AIBU - apparently I'm the worst mum in the world!!

[tactum]

and the strictest and everything else you can think of!!

DD (just 14) has obv got an iphone which she is very very attached to - apart from homework time, mealtimes and other such stuff. I used to let her leave it on the landing to charge over night - never in her bedroom - which apparently made me the devil incarnate already because NO ONE else's parents EVER restrict their phone usage day or night and everyone else sleeps with their head practically on them. However we have had a couple of occasions where 1 of us has got up early or we have been aware of her moving around early and she has nabbed it - talking pre 6.15 am.

So now my rule is it charges overnight in our bedroom no debate. She goes to bed around 9.45 pm and she can come and retrieve it once she is up and showered dressed etc in the am - usually works out around 7, as she has to leave quite early on the bus.

Apparently I am the worst person in the world for doing this, but when I question why she always just re-iterates that she doesn't normally use it outside of those hours anyway so I'm being mean for not trusting her. My argument is 1. if that's the case what's the problem, 2. why the hell does the first thing she feel the needs to do be to look at a screen.

I'm sure many of you with younger children would be thinking you'd never even let them have a phone that early in the day, but please, just watch this space....

To all of you out there, am AIBU?

DD's secondary school have given us explicit instructions that all tech must be out of bedrooms and inaccessible after 9pm.

Holy moly, they have jurisdiction over your homes, do they?

YANBU

Jesus.

I haven't all the replies but the first few were enough.

My DCs are not allowed their phones at all once they're through the door Monday to Thursday. They have no screens expect in the study or in one bedroom with strict settings, only for homework.

They are allowed phones at the weekend but NOT in their bedrooms. They have their own space downstairs.

My dcs are 14,13,10 & 8.

Youngest DC is 13 and not allowed any device in the bedroom at night (apart from when having a friend for a sleepover at a weekend). Oldest is 16 (Y12) and is now allowed to make own decisions

Omg op I'm nicking your idea! My 14 yr old is glued to his phone I'm forever rushing him along and then catching him playing with phone when should be getting ready. From tonight I'm taking it and telling him he's not having til he's ready (I bet now he'll have time to make his bed)!

We found out DD2 (14yrs) was face timing boys she knows through her sport at 1am - from her bedroom and therefore in her night things. We also discovered one of the boys had sent her a picture of his bits (why do boys think girls want unsolicited penis pictures?) apart from the fact sending such images to children is unlawful. As I pay her bill it's me the police would want to talk to if anything were to progress further. We therefore banned (for a while) all devices from her bedroom and had a general safeguarding talk. We had always thought her naive and sensible so the 1am face time chats with a much older boy were quite a wake up call for us. Teenagers seem to have less boundaries nowadays and actually it can be we parents who are the naive ones. She is allowed devices in her room again at the moment but she is aware they could be banned again if anything else occurred - including if she uses them after lights out.

YANBU.

We are apparently the worst parents in the world because we turn off internet access for our teenage DCs between 10 pm and 7 am on school nights. No other parents in the world do this, at all, ever.

I am totally with you on this one - my teenage daughter has always had to charge her phone downstairs - not least due to fact some kids are on there messaging at 2 and 3 in the morning. With best will in world hard to resist sneaking a peek if phone by your side and as other posters have said , teenagers need their sleep. Their impulse control simply isn't developed enough at this age/ stage. However, unless the phone is delaying her getting out in morning I would trial her having it from when she wakes ( rule in our house is dress then phone which speeds up process!) because I think at this age they message a lot about plans/ homework/ arrangements for day ahead. But nighttime? No - stay strong! After all someone said to me if your teenagers never object to any house rules you have probably abdicated parenting!!

My DD12 can't resist the lure of a screen and ends up on it until 2am then is a Grumpy, tired, Mardy sod. So we have an internet nuke just before bed. Phones charge outside the room. When she is better able to regulate she can charge it in her room.

We must be the worst parents even because internet gets cut off an hour before bedtime and the final hour is wind down time when they can read but no screens.

Hurryboomboom- parents are grateful when schools give useful guidance like this. Oh, and guess who takes the blame when children are 'failed'?

normal human beings are not on the phone, texting or watching porn at 2am. Unsupervised teenagers with screen addiction probably do all these things. Result -stuffed up education and other issues.

when she pays all her own bills and no-one else has to live with her, she can live with the thing stuffed up her nose for all you care. Until then - diddums will just have to cope with doing as she is bloody told.

"Explicit instructions" and "guidance" are not the same thing.

Save us from the teens!
We have similar complaints from DS2 which we are deaf to /proud of as they are a tribute to us bothering to care enough to properly parent. So when he messes up at school, all devices are forfeit.
If he's on track, then devices may be returned, but if that results in shoddy homework or using devices post light out we forfeit again so he detoxes and resets his priorities.
YADNBU. And soo many parents do this.

tactum you are totally right! My 16 year old doesn't charge her phone overnight in her room - even if set to silent/vibrate I'm sure she would wake up if a message/whats app/ snapchat came through and some of her friends are messaging at 3 in the morning. ....she doesn't have a TV in her room either.....she has plenty of time in the day to catch up with friends and social media

I too have a 14dd and we have had the very same debate/argument.
Over the last couple of years we've gone from no phones at all in her bedroom, to phone till 10 pm then wifi off (but allowed to keep her phone because apparently we are making her feel like a baby )
To now- where she knows the wifi is on but if we find out she has used her phone after 10.30 she will lose these privileges.
Now I'm not daft, I know she probably pushes these boundaries from time to time but I wanted her to feel we trust her. And also tbh I kind of think that if she's tired the next day from staying up too late then that's her own doing! She's old enough now to manage things like that. Obs we do occasional checks that she's not on her phone and I can tell when she's tired. That's when she loses her phone which goes down like a lead balloon.
You have to do what suits you best. I just got sick of arguing about it

Stick to your guns. She can moan to her friends about you if she likes. I have not enough discipline myself and can use tablet while struggling to keep my eyes open.

Not that many teens 'manage' as we'd like. They are not grown ups, IT is addictive and other things to be more relaxed about.

It's a lose-lose situation. If you trust her, despite the evidence you can't, you have to accept that she will break that trust repeatedly and more seriously.

If you stand firm, you are damaging her social life and more importantly her opportunities to develop her social skills. If her friends are allowed to use their phones all night long and she isn't, she risks being pushed to the periphery of their group or worse, outright bullied.

You cannot win, you lose one way or the other. It's your decision though.

BTW you're not the "worst mum in the world" - these wretches are some way ahead of you (I hope!).

We make our 11 and 12 year olds leave their phones downstairs on a charge on a night. They are both addicted to their phones. When we are downstairs if they forget to turn the sound down they are ping pinging with messages all night every night until we'll after 11.30pm when we go to bed. I don't the kids would relax or have any down time if they had their phones in their rooms. I am pleased we do this as one of my DD's friends got a lot of really nasty messages after 11pm from a girl in school and I don't want kids subjected to that in the middle of the night.

Gosh...I'd never leave a phone charging while we were asleep. It's been on tv many a time about them catching fire.
If my middle son has been on it all evening he goes to school without it, it charges while he's at school. Oldest isn't on his phone quite so much. So he charges it in his room in the evenings. Then turns it off at night. I charge mine in the eves or early morning too.
Everything I do is cruel according to middle son. (13) Making him go to bed at 9pm making him put cereal in his bowl and pour his own milk, making him put his clothes in the wash, making him take his plate to the sink. Apparently no one else does jobs, I'm cruel and it's child labour. He's planning reporting me for child labour!! He goes to bed the earliest in the whole school apparently. I can't get him up in the morning otherwise I'd let him stay up later.

YANBU, although this is such a difficult issue as we didn't grow up with technology so it's hard to understand the pull of the device. My ds 15 has his phone in his room at night now, but didn't at 14 as we had several incidents of him messaging friends during the night. The minute he wakes up he is on his phone and it remains attached to him unless he is eating at the table, or during school. You know your DD best, how much sleep she needs, how much you can trust her etc. and you are the parent so you set the rules going on what you feel is right. Whatever you do you will be the worst parent ever - all us parents of teens are aren't we? 😉😬

100% with you on this one. My eldest - due to certain reasons - was not allowed his phone in his room at all, we left it downstairs overnight trusting him that he wouldn't sneak down but unfortunately he did so it was put on dnd and put in my drawer in my bedroom overnight until he had got ready/asked for it in the morning. Yes we were the worst parents ever, everyone else was allowed to etc etc - which actually was a load of bull we found out after speaking to several of his friends parents and I'm sure if we let him do everything that everyone else supposedly did I'm sure he would have ended up in a lot of trouble. My daughter has the same rules now she has got her phone and so will my youngest when he gets his. Funny thing is he moved out with his girlfriend about a year ago and when he came back to stay a couple of times he still handed me his phone before bed without me even saying anything 😂 - he's now 22 and it certainly hasn't done him any harm he has a fantastic well paid job, lovely girlfriend & beautiful flat

Lots of lovely trusting parents trusting their teens with tech in their bedrooms at night? At least 65% of those have no parental controls. So sleep issues aside ( research has highlighted the negative impact) who exactly is messaging your child? I know because I've seen some of the disgusting filthy messages by creepy paedophiles. I've also seen the appalling bitchy bullying messages that some kids think are acceptable and the blackmail that regularly drives teens to suicide. Yep! Not your kids right ? Because you trust them!

we did this for years, and it is the right thing to do. When we stopped, in her last year of school, our DD stayed up till all hours on her phone and then struggled in the morning.

Check out CEOPS for the stats.

Okay hurryboomboom. 'Explicitly' or 'guidance' it's plainly good advice.