also started secondary with a small group from primary, none of them are good friends anymore, it took a few weeks but they all branched out and made new friends that suited them better and that's fine. Not sure trying to force your daughter to only be friends with specific people is going to work well.

@coolkatt keep talking, perhaps watch/listen to some of the recent documentaries about the issues together. She will start to understand. And one day realise you did her an enormous favour.

No the phone isn't the cause. The social media apps are... Snapchat being one of the ones that is most negatively affecting girls.

IMO the more parents clamp down on young teens having smartphones the better.

Mobile phone use and social media is going to the be scandal of this generation in twenty years time.

We need to get past this “if they don’t have a phone they’ll be isolated” train of thought. One of the biggest causes of bullying now is social media, one of the biggest causes of mental health issues in teens is social media. It’s high time that parents started parenting and clamping down on this stuff.

Personally I think that no child needs a smartphone or social media under the age of 18, and if I were making the law that’s exactly what I would do.

IIRC in Australia they’ve recently increased the age that children can go on SM.

But all this talk of “how would you feel,” people seem to be forgetting that she is a child. she clearly isn’t responsible enough to have a smartphone or social media, and it is your job to parent her.

And if she’s using social media to bully other children then the social media needs to go. It really is that simple.

The phone is not the cause. Many kids have phones and don't kick in glass doors.

If/when you give it back, set up the parental controls. Set it so that she can't download any apps without your permission or knowledge and block the insta/tik tok etc websites. Don't let her download any other internet browsers as these circumvent the restrictions. I can do this with my dds phone as they are both androids, I'm sure its similar for iPhones

Time for the phone to go 100%
The damage these things are doing to young teens is terrifying.

There is an interesting doc on Radio 4 called Living without my smartphone. Have a listen on BBC sounds. It's a real eye opener.