11 year old phone what limit do you put on?

[purpleme12]

11, year old with phone
Do you put a daily limit on for how much they can use it? If so, how much?

Yep, one thing I learned is that no one seems to have an appropriate bed time anymore! DD goes to bed later than me now.

It is Friday, after all.

Yes I guess it is Friday!

I don't tend to let her stay up very late! I like to have some time to myself!!

Maybe that's the age difference. In the last few months she's started sitting in her room and we rarely see her. I sometimes go in and sit with her but after about 30 mins she asks me to leave 😭😭😭

I listen to slipping through my fingers and sob 😂😭

Oh god don't say that! 😭😓

I'm 4 teenagers in. They always use "music" as there way to keep access to their phones. Break that and they access music in other ways and have less phone time.

They always use "music" as there way to keep access to their phones.

I got mine each a Bluetooth speaker to keep in their rooms. They're not allowed to use their phones after supper or have it in their room - it stays in the living room and they can stream their music to their speaker.

No WhatsApp and no social media (no Snapchat, TikTok, whatever). She doesn’t have it all the time. Only gets it to put in her bag to go to school as she’s going out the door and always comes back to us before dinner, but some afternoons she doesn’t have it at all. All the usual safety precautions in place on the phone itself.

If she starts becoming difficult about it or does anything I’m not happy with, it’s gone. She currently hasn’t had it for a week and a half because I wasn’t happy with her behaviour on it. Some of her friends parents are absolutely useless wet fish. They don’t monitor anything and if they do get in trouble for anything, at most they lose their phones for a couple hours. I see them all on there chatting with each other at like 10pm on a school night, sometimes 2am. 🙄

Not sure if this has been mentioned already but note that on WhatsApp they can do "Updates" which is the same as Stories on Instagram... and if you tell them not to they can just exclude you from being able to view so you won't be aware (unless you check their phone daily)

Not read whole thread.

Phone stays downstairs ALL the time it's in the house.

Phone doesn't go to school (she's still in yr 6)

No whats app

No aps

It's a phone. It's for texting me and her dad and her sisters (adults) taking pics and that's that.

Oh there is one friend who likes to text her as she gets to our house to call for DD on school mornings and that's fine. Sometimes she chats by text with this mate for 10 mins before dinner and that's ok.

Apparently there's a big whats app group with ''most of yr 6'' on it. The idea fills me with horror. A friend relented and let her yr6 get whats app and join it. There were tears within 48 hours.

It shocks me the amount of people who don’t limit their children’s time or take their phone away at bedtime. We have people messaging on GCs at all hours - usually post 11pm on a school night. Tbh I think it’s parental neglect and full on laziness. Be a bloody parent. No 11 yo needs a phone at 11pm. Arguably no 11yo needs one at all. We didn’t!

I am the strictest parent with phones out of all of the parents I know and I don’t even think I’m that strict. But an 11yo would choose to be on a phone over everything else. Infact my 11yo today was on her phone on a Group call at 9am ignoring a younger sibling who wanted to play and chat. So I took it away for the entire weekend. The reliance on it is just not happening. It’s not entertainment.

DS is 12 but his rules haven't changed since he was 11. He goes to bed about 10:30pm by his own choice, but we don't allow him to have his phone on him at bedtimes as he'll just be sleepy. He has an Alexa for an alarm.

No screen time limits for us at all. We have an app that means we can check how long he's spent but that's only if we've noticed he's been on it a lot. He uses his phone for homework quite a lot and we can check that it actually has been used for that using the app. Generally, he won't spend longer than 2 hours per day and if it's longer than that, he needs to have a valid reason. There's so many more things he could do rather than being on his phone!!

We have 2 older daughters as well and the same rules generally apply with probably a bit more leniency.

I know a parent who would post this word for word @kungfullama but guess whose child is the one sending the inappropriate messages and insulting the other kids using horrible language on the group chats.....
As much as we think we know what's going on and think our kids can be trusted, you'd be shocked what's said in these chats and what they view on those apps.
Personally OP, I didn't allow mine a phone til yr6 and I didn't allow large group chats as they caused nothing but upset and trouble. I relented when they left primary school as they wanted to keep in touch. The primary school group is still the one that's full of nastiness and bullying. My child ignores it but doesn't leave as gets added back and removed added back and removed like a yo-yo, prefers to keep a lower profile. The groups with newer friends seem to be calmer.
I honestly think smart phones and access to all these messaging apps/social media etc do far more harm than good and you need to have clear boundaries. Knowing it turns off after a certain amount of time or at a certain time definitely helps but if could wipe them all out I would!

nope…social media is just ruining people in my opinion. I have none anymore (except this I suppose but this is anonymous and not a carousel of ridiculous videos!)and I feel so much better for it!! I’m really hoping my dc follow my lead on that.

Thanks

Food for thought reading replies

The phone does turn off automatically at 10. That's how it was set for me. I haven't changed that. But she does to bed before then apart from about 1 night when we come back from guides.
She doesn't have Google anyway at the minute. And only WhatsApp out of the social media things.

It was just this new group chat thing that made me think again! But I think I'll be taking her out of this group chat. Nothing bad has happened towards her or anything but it seems like an excuse to insult people (or certain people doing it between themselves on there) and swear at each other and one person tried to do a group chat call at midnight! (I had the phone myself cos I was looking at this group chat that's how I knew) And thought it was funny.
It's been a bit of an eyeopener looking at how people talk

@ProfessionalTeaDrinker @kungfullama I also know parents who could post that word for word but because they do all the parenting, their kid isn't an absolute bully... phones are not the devil. It's similar to books vs cinema vs short media!

DC is 15 but at 11 when they got their phone they had daily limits of 20 minutes on games and no access to the internet. Screentime kicked in at 7/8pm I think and ran until 7am. Phone is off at night and out of bedroom.

These days, they have access to the internet and only age limits on the apps they can download. Screen time is now a 9pm switch off apart from Duolingo and music. Every now and then DC will ask for the time to be later and I've always adjusted it temporarily. This DC's friends aren't as sociable on their mobiles as DC1's were so there's been minimal resistance to the limits etc. At 15, phone is still off overnight but stays in their room now. We've all got proper alarm clocks so no one needs their phone in their room to wake them in the morning. There's still a 20 minute limit on games but also on Instagram in an effort to limit the drivel scrolling.

I'm sure we've not done it perfectly but I'm glad we have stuck to a switch off time whilst the DCs have been in Y11 or below. It helped DC1 manage their time and friendship drama as once it got to 10pm, they knew there would be respite/no expectation from friends to reply. Screentime wasn't an option for DC1 so their phone had to be switched off. Once they'd done their GCSEs, we lifted the rule about the 10pm switch off and phones being out of bedrooms. Sometimes part of me wishes we hadn't but then again, teenagers need to learn to manage their own use at some point...

Part of the parenting is keeping an eye on the phone, monitoring it/it's use and putting safety measures in place. People say and do things over a keyboard they would in real life because they feel detached from it, not thinking about the impact it has. There's no way of knowing what your child is doing if you are not monitoring it. And allowing access to the internet, tik tok etc, overnight with no restrictions is madness