According to my 14 year old ....

[Dontgiveamonkeys1350]

I’m being completely unresonable by not letting him have his phone after a certain time in the evening.

Apparently every other teenager is allowed their phones when they are in bed.

Im a terrible mother.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who makes their child come off the computer at a reasonable time and plug phones in outside of their bedrooms. Then I can feel less terrible

Mine have all been allowed to keep their phone in their room. I have however not ever had concerns about them being on them for too long . I can recall a handfull of times I have had to say " time to switch off now" to them. DD2 age 18 switches hers of 1 hour before its bedtime as she finds it helps her sleep. DD3 age 15 keeps hers on and reads on it as she goes to bed as she finds that helps her to sleep. DS age 17 is he only one where I have said a few times " thats enough" however he packs it away if dh or I say that.

So yes we are one of those parents who allow this. However my children have never given me concern that they can not handle this privilege.

Aiming to do this here.

Mixed results so far...if I'm away with work it doesn't happen, if I'm here it does. need DH to be consistent!

My 13 year old, 14 next month, is telling me the same thing. Her phone is here with me charging, and she is in bed. 🙂

@thedaymybuttwentpsycho. I suppose if DC want to watch porn or fucked up videos they can watch them during the day or when they get home from school. Taking a phone away in the evening wouldn't stop that.

vg

"and they say really it only 7 pm ... I told him you will thank me when you have a successful career.."

Ha ha. No mobile phones around when I was a teenager so why don't I have a successful career?

I wish I’d been stricter with my DS about his phone use, he is 17 now, studying for A levels & still spends far too much time on this phone.

Be tough.

My 14yo has to leave his phone downstairs and accessible to me when he goes to bed. The couple of times he's kept it in his room or tried to lock it, I've reminded him that if I cannot check that he's using his phone safely, I cannot pay for his contract, he's not protested.

We have bigger battles of the existence of the power pack charging fairy, tbh. She went on strike, last week. That was a tense day.

My daughter is nearly 13 and parental control software means her phone and tablet don't work after 9.00 apart from the Kindle app which works until 10.00. Also she doesn't have a charger in her room so if she wants her phone charged she needs to leave it downstairs. My husband and I also leave ours downstairs during the night. We have a landline next to the bed in case of the extremely unlikely event of a nighttime emergency.

Mine have an app which monitors their use and what sites they visit, what time it's used and other stuff like that. Their pcs do the same. They have great self control though luckily and I should take a leaf out of their book because I can be up late into the night gaming even though I have an early start in the morning.

Ha...everyone else’s parents are always soooo much more laid back according to my 14 yr old

Phones/iPads charge downstairs here, not allowed in bedrooms.

Love the poster who is teaching self control by giving their teens 24 hr a day access - ask any teacher/anyone who works with teens if they think this is a good idea. Teen brains are notoriously wired differently to adult ones, it’s why their decision making skills can be quite poor. Add to the mix, other teens, sexting, online bullying etc. I honestly think NOT enforcing a break from being ‘on’ all the time is the wrong decision.

DS1 is 13 and has his phone at night. It is his alarm and I trust him not to use it for too long. If he does he still has to be up at 6.30am and so he knows he is the one that suffers.

He doesn't use social media though, so only uses to watch/play etc

My 14 year old daughter is in bed without her phone, like every night.

I have a friend who is a child psychiatrist, just retired after 40 years service to nhs. He says that if you want to teach children about self discipline by not making boundaries with phones and devices, you may as well give them
cigarettes to teach them about addiction.

12 yo DD is not permitted any devices in room overnight. Her phone charges with mine next to my bed.

This will continue for as long as I pay for the phone.

My 14yo is not allowed his phone when he goes to bed - we also make him keep it in the hall. I’m always amazed at how often it pings even in the early hours.

I don’t even let him have his phone in the bedroom at the weekend. This makes me the height of unreasonable apparently, because he doesn’t need to be up for school! I’m happy to be the awful mum on this one.

PickAChew we also have to ensure access. I don’t always access it - but it is locked because of siblings. However he always texts me the password so I can access if I chose to. It was one of the conditions we had when we first allowed the phone and luckily he’s always been pretty accepting of it.

Ah yes. The old "my friend's are allowed to do it!" line. Been there, done that. All ours had to leave their phones in a bowl in the kitchen (where we could all see) after 8.30pm. They hated it, BUT it meant they got a decent night's sleep and, particularly for the girls, didn't get into over analyzing stuff or making stupid decisions (like sending "sexy" pics to boys) when they were tired, not thinking straight and therefore more vulnerable to peer pressure.

Wait till you won't let them drive without a licence, or tell them to be home at a reasonable hour or are not happy for them to indulge in under aged sex... then you're really earn your reputation as the fun Police

Up to GCSE, phones left in the kitchen charging at 8pm. AFter GCSE it was left to them moderate use. No phones ever at meal times - that applies to everyone (looking at you DH!).

DS 14 complains every night but phone is handed over. Like others I'm shocked by the activity seen overnight on it, times of messages/posts, etc. Anything from midnight to 2am. How do these children function at school?

Both of mine (14) and (12) have to leave phones downstairs to charge every night - I have explained why and to be fair there's not too much grumbling really.

I have also been astonished to note the level of activity really late at night, especially from the 12 year olds!

Parental controls go on at 9.30 for my dd on school nights.She doesn't complain as she knows her phone contract is in my name and there are separate parental controls on that which I will use as a sanction,so that it only works as a phone.She does not have a great deal if data either so bypassing that way doesn't work.She has mocks next week so the phone will be in my room as an extra precaution against lots of anxious phoning by stressed teens.

No devices in bedrooms at all here, or in the bathroom ever.
No TV's , no laptops and no phones in rooms. Phone must stay in the kitchen and everyone has to be offline or at least on hour before bedtime. These rules were laid down prior to phone purchases. They fail to comply, they loose the phone for a week.

Most bullying, dubious photography etc takes place when children take phones to bedrooms and use throughout the night. It's simple social media safety to not allow this.

DD nearly 14 doesn't have her phone in her room overnight either. She has yet to develop the self-control needed to not respond to every notification that pings. We're even worse parents than the rest of you though because we also expect friends on sleepovers to leave their phones charging on the landing/downstairs instead of where the eventual sleeping is happening.

10 YO ds gets 15 min on ph after school and 15 min before bed about 7pm. No phone in bedroom. 8yo gets 15 min on internet (roblox) after school.
All devices only allowed in family room.
I would be contacting some of these friends parents of 'every other teenager' I think they'll have the same or similar rules!