Teens & headphones

[tootyfruitypickle]

My DD is soon to be 12 and we had agreed she could have some AirPods as obviously no party ! However last night I remembered headphones and hearing loss (not sure how that had slipped my mind) . She currently has some big headphones that she wears most of the day but they’re starting to play up . I’ve now told her she can only wear these for an hour and suggested a speaker for her birthday as she doesn’t have one in her room. There isn’t anything else she wants for her birthday.

Cue storming out as apparently speakers are not the done thing. I feel bad as she was really excited about the AirPods so I get she is disappointed but at the same time shes only 12 and I want to protect her hearing.

Am I over reacting ? All the evidence seems to show that headphones and esp AirPods are terrible for hearing . I don’t really get why speakers are such an issue.

Bit gutted for myself as I was enjoying the quiet !

I’ve given her a link to portable speakers . She’s still not interested. I’m sure she’ll think of something else she’d like and calm down as she’s pretty reasonable in general but I feel a bit sad as she was really enjoying her music .

I wore headphones constantly at full volume from age 10 to not long ago and I'm 48 so not the best person to advise! I would have been devastated if someone had taken my music away from me and still would be. Any loss of hearing I have now is undoubtedly due to ageing and my hearing is still fine.

It's a hard one. My 12yo got AirPods for Christmas as she was covering mine. She's pretty sensible with them though. I'd let her have them personally.

I only buy volume limiting one’s, but I’m sure I read somewhere that you can limit the volume at the source (?). Ie place a volume limit on the iPod of similar? Then the headphone type doesn’t matter.

*coveting

Part of being a teenager is listening to music too loud and feeling angsty, you said she could have something she really wanted and then did a complete 180 and took the rug out from under her so I get why she's upset, she's 12 though, not a baby, have a talk about how damaging listening to music at loud volumes is, give her all the information she needs to protect herself and then it's upto her, oh and tell her about tinnitus, maybe youtube a video of what it sounds like and play it to her so she's knows what could happen from damaging her ears.

Oh yeah and my phone actually pings up a warning if I listen to music to loud and you can probably limit volume somehow on most things but I'm sure it would be easy for her to undo

If she has an iPhone, you can set a volume limit - and prevent her changing it back by using the privacy settings/parental controls:
support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph5643d2c85/ios#:~:text=To%20prevent%20changes%20to%20the,then%20tap%20Don't%20Allow.

I suspect other smartphones will have similar, google it!

Airpods aren't particularly loud are they?

Oh wow everyone agrees with DD. I agree that I’ve done a 180. I’m a single parent so really appreciate the chance to discuss this as making these decisions is hard. Yes I have just read that you can limit volume on iphone. What about I agree on basis volume limiter is set and she takes regular breaks ?

I do feel a bit that she has enough crap at that moment what with everything which is why I agreed such a luxury present as it may make things more tolerable . Plus Her current ones keep suddenly going insanely loud so they do need replacing !

She’s very anxious. Just mentioning hearing loss will have been enough! If I play her a clip of tinnitus she’ll never ever use headphones again!