Are our teenage phone cut-off times during term time too strict?

[Sartre]

I have a 13, 15 and 16 yo. Worth noting youngest and eldest do not care whatsoever about the screen time restrictions we have in place, or at least they’ve never complained. Middle DD is more extroverted and sociable and prefers social media / messaging apps so this may be why she’s more bothered than they are.

Our current set up is phones shut off at 9pm during the week, 10:30 on weekends and school holidays (which is when DH and I go to bed). Eldest two are going through GCSEs so I think it’s more important than ever that they get adequate sleep. They’re up at 6.30 am and they faff about for 30 mins min after screens go off so basically it’s 9.30 minimum until they’re in bed but probably sleep by 10 meaning it’s around 8.5 hours sleep which I think is right at their age.

Basically DC2 thinks this is hugely unfair and we’re at loggerheads constantly. According to her, her friends (who are all very sensible so I’m not convinced) have unrestricted screen time so stay up till past midnight. She finds it embarrassing she has to cut off chats to go to bed. Are we being unfair? As I say, DC1 and 3 don’t care.

My 14 and 16 year olds don’t really have limits. I trust them to manage themselves pretty well.

The eldest is doing GCSEs and regulates his bedtimes etc brilliantly. The younger one is more sociable and can sometimes be online with his friends until 12-1am on Friday nights and weekends but is a star student and very sporty so achieves a balance despite this.

I think it’s better to allow them to have responsibility for themselves which sets them up for doing so independently when they go to uni.

Interesting. I don’t feel she would self regulate, she would gladly stay up past midnight most nights and be exhausted. I fear this would impact her grades.

My DC14's phone shuts off at 7pm (when she was 13 it was 7, she trialled it at 8pm this school year but quickly asked to have it back at 7pm) until 7am.

DC16 8pm - 7 am ( he absolutely cannot regulate, SN involved).

Mine have never gamed online with friends - never asked.

I can well believe a few of her friends have no limits. One of her friends has never had any limits, is constantly online and one of the reasons DD is happy to have a limit!

ETA we don't have special rules for weekends/holidays.

My Ds is 14 and we tell him to go to bed at 11pm on school nights and 11.30 at the weekend but we don’t actually know when he goes to sleep and he’s allowed to keep his phone in his room. We don’t really monitor screen time anymore. Up to about 12 he had to leave his gadgets downstairs to charge from 10.30 but now he’s older we just say if you can’t get up for school you won’t be able to have your phone late at night!

Wow ok, the two responses have been polar opposite and I think I’m somewhere in the middle of both! Very interesting. I know how stroppy they all can get without adequate sleep which they seem to forget…

Why don’t you trial her being self regulating during the school holidays?

When I was at school my parents still had expectations during the holidays - we had to be out of bed and dressed by 8, when we hit 14 we had to have jobs. This was only during the week.

Set similar rules for her - if she can’t manage it, she goes back to the old way. Make it immediate, if one day she’s late up that’s it, she loses the ability to self regulate.

They do need to learn to self regulate and part of this is learning from their own mistakes. I think you have to let the natural consequences of staying up too late play out, let her be exhausted and let it affect her school work. When (or if, she may surprise you) it does then you can have a conversation about it and if she won’t or isn’t able to sensibly self regulate then you at least have concrete reasons to reinstate the boundaries. Sometimes you just have to let them fail so they can learn.

DD14’s phone shuts off at 10pm daily as that’s her bedtime. This has just increased from 9pm when she was 13 and before that it was from 8pm when she got her phone at the end of year 6.
DS is an adult now but I think I took the block off when he was about 15 as he was able to self regulate by then.
DD will not be able to so hers stays on. I’ve only changed it she’s on a sleepover in the school holidays.

My 12 year old GS has a cut off time if 8pm every day and the phone isn't allowed in his bedroom.
I think your deadlines are fine for your 16 year old but perhaps too lax for the 13 year old.

My DS17 and DS16 plug their phones in to charge in the kitchen every night at 10 - they then trot off to bed. Sometimes even earlier . 10 has been the time for a few years now - no one has said anything so I’m just enjoying my sleep before one of them starts staying up or out late - it can’t be far off

I think this may well be the sweet spot rather than lifting all regulations!

On the self regulation front, I think eldest would do this well, he has taken himself up to bed early before when he’s recognised he’s exhausted but DD’s likely wouldn’t. It’s also the fact they’re not silent when on the screens, especially DC2 who likes to send voice notes so always seems to be chatting…

So let her be tired and don’t relax on your expectations. If there’s no job, she has to be up doing things around the house.

If she wakes up the rest of the household, she deals with the consequences and loses her privileges all together.

Oh I give them all the same because they’re so close in age, she is 14 this year. If I made one rule for one and different for another, they’d create so much fuss and claim I had favourites and such - it isn’t worth the headache!

Well done for being a good mum

God don’t do this it’s awful.

allow her more time and see if she can be responsible

My 16, 12 and 10 year olds don’t have a limit they keep the phones in their rooms.

They have always self regulated and they all perform well in school and get up and ready no problem in the mornings. 16 yo has just finished highers (A-levels) and has also worked until 11pm most nights for the past year. It works for us and I’ve found it has made them mature and responsible but saying that I also don’t think it is wrong to have curfews and bedtimes if that’s what works for them individually and for the family.

Maybe if they were performing poorly in school and sluggish in the mornings I’d rethink but you could at least give her a chance to prove herself.

I agree with this approach. Young ones nowadays get everything managed for them to the ninth degree. They need to make mistakes to learn the hard way. My eldest is 19yo and I haven't restricted his phone at all. He has been fine getting up daily for college, passed all exams in high school etc. You have to just let them get on with it. They have to self regulate eventually.

My 15yo isn't really that interested in his phone so it hasn't been an issue for him. X Box however 🙄🤣 so lights have to be out 10pm. Blanket rule.

Younger two not at this stage yet. They're of a different generation to the older two so it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

There is something to be said for teaching young people to set boundaries and time limits and most of the time when you’re teaching young people things like this it comes from you creating them in the first place through some negotiation

My DD14 puts her phone in another room to charge overnight. We don't have a set time as our schedules are not the same each day, but probably 9ish unless she's only just got home. I imagine it's a bit later at weekends. I have said that if there is any argument about putting it in charge when requested we might need to look at rules but so far, so good. I don't want her to have her phone in her room or be up late messaging friends, or doing Duolingo which seems to happen at the end of the day. She gets herself up for school earlier than I get up and we don't do anything towards getting her off to school so I've concluded that she's getting enough sleep.

I wax out with friends a while ago, all with DC14 and we talked about screen time. There was quite a big variance with one child being sent to bed phone free at 8, my rather slack when we tell her to put it away, another friend has actual settings on the phone that shut it down and one child wasn't allowed her phone upstairs. The 8pm bedtime parent concluded that perhaps DC was right, she was stricter than other parents.

I don't want her screen time automatically switched off as often she isn't home yet and I can't be bothered being responsible for amending it if still required. At no point would she be allowed it until midnight as I think she should be asleep.

I think you have to work out what works for you as a family too. I'm not mad keen on rules as I'd have to enforce them and I try to minimise that, for my sanity. I'm not as patient at 9pm always as I would like. So far she's always put it away when asked, sometimes after doing something 'urgent' but it hasn't been a problem. I don't check her phone or anything either but do chat to her about what she looks at online which is baffling to me but pretty wholesome so far.

I think some kids are still on their phones at midnight in DC's school but she speaks about that with the same derision as those who vape and drink, so she obviously doesn't feel too oppressed! I used to complain about my friend's mum being more lenient than mine and, retrospectively, my mum just agreed that the friend in question was indeed very lucky without altering her stance. 😂

Does your 10 year old have free access to the internet alone in bed overnight? Surely that’s not healthy

I largely don’t micromanage their lives. Probably since year 8 they’ve been in charge of homework for example, I’m not on at them constantly even though I have the app so can see when it is or isn’t done. My theory is if they want to get a detention, that’s on them but they’ve all self regulated with that and never missed any! They also walk home from school (almost 3 miles), go out with friends often, are responsible for their packed lunches and keeping their rooms tidy, wash up and do their own laundry etc. I wouldn’t say I’m hugely on top.

Screentime feels a bit different because I feel even as adults it can be difficult to self regulate sometimes once the algorithm has you hooked. Their brains are at a rather pivotal stage of development and their exams are super important.

I wish all parents thought the same as you.

As for the 'it's unfair' comment, has your child been watching re-runs of Harry Enfield?

Haha! We have shown them all Kevin and got massive eye rolls…

So you don’t know when your DC is going to sleep, or what he’s accessing on the internet overnight, or how much of the night he’s awake doom-scrolling or talking to randoms in online forums? And this is on school nights?

Our rule is all phones in parents bedroom before bed, our fifteen year old has a smartphone that cuts out at 8pm and has a total screen limit of two hours per day, our thirteen year old has a brick with no internet and our seven year old has no phone.
iPads for school work stay in the kitchen, no other use, and kindles left in kitchen before bed.
we are strict because we are teachers and can see the damage of unlimited screen use in bedrooms on the pupils we teach. we are dealing with lost generations with no moral compass other than people who make money spewing hate online.

There is no way, no WAY I would allow my children to have any internet connected device in their bedroom with them at night. Yes I trust my kids, but I do not trust random strangers they could have access to on the internet. Open your eyes.