Parental Access to 13 year olds iPad.

[NameWithChange]

Hi all, just that really, AIBU to have the passcode/access to 13 year old DS's iPad?

His father thinks we should have full access whenever we want/need. I am on the fence and can see my teen wants some privacy. I have just found out that he has now changed the password so we no longer have access and this is going to come to a head.

What does everyone else do?

Are you not able to see what's being accessed through your router?
Some people have accessible logging through their internet provider.

If not, just change the wifi password and tell him he can't have the new one until you have his password.

DS1 has just had his tablet removed because he had accessed something I'd expressly forbidden (the slender man) and I discovered it when routinely checking his history. In our house you get privacy on devices when you pay your own bill!

I say this everytime this comes up. Once they get to 13 don't presume that the IT you provide is the only IT they have and don't presume just because you see and monitor the activity you know about that is all that is going on.

Most kids of parents who keep strict tabs also have second accounts they access on friends computers/IT and/or second phones, tablets etc they have acquired.

Far more important than monitoring is teaching them about keeping safe

My dd knows that I reserve the right to check her phone but I generally do it her presence and don't go into details of what she is actually writing to her friends because I do think a teenager needs to have some privacy. If I was concerned at all I would delve deeper.

He hasn't been allowed an iPhone yet.

He (accidentally) broke his laptop screen and I haven't been able to afford to replace.

He cannot access my PC or iPad.

We have a pretty hefty firewall that stops me from entering the most innocent of things! So hopefully does him too via iPad.

The porn is something I hadn't thought of. Not sure how much he could get through our firewall though. I can't imagine many 13 year old boys want to discuss porn with their mind!!

Sorry 'mum' not 'mind'

I our house...

Full access or no access

After some of the things I've witnessed from DD's friends this month online (11-12yo) I'll be insisting on access for a long time. There are some parents out there clearly not looking what their children are putting online

I kinda feel sorry for the kids of today. I was a teen in the freshly post-dialup years all I had to do was delete the browsing history and my parents were never any the wiser of my internet searches. They never demanded the password for my login on the family pc, and I was free to browse at will. Fair enough, there wasn't quite the plethora of social medias there is now, but there certainly was porn, which is what any questing teen is after!

Full access, non-negotiable. Whatever he says his friends' parents do.

I check my DCs iPads and phones occasionally to satisfy myself there's nothing untoward. They're 11-14. If they objected, I'd remove them.

Not really I'm intrigued what The Slender Man is now but afraid to google!!!

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_Man

He heard about it at school, and I'd seen the stuff in the news about the girls who tried to kill their friend because of it so had banned it.

He has autism and really struggles to separate truth and fantasy so while we're working on helping him to realise the difference I didn't think the slender man was a good idea. Plus it's creepy as fuck!

I had parental control on my teen. I just waited til he is 16 to take it off and gave him more privacy

Wrenika,

My son did the same thing -I have have been using the internet since 1996 - AOL and even though you erased your browser history, some parent like myself were still able to check

I think the old AOL dial up used to have child setting but it was such a long ago

"As a geek, I know every single keypress my children make. Why wouldn't you?"

Because not every parent is a geek . I wouldn't know how to find out every keypress DD makes.

DD is 17 and I don't know her passwords. She has a steady boyfriend and I know she isn't being groomed. I don't know what websites she looks at, but OH and I have had plenty of discussions with her about the implications of posting stuff online, and how the police can go through deleted search history.

13? You'd be out of your mind not to be checking.

I work in this area and it;s always the smug "I trust them" crowd that end up really wishing they hadn't. It's no different to any other aspect of parenting, kids need firm boundaries and help to define their own. Frankly I think you're an idiot if you're not monitoring a very young teen online.

My daughter doesn't have her iTunes password, I do.

She has a key lock on her phone, but if she changes it she loses it.

Took her a while to get over herself but she plays by the rules now.

A 13 year old shouldn't be doing anything online that they wouldn't want you to see imo. Though I would probably question the benefit of a child that young having access to a private tablet that can access all dark corners of the web anyway. I remember what me and my friends were like on the family computer and that was in the early 2000s in the dining room! Peados and groomers would be the least of my worries tbh

Notreallyarsed how old is you ds?

Just wondering as hearing about slender man at school would have really pissed me off if very young haha that story creeps
me out even now!!

A 13 year old shouldn't be doing anything online that they wouldn't want you to see imo

Just because they want privacy doesn't mean there is anything to be suspicious of. In times gone by they'd have written in a diary and would be furious if a parent or sibling read it. They would have private conversations with friends. Nowadays they write and communicate on Snapchat and WhatsApp.

StickThatInYourPipe he's only 10! I was really surprised, but apparently it's talked about a lot at school and he wanted to fit in. Ugh. School in fairness have been ace, they did an assembly about internet safety and made a point that the slender man is not appropriate for children. It's come up in the run up to Halloween apparently.

First rule of technology in this house is that the bill payer has absolute right of access... no access = no tech... don't look often especially as they are getting older... but they know I might and that it is for their protection not because I am being nosey. I am a pretty laid back parent ... probably a bit of softy...but even I have some immovable rules and that is one of them.