Do you also check your children's phones?

[DominikaPL]

Hi!

i wonder what it looks like for you ;) I feel uncomfortable with the topic because i belive in trust but on the other hand i dont trust other people - especially strangest.

I will be grateful for every answer! :D

Yes, if I felt I needed to.

That actually turned out to be very few times. I have 4 kids who had phones. I checked one as they had a friend the same age in the USA and I wanted to check it was an innocent friendship with a real teen, not someone dodgy. All was fine, and years later they're still friends.

Another time was when there was a nasty tik tok going round that part of their friendship group had made, so I wanted to see what was being said. It all blew over quickly, the child's parents made them delete it and the app, and they were all remarkably mature about it.

They all had to leave their phones downstairs when they went to bed, and the wifi also used to be on a timer to go off at night.

They are all over 16 now, so I don't check, and the wifi is on all the time. My youngest still leaves his phone downstairs, though I don't make him, but I'm glad he chooses to do that.

If mine were teenagers now I'd be more likely to check phones. As it is, mine were probably the last generation of teenagers to grow up without smartphones and I'm glad it was so. I trusted them, didn't invade their privacy, but made it clear that they must come to me or their dad if anything relating to messages was bothering them - which two of the three of them did at various points - and whatever it was would be dealt with sensitively and appropriately - which it was. It seems to be much harder these days with constant internet access.

Those who check phones, what do you check? My kids use Snapchat most of the time for messaging now and, as far as I’m aware, unless a message has been saved or screenshot, messages disappear so you can’t see any history?
I check WhatsApp, browsing history etc but hate that I can’t check Snapchat (unless I’m missing something!)

Mine don’t have Snapchat for that reason, too much bullying and unpleasantness bred by no accountability because it can’t be checked. Time enough for Snapchat when they’re older and more able to moderate their behaviour.

I used to check WhatsApp and other messaging apps, stopped when he was about in y8 or 9.
As a teacher (primary) I explicitly ask parents to keep an eye on what their children are saying and viewing because every single year there are issues. A lot are confident that their children are kind/sensible/mature whatever, then their eyes pop out of their heads when they see what their children have written.
Even the brightest ones can be astonishingly naive about people that they encounter online 🙁

I check mine. Snapchat's usually stay for 24 hours. I also check WhatsApp. My dd (11) is quite sensible and brought a really worrying series of photos to my attention (porn) that a 10 year old boy had sent. To my knowledge none of the other kids (on the class WhatsApp) told their parents. I alerted the school immediately and also alerted the parents to check their dc phones.

@whoknows1230 yes Snapchat is really difficult to monitor. DD wasn’t allowed to have it when I was still checking her phone - I had Apple Family restrictions set up so I had to approve any app downloads.

She did work out a way to bypass it when she was in Year 7, which resulted in her having no wifi access for a long while afterwards!

Yes, every week. Dd is 10, it's not about invading privacy, it is about making sure she is safe.

Yes. Young tween and teenager. Tbh I find it a bit heart rending. The teen gets more privacy

Ds15 no, I did used to when he went to bed up until 9 months ago when we decided he was old and mature enough to take his phone to bed.
dd 11, I check quite often… not that I don’t trust what she’s saying, she gets awkward when someone writes something bad, so I just check there are no nasty message from any of her friends.

Yes and I'm really glad I did as it turned out dd had downloaded an app (when she was 13) that was akin to tinder for teens.

It was a massive wake up call to me and the consequences could have been horrific if I'd not realised what was happening.

I got much stricter after that.

It's basic safe guarding of your kids to check their phones.

Yes and we have open conversations all the time. She knows I have access to most things. She actually shared her phone password with me when she changed it (because there was an incident at school). She actually knows my password too.

As a parent I know the damaging affects of social media and phones. So I feel a responsibility to keep an eye on what she is up to.

It is absolutely vital that you check your child's phone and internet use. For a multitude of reasons - access to adult content, risk of grooming, bullying etc etc etc. You wouldn't let your child go somewhere unaccompanied which carried these sorts of risks, so this is no different just because it's on their phone. In fact it's worse as it's in your home and can follow them around. At least with a physical location, they might be able to leave!

The way to do it is to explain to child that you will be checking/monitoring their phone and internet use and to be aware of that when they are using it. It's a non-negotiable if they want a phone/internet use. So if there's some chat with a friend they want to remain private, they should do it in person. Just like at work. You know work communications are monitored so you wouldn't have a conversation on there that you didn't want work seeing.

As they get older, as with everything, you gradually let go of the reins, while teaching them about internet safety and encouraging open communication (so hopefully they'll tell you if something was wrong). But don't do this too soon and become complacent as I know someone whose child was late teens and unbeknownst to them he started watching men with horrible views on youtube. I won't go into detail but some of it was horrific. She had no idea. This was a long while back and neither of us tbf had any clue this stuff was even out there. Luckily he's come out the other side and is a lovely reasonable human being, but the internet moves on very fast, faster than we parents can keep up with, and the dangers move on. If you are not monitoring, you can't protect them.

Not really, though my son doesn't have any data/wifi or any SM apps he uses it as a camera more than anything he only has family in his contacts (as in grandparents' aunts uncles and his dad and me).
He knows it's used to be a phone because his neurological side to him is just for texting or calling and photos. I think being slightly younger cognitively, he understands that SM isn't for him, and as he has other game consoles, he hardly touches his phone
We just gave him a phone in case an emergency or he wants to contact family.
I will occasionally look at the photos he took, but most of the time, the message he just sent someone is shoved in my face asking if the spelling is right/it sounds right.
My son is 14.

We told them we might when they were given phones. We never did, they were both sensible and talked to us a lot. Neither lived on their phone, much more interested in other stuff so it was never an issue. One of my kids had some weird messages whilst gaming and came to us straight away.

If they were living on their phone, obsessed with SM, didn’t talk to us, withdrawing from family life and I felt they were hiding things which could be harmful, we would have, but only to make sure they were safe. I know a couple of parent that just read their kids messages to be nosy. I think they deserve a bit of privacy to message friends.

No, never needed to, we always had an open dialogue about anything involving phones or the Internet. He was able to come & show me when he was being cyberbullied so I could inform the school & send screenshots which got it nipped in the bud.

I used to on occasion, I haven't in a long time (DD is 12). But she's very open with me about what messages she's getting (i.e. tells me all the whatsapp drama) so I don't feel the need to at the moment.

Absolutely I check. I don't have a regular routine and we do have settings on the younger 3's phone so we can monitor their usage. Eldest (15) has the same settings as part of the family group but has demonstrated she can manage her socials and messages well over the last few years so we tend not to look at hers. They all know if their behaviour at home or school tanks, they may lose phone privileges and their usage will be scrutinised closely, as well as other sanctions and discussions.

Middle son is 13 and we monitor him less, but he's unable to self regulate usage and would be on it at all hours if we didn't enforce a phone time out. We can control what functions still work in time out so initially left messages and calls on, incase they ever needed it in an emergency. But he was on his phone very late so we removed that until he can demonstrate better regulation. Ie choosing himself not to have his phone glued to his hand all day when not in school.

Our youngest are 11 and have just started secondary. we check their phones fairly frequently in the evenings at the moment. This was after a period when 1 (sen) was complaining of constant friendship issues, so we could discuss her text responses to her friends and help her understand how her messages could be perceived. We wait

Sorry (sneezed and hit post)

We wait until their downtime has kicked in and then check, going through any concerns we see. This has been beneficial as youngest (11, twin to sen dc) has been talking about concerning topics so we've been able to open a conversation between ourselves and also alert school and other support avenues.

As they are still young, we see checking their phones as our responsibility to help them navigate modern life outside of what can sometimes be an echo chamber of people agreeing with antisocial sentiments. Both dh and I have and do work with young people, schools and adults where life choices haven't been so positive and see it as our job to role model socially appropriate behaviours while allowing them to make mistakes safely and learn lessons were needed.

My children have both had phones for under a year and the condition was I would check them whenever I want and had to know the passcode.

I get what you're saying about privacy, but at this age my two are just learning how to use them
The only social media they have is WhatsApp as I have to approve whatever apps they have. I use family link link others have mentioned. No phones in bedroom at bedtime. They get charged downstairs.

I trust my children but I have seen a couple of messages where one repeated an inappropriate joke he'd heard at school (that's what he told me anyway) and once I explained the context of the joke he was horrified and went to delete it straight away (I already had done that!).

I also saw a conversation where someone else was being quite mean - we talked about how some people might feel braver saying things when it's not face to face and what to do. My older kid brought me his phone once to show me a conversation he was worried about - we chatted it over and it was all sorted.

I said they shouldn't ever type anything they wouldn't be happy with their granny seeing or being on the front page of the local paper.

My kids are ten and thirteen and while they learn to use their phones appropriately I will check them regularly. I see search histories and if things get deleted and I'm suspicious they will lose phone privileges. We had a big talking about sexting too but mine are still "yuck, girls, who'd want to kiss a girl?".

I trust my children but they need to be monitored at this state so they can earn privacy once they've demonstrated responsible use.

I'm saying all this, the ten year olds phone is filled with memes and absolute drivel in some chats, and the older one barely checks some of the groups he is in!

Sorry I should have started my message with "welcome to my Ted Talk"....didn't realise it was so long!

Interestingly, my older teens/young adults (all pretty mature and decent) tell me that I really must monitor/limit use for my primary aged children when they get phones in High School. If that’s not the clearest indication that children need supporting in online environments I don’t know what is.

My older kids are the same. They also tell the younger ones to be very clear to their friends that a parent checks their phone.

Until quite recently when she had a good boost of confidence one of my Uni age girls used to tell her friends that when she came home for holidays she had to leave her phone downstairs overnight as we had a strict no phones in bedrooms rule. She used to say it accompanied with rolling eyes and that “parents, what can you do” shrug they all seem to have. She did that because it was easier than admitting she turned her phone off overnight as so many of her friends are online until daft o’clock.