AIBU to take my sd's phone during visits?

[Pawpatrolsucks]

My dh took his EW to court over access a few months, and won visits eoweekend. His EW gave their 8 year old daughter a phone so they can keep in touch while with us. The phone is full of games and if SD has the phone she doesn't interact with anyone. I now take the phone and SD knows if she wants to call her mum all she has to do is ask. Sd's mum has said the phone must be with her daughter at all times incase mum wants to call. AIBU to take the phone? SD has a lot of fun and doesn't ask for the phone while here, but if she has the phone she just plays games all the time. It feels like a bit of a power play.

Obviously YANBU. The DD can't always be contactable during visits she might be swimming or at the cinema or just busy doing something and not reply to a message. I wouldn't expect my 8 year old to be always contactable on a play date let alone a visit with their other parent.

I would just offer exW a reasonable way of contacting SD (eg set times to call or message while visiting a way of contacting DP or you if she needs specific info) then leave it at that. If ExW decides to pursue this in court she won't get anywhere anyway.

Nothing to add in the issue with OP as its nothing I have experience of but I am slightly taken aback at the idea that children should all be taking phones with them to sleepovers. Was wondering if I am slightly negligent. My 9yo dd has been to loads of sleepovers, with several friends, and doesn't own a mobile. I can't think of a single classmate who does (tiny village school, sample size of 12 so possibly not representative). We certainly haven't had anyone with a phone come to stay here. She hasn't even asked for one yet which suggests that no child she knows has one.
Contact is through sleepover parents. I trust them to look after her well, or to contact me if there was an issue. If I didn't trust them, she wouldn't be sleeping there in the first place.
All the parents I know, far from advocating that the children should have a phone on them at all times, switched on, worry about letting their kids borrow their iPad and what levels of screen time is acceptable.
I wonder if location is part of it? I can't go back and check for the moment because my iPad is playing up, but is the correct username 'mathanxiety'? In which case, does it signify the U.S. (Math rather than maths.) Not that it affects the actual question, but what is 'normal' might then vary hugely.

dh offered to pick SD up in the morning from exw but exw said no. Exw put SD in holiday care at school for the day and told dh he can pick her up in the afternoon. Dh took the day off work and picked SD up in the morning to spend more time with her. So dh got shouted at because dh wanted to spend a bit more time with his daughter.

Your DH was completely out of order and he should never do that again.

Now that there is a visitation schedule established and signed off by the court both he and the exW are obliged to abide by it.

If the exW takes him to court over this breach the judge will reprimand him and possibly impose a sanction that could include loss of visitation privileges or even a custodial sentence for contempt of court.

I cannot emphasise this enough - and it doesn't matter what your H's motives are - he cannot rock up to his exW's home and remove his daughter on a day not explicitly granted to him for contact by the court or without express prior consultation and agreement from the exW.

I repeat, to be absolutely clear - 'wanting to spend more time with his daughter' is not a reason to contravene the schedule established by a court order. There is no reason sufficiently urgent to contravene a court order.

And FYI and for your H's information too, it makes no difference whatsoever whether DD was happy for the day in your home.

Sorry, but you are married to a dick who thinks the law only applies to his exW and not to him.

If he wants more time with his DD then he has to go back to court.

• He needs to petition for the right to phone/skype/email contact during the twelve days she is with her mum.
• He needs to enlarge the visitation schedule to include alternate days off school to be shared between him and his exW.
• Ditto holiday time when she is off school - half term, Christmas, Easter, summer break.

...that is, if he is really interested in creating and maintaining a good relationship with DD. I don't think this is what your H is all about here. I think he is determined to show the exW who is the boss.

If he is only interested in bullying the exW, as he did with the stunt he pulled on Friday, then I sincerely hope some judge will tell him what the courts think of men who cock a snook at their authority.

I am in the US, but among children of my friends and children of my cousins in both Ireland and the UK the majority have had phones from an early age.

Friends, cousins and I are all in our early 50s at this point, and I have a huge number of cousins.

A lot of us are very techy and not too hung up on screen time for children. As mentioned, many of the children have phones with limited functionality.

You could have the phone on and on a shelf - could still get it if it rings. And could let her on it for games in the same way she can watch tv or play on a tablet for a specified length of time.
Sounds like the child is in a game of piggy in the middle.

8 years old is too young for a child to have a phone.

My OH has court ordered indirect contact Ashe EW wouldn’t ‘allow’ him to ring his children. A judge ordered he could speak to them 3 x a week at a certain time.

This is unreasonable and my OH would never stoop to his EW’s low level.

My OH bought a mobile for the older child when they turned 13. He sees them EOW. Mum texts circa 5 times a day and rings at least 3 x when we have them. I’ve no issue unless it disturbs family time, dinner time etc. Which it started to. Mum would also ring at circa midnight (which IMO is too late).

So we put a rule in place. No phones upstairs at night and all our phones go in the side to be recharged during the day. Stops excessive screen time.

Remember mum can not dictate what goes on on your time.

My 6 year old has a phone. He has no one to call on it, but has a couple of games. It cost about £20.
He also has a tablet, watches paw patrol on it. I didn't have any of this as a child but so what? Times change. It's all about balance imo.
Children whose parents have chosen to split will have different needs also with regard to phones.

I am twenty seven and I remember growing up with no mobile or internet.

Why on Earth does an eight-year-old need a mobile phone?

I grew up with three tv channels and no remote controls. So what?

I was born in 1964 and did a lot of reading in bed as a child. When I first saw an ad for the Clapper I nearly cried - how I would have loved that.

We had a b/w tv that could only tune in to certain stations (we got Irish TV, BBC 1 and 2, UTV, ITV and then Channel 4) if you sat on the floor and held the channel knob. I spent hours and hours sitting on the floor doing exactly that.

My children have used the internet from an early age (thy and the internet grew up together). Their school required online research from about age 9-10 (back in the late 90s and early 00s for DD1) and taught students to evaluate research hits. They were expected to be well able to use the internet even as it existed in the late 90s and early 00s by age 10-12.

Children whose parents have chosen to split will have different needs also with regard to phones.
THIS^^
Phones - basic Nokia bricks gave way to smarter and smarter phones, and they had them from age 8-9.

Many homes my children went to for sleepovers had got rid of their landline because it made no sense to pay a landline carrier as well as for a bundle that might include mobile phone/TV/internet, cousins and friends ditto in Ireland and the UK.

Parents hosting sleepovers were not always ok with being interrupted on their phones or blackberries or with handing over their phone or other device to a child to have a conversation with a parent calling to say nighty night.

We have rules in our house - no techno upstairs.
Phones in the kitchen at all other times accessible but in their slot, can be checked but not played on
No phones at the table
In the car you can play to oyur hearts content with the volume down!!

To be honest this is coming across as a power play thing between the EX and your DP. My phone, your phone etc etc

It is not natural to not speak to your parents for days on end as a child and I have no respect for families that try to limit contact between parents and children on whatever side of the barrier they sit.

Interesting to compare notes, math.
I started uni in 1997. We had lessons on how to use the Internet, but they were lectures, with the staff member sat at the front with his screen projected on to the board so we could all see. When we did try to use the computers in the practical sessions, it was so slow that by the time we'd all logged on the session was over! Nobody did any research on the Internet. It took far too long and the specialist info wasn't available. By 1999 when I graduated I had an email address but I only knew one or two people with their own laptops, and no one with their own internet access. Shows how quickly things moved if around the same time your kids were using the Internet for school.
My two have access and they have their own tablets. But it's not unrestricted, and the tablets don't leave the house unless it's a holiday. They don't take them to friends houses for play dates, for example. With sleepovers, I don't expect to talk to them to say goodnight. For me, them learning that they can settle to sleep without that is part of the experience. Neither do any of their friends ask to say goodnight to their parents. Just different expectations operating in different areas, obviously.

I should also say that my view is coloured by the fact that I don't have a smartphone. I have an old Nokia that does texts and calls. I have it because my job isn't sitting at a desk and if someone needs to call me from school to pick a poorly child up, it's the best way to get hold of me. I have a landline and so does everyone I know. My parents live in a place where you can't get a phone signal! But as I said, my9yo hasn't even asked for a phone yet which implies that no-one she knows has their own so clearly it's a community thing. Some places kids are more likely to have them. Here, they really aren't.

Late response, but I agree there is a big difference between your internet experience and that of my DCs (in the US). I graduated in 1985 (university in Dublin) and the internet was at that time just for inter-university communication, iirc. I had a Mac when I went to the US in 1988 (wish I still had it as I am sure it would be worth money). I think restrictions on internet access and commercial use went out the window by the mid 90s, so the DCs' school was pretty fast on the uptake.

We had dial-up until DD3 was about 12 in the mid 2000s - I remember this because she caused a bill of about $400 one month Instant Messaging, and as soon as broadband became available we got it. Homework was expensive with dial-up access and many parents complained about the requirement to become familiar with the internet, plus some did not have a home PC. Iirc, Encyclopedia Britannica was online from the mid 90s.

There was a weird and funny site called Homestar Runner that my DCs loved, but I think that was in the early 2000s. One of the characters was called The Poopsmith so you can see the attraction. I think you can still see Homestar Runner cartoons on YouTube.

My DCs had brick phones. No internet on phones back then.

I myself only got rid of my own brick two years ago. It made no sense to me to be paying the same amount monthly for a phone that texted and called as I would for an android that I could use for many purposes.