To check your child's phone?

[sadie3]

Is it wrong or good parenting?

I just wish my DS would remember to charge his phone and take it with him.

I have nothing to check and all he can come up with 'oh, sorry, I forget to take it with me!!'

My DS is more than capable of managing a phone.....I still like to look on it though and so far he has never given me any reason to think I made the wrong decision.

DS is nearly 15, no I don't check his phone. From this age you can't possibly control all that they do and nor should you. I also don't think it's right.

10-12 ok but not passed 14.

BettySwollocks I know that my DS would never look at anything dodgy but we all think that don't we!!

You do know how easy it is to look at something dodgy without meaning to?

I do not believe a ten year old should ever be given unrestricted independent access to the internet, some adults can't cope with it. Like I say though I may change my mind when I have a ten year old although I think it is unlikely as I've never met a ten year old who was mature enough to cope.

my dd is 11 and has just been trusted with her first phone.... she gets the bus from school, so it is there for emergencies only - and messing about with her mates . She was given the phone with the proviso that her mum and dad can use it, have access to it at any time. As it is with Orange, we can log on and see activity logs for the month anyhow...

iPhone for a 10 year old!

And it's never unreasonable to check a child's phone. It's unreasonable not to.

Nanny - yes of course but so far we havent had any mishaps...but yes, this would be another reason I like to check his phone!

Offred - it's not unrestricted and he knows this as he knows his phone gets checked. To be fair, he knows how to work the computer so if he was dead set on looking at anything untoward I am sure he would find a way. Luckily for me, he is only interested in looking at music, wrestling and ebay and chatting to his mates on whatsapp so nothing sinister so far. The day I find anything dodgy is like I said the day the phone is confiscated.

We all parent differently, horses for courses and all that but certainly, when DS was 7 I had exactly the same attitude as you. It's shocking how quick they grow up now, far quicker than when I was a kid I am sure!

Tidy - I wasn't going to buy him a phone when given one for free...it just happened to be an old iphone :)

I know, I read your posts. Still .

To be fair, it was mine to start with then I gradually noticed that I had it less and less ..I was actually amazed how quickly he got the hang of ot!

Betty- I accept that. More than willing to believe it may change although I cannot see why a ten yo would need an iPhone even if they might be able to cope. I think you can't rely on checking up as you can easily hide things and by then the damage is done. The Internet isn't within the control of the user it connects them with the rest of the world and I would be worried not about whether he was trustworthy but whether he could cope with being exposed to things by others/accidentally and whether he had a real understanding of the issues behind things e.g. With wrestling issues with fighting and use of force, bodily autonomy and objectification of women/sexism etc.

I would probably let a high school child have a simple text/call PAYG phone.

His understanding with wrestling is he likes watching it, finds it fun and likes collecting the figures.....that is it! He knows obviously that he cant start wrestling his mates and chucking chairs over peoples head and as for the objectification of women....well, he is too young for all that so just takes it at face value.

But that, I am sure, is for another thread :)

I dont check my nearly 15 and 16 year olds phones. They both have facebook and i am on their friends lists but with both the novelty wore off within months and they rarely go on there.
I dont check their computer history either as they are both computer savvy enough to delete or cover their tracks if need be.
I trust them both and thus far they have done nothing that would make me think that trust is misplaced.

I did check my DDs fb and phone and emails at 14. I wouldn't now at 17.

DS is now 11 and I have all the passwords to anything he does online, he doesn't. I got his phone on a contract so that I can see every message he sends as the bill is itemised and I check his internet history on it all the time. I am getting him a laptop for xmas and am getting a programme installed on it that sends me an email telling me everything that he searches and every page he goes on. I will do the same for my girls when they are old enough. I will only stop checking and loosen the parental controls when they hit 16 or 17 I think.

Poor Betty, you are getting a proper bashing here. I think some of it is jealousy. I don't have a fancy pants phone, I did but DH had it stolen. All we've got now are very basic Samsung ones that phone or text.
I have read my DDs texts. They are less interesting than when we lived in England. That was mainly her and her mate talking about how fit certain boys were.
Now it's all about the pH scale and whether DD has done her bit of homework.
My 11.6YO is a dull girl now.

Betty my 11yo has a Blackberry and is into wrestling too (which incidently isn't sexist at all and is actually a very healthy thing for a child to get into, you may want to look at the wwe anti-bullying campaign and the individual projects that each wrestler supports before commenting further on that one offred). Looks like I'm a crap parent too

Wrestling a very healthy thing?! Ha! prowrestlingreview.tumblr.com/post/26223454562/sexism-in-wrestling yes, I'm well Jel Betty's 10year old has got an iPhone innit! Cos all of us aspire to shove electronic gadgets down our children as the pinnacle of good parenting!!

And I definitely do not agree that it is ok to expose a child to objectification of women because they are "too young for all that" and at 10 I really doubt he is really too young for all that anyway, I don't really consider my 7 year old too young to think about issues like that. At 10 he's a pre-teen, what he is exposed to at the moment is really important for influencing his attitudes and experiences in adolescence.

its your job as a parent to do so

I am not even going to click on that link, I watch it every week, I have met a lot of them too and my son is now heavily involved in various sports and has also become involved in the playground friends group in his school to prevent bullying as he aspires to be like his heroes so yes its a good thing.

Some people find a sexist agenda to everything, just because someone has put a report or whatever that link is online it doesn't make it right.

I didn't say it made me a good parent for my son to have that phone, but it sure as hell doesn't make me a bad one either.

No-one called you a bad parent apart from you.

Ignorance is bliss eh?

Those pesky people bothered about kids being exposed to sexism without guidance, some people eh?