AIBU to ask for my 12 year old's iphone password?

[studentandparent]

AIBU to ask for my 12 year old's iphone password?

You would be unreasonable not to

No, they are a child

You are the parent, why wouldn't you? When both my children were given phones for when they started secondary a condition of the phone was it had to be accessible by us and we could check it to keep them safe.

One morning I checked my son's phone, I think he was 12 and a friend had messaged in the middle of the night talking about killing himself. I had to report it to school immediately and kept hold of Ds's phone so that I could protect him from that. Luckily I had picked it up before he did as it was not in his room overnight.

A mobile phone is a gateway to the internet, you police their phone and you talk to them about why.

Definitely not unreasonable. They're a child. You're well within your rights to monitor especially considering how dark the web is these days.

Phones here (11 and 13) are conditional on parents knowing the unlock code.
You would be totally unreasonable not to check the phone occasionally. (Ours also have to be downstairs overnight - parents as well as kids).

I wouldn’t allow a 12-year-old child access to a smart phone without full access to it

Not at all. Any good parent should have access to their 12 year olds phone.

I believe it’s neglectful not to, all that access for a 12 year old is terrifying really. Plus I presume you paid for the phone so consider it yours.

Did she buy it for herself? Does she pay for the service?

If not, then withholding the password and refusing access to the phone are not an option for her. The password and access to the phone are either given to you or the phone gets taken away.

Same here, 11 year old DD and I have full access to her phone, that won’t change for quite some time. I pay for it and will monitor her use of it until I’m happy she can keep herself safe online without my supervision.

Out of interest, when do parents stop having the code?

As long as I was paying the bill, I had the code!

One of the conditions of my 11 yo having a phone was that I know the passcode. Also I check it randomly every week.

Thank you everyone. As I expected - it is unanimous that parents should have passwords. I agree. The next question is - if a parent were to stumble upon something worrying messaged on Whatsapp to their child, is it appropriate to message that child's parent to alert them, even when they don't know the family?

If you don't know the family, how can you contact the parents? (I could probably contact less than 20% of the parents of the kids who message DS1)
It would be wrong for the parent to contact the child sending the inappropriate messages.
If school is a common link, it can be reported directly to school. Or the police if it is that serious.
The child sending inappropriate material can also be blocked (although iirc, that doesn't block messages through group chats in whatsapp, but that could have changed in the past 5 years!).

Not unreasonable at all

Thanks @KarrotKake - I am on a parents WA group with all families in my child's class, but I don't know all the parents personally.

That's a great idea to contact the school re any issues. Thank you.

I would talk to my DD first as a WA message often is not the full story.

I only know exactly 2 parents in DD's form, it's absolutely unknown for secondary school children to have parent's information. If it would be serious I would ask the school's pastoral support for advice.