To take my son's phone permanently?

[BeansMeansFun]

My son is 14, has a smart phone. It is well protected against adult content. He saved Christmas, Birthday and pocket money to get one he liked. I pay his credit on payg.

He was caught playing on it during lessons. This isn't acceptable so he lost the phone for two weeks and we told him to apologise to the teacher.

Part of having a smart phone was "if we want to check we can". Son was asked to unlock his phone this morning. He says he can't. Says he never lets it run out of charge so only uses finger print log in and can't remember his pin which is needed when phone restarts.

I know it runs out of charge occasionally. I know he knows the pin.

AIBU to say he's broken our trust and our agreement in regards to the smartphone and he's never getting it back?

Maybe if you didn't snoop on your teens, they would trust you more and be able to talk about anything that is botherin them?

If they really want to keep anything secret they will et a second secret phone

You can't take away and sell a phone that he saved teh money tobuy. Morally that's the wrong thing to do, and it will destroy your relationship with him and mean he just tells you absolutely nothing.

He saved Christmas, Birthday and pocket money to get one he liked. I pay his credit on payg.

The phone belongs to your ds - the only thing you can do is refuse to put credit on his payg, not that I agree with the way you are dealing with this.

The police tell you to monitor your children's phones because they do stupid things and the internet is an adult playground.

leics.police.uk/categories/kayleighs-love-story-film

This is why we monitor communication, because the consequences have been horrific. It is why we make sure they don't break the law by sending nudes.

And yes, I have 2 sons, both at secondary, eldest is 15.

I would provide him with a cheap Nokia for texting/calling on if he needs a phone but until he unlocks it he isn't getting the other one back.

it's controlling what ever the age. Why is this controlling authoritarian behaviour encouraged on here?
do you have any idea of how many children are being bullied through social media and smart phones? Just how many people pile on with shite comments? How many seemingly savvy, intelligent and clued up kids find themselves groomed and abused via the privacy of a smartphone? Or do you assume your child is too clever for all that?

Ask any school pastoral staff member what they see on a daily basis - overt racism, sexism, homophobia. Ask those same staff how many hours they spend dealing with these issues. Ask those same staff how many referrals they’ve had to make to the police. Ask those staff for a list of websites teens are using - and see how many you are actually aware of. The account you’re friends with your child on social media won’t be the same account they use with their friends in many cases.

By all means criticise those of us who attempt to supervise and guide our children’s internet and social media use but never assume your child is immune to the very real dangers of being left alone for hours with WiFi and a phone.

Stop credit. And take his charger, not the phone. He might change his tune once it runs out of battery.

This is why we monitor communication, because the consequences have been horrific.

This is why is talk to our kids and educate them about how they can protect themselves on the internet - they need these skills whether they are 14 or 18 and they need to take them seriously.

And as a secondary teacher I would ALWAYS advocate the level of supervision described by the OP. Far too few parents do it and the internet is a VERY dark playground indeed.

I am seriously one of the most laid back parents ever and I have a highly intelligent, sociable and confident 15 year old son. I trust him to go out in his own, spend lots of time alone with his girlfriend, etc etc. BUT we have an open phone policy. This is to help him learn and keep him safe. I look at it far less than I did when he was 13, but for as long as he is not an adult it is MY JOB to teach him how to use a smart phone appropriately. I would never read anything that he has physically written down in a diary because the threat to his wellbeing and safety is simply not comparable. To compare keeping a random eye on their internet use, social media, texting etc to reading their private diary is naive and misconceived in the extreme.

Buy him a dumb phone for making calls and texts to certain numbers and give him a choice. He either unlocks his smart phone and you sit together and look at things. Or he has the dumb phone. His choice.

Ask him what he’s worried about you seeing and if he opens up at that stage don’t judge. Ie. Mum I bought some weed and we tried it down the park- don’t blow your top and punish. Say I understand at your age those opportunities arise and it’s actual very normal to experiment however these are the risks your taking..

If he hides it and you find out then you punishfor the hiding not for what he hid and make that clear. Your there for him to talk to and you’ll help him make better decisions but you want him to be open and honest.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I have many, many conversations about safe internet use, grooming, drugs etc. with my teens. We have a good, open dialogue.
I still have a little look through their phones if I get the feeling something is off.

There are factors beyond my control and there have been times I’ve found things of real concern - and managed to nip them in the bud.

At these times my teen has been glad to be able to talk through how to deal with things, which has stopped it spiralling out of control.

I don’t think you can talk to your kids as young teens then expect them to have it all sorted by 14. They don’t have the life experience to know how to handle many situations.

And as a secondary teacher I would ALWAYS advocate the level of supervision described by the OP. That does not surprise me at all - teachers do tend to be overly controlling...and often think the worst of pupils and I'm going by the posts from teachers on here suggesting kids can't be trusted to go to the loo during a lesson even when they need to change a pad and every negative interaction between kids and teachers they frequently suggest the kids are lying.

Open telephone is only one way right you dont let your children read your phone?

If you want a monitor communication you should be prepared to let them look through your phone as that shows you are on the same page rather then YOU have no right to privcy while I HAVE a right to it and you might find that he is more agreeable if everyone is allowed to check each others phones.

Police came to the dc's school in Year 7 and they got a lecture about instagram and were told they had to remove it from their phones or else they would be in big trouble with the police - and that lasted all of a week and that was for the most compliant kids - they soon realised that the threats the police made held no water - not a great lesson imo.

Teenagers - mostly boys - in my area are getting more and more out of control. Last night they were grouping up, wearing hoodies and halloween masks and going round on bikes kicking wing mirrors of parked cars and smashing car windows. I wish more parents would keep closer track of what their kids are up to.

I think privacy and respect are things that need to be earned. In this case if your DS can keep out of trouble and communicate respectfully with yourself and school then he should be allowed his phone with a higher degree of privacy. If the behaviour deteriorates, the random checks recommence.

Childrens phones should be monitored! They have access to apps and internet that is a hotbed of danger! Teens sending nude photos to strangers on apps and talking to strangers and giving away personal info is a very real and very common phenomenon right now! Of course you should bloody check if they have nothing to hide theres no problem.

Actually when I said open phone policy I meant for all of us. The point is that I am trying to illustrate that electronic communications are, quite simply, different and make you more vulnerable than more traditional communications.

All those people who think that checking their teens mobile phones gives them a picture of what their teen is doing on line are very naive.

If your teen wants to hid stuff from you they will have alternative accounts, use incognito browsing and quite possibly have a phone you don't know about. Or just use their accounts on their friends phones/public computers etc. Data is used less and less with wifi very much more available in public places so you can't control that either.

What you need to do is keep the lines of communication open and keep giving out the safety on line message.

I think privacy and respect are things that need to be earned. not how it works.

Police came to the dc's school in Year 7 and they got a lecture about instagram and were told they had to remove it from their phones or else they would be in big trouble with the police Have the police not got actual crimes to be dealing with? I don't think breaching social media T&Cs is on statute tbh

If your teen wants to hid stuff from you they will have alternative accounts, use incognito browsing and quite possibly have a phone you don't know about. Or just use their accounts on their friends phones/public computers etc. Data is used less and less with wifi very much more available in public places so you can't control that either. That is true but it's much trickier to take nude selfies on a public computer or a friend's phone.

I think you're absolutely correct in the way you're dealing with it. He doesn't get the phone back until it is unlocked and you've taken a look at it. I think we really do our kids a disservice by not being vigilant when it comes to online activity. As far as I'm concerned, my kids will have very little privacy when it comes to tech usage. The kinds of complete stupidity momentary indiscretions that we experienced growing up, in a world without camera phones and Snapchat, can follow a child around forever, these days. We need to protect them from that.

My teen told me that reading his phone messages is like following him when he's out with his friends, they DO see it as something personal. All the more reason to check on them imo. How many mn posts get deleted because the OP suddenly remembers the Internet is not a private place?!

Hoping to find a solution with balance where we can protect and help DS while still allowing him some personal responsibility

With an attitude like yours I'm sure you'll manage it. It's not easy, but you're doing the right thing for the right reason and one day your DS will appreciate that, even if he's kicking off now

In the meantime, try to ignore the comments about snooping (checking was a condition and you view it with him there) and OTT parenting making him devious (IME, too often an excuse for some who simply can't be bothered to parent)

worriedmum
We have an open policy for all our phones like EpicDay. It sometimes gets a little difficult as dd saw a text ping on my phone from a mother of dds friends asking me not to put her together with her ex on a WhatsApp group. (Dd is 10) That’s about as difficult to explain as it gets for us.