To remove DDs phone altogether?

[HelenLaBloodyAnnoyed]

DD turned 11 in January, her dad and I are separated and he bought her an iPhone for her birthday. She previously had a normal phone to use if she wanted to contact him (which I supplied) but neither of them ever contacted one another.

The iPhone is the only thing she's ever been allowed to bring home with her, and it was sent home with her without any consultation with me. Since having it, her attitude has worsened a great deal. She will only use it in her room and is constantly charging and checking it. I caught her trying to sneak it into bed a few weeks ago and she absolutely lost the plot when I said it could stay at her dad's house if it's going to continue to cause her to be dishonest and have a bad attitude.

I check it regularly and the messages are fairly mundane. However, her dad has helped her to download TikTok, Watsapp and BBC iPlayer - all of which I think are absolutely inappropriate for her age. What's worse is that DD is well aware they're inappropriate (thanks to internet safety week at school and us talking) and she's made a big deal of saying she doesn't understand why underage people are so desperate for them. Therefore she's lying by omission, in my opinion.

This evening she asked if she could meet a friend from school at the local park. It's a 5 min walk from our house and I was heading there with her siblings to walk the dog a while later so I said yes on the condition she messages me when she arrived safely and only goes to the park. We ended up going sooner than expected as the washing machine repair man was delayed indefinitely and when we arrived there was no sign of DD, despite her having messaged me to say she arrived safely. Half an hour later I saw her and her friend approach the entrance, when they saw us they ran into a bush (!) and tried to sneak it through it so they could pretend they'd been there the whole time.

When I challenged DD about where they'd been, she said her friend needed a wee so they went to McDonald's, then blurted out that her friend had had an ice cream but she hadn't had anything, then looked in a panic at her phone as presumably there's an incriminating photo on there! McDonald's is only a few mins from the park but it's across two tricky roads, and she didn't have permission to go there.

I honestly feel like saying she can leave the phone at her dad's house next time she goes as all it has lead to is dishonesty. Similarly, I feel she's spoiled her opportunity to be independent and go out with a friend as she's been dishonest there too. AIBU to say the phone is not welcome in my house anymore?

The only/best way to have parental controls on an iPhone is by adding it to your "family" through settings.

You can then set controls like down times, ours turns off at 8.30pm. I've set theirs so that they can't download or delete apps, blocked all adult content and blocked Facebook, Insta, twitter and YouTube from the internet as well.

We do have controls on the Wi-fi where the internet turns off for their devices at 8.30pm-8am but if they have credit on their phone that obviously wouldn't work.

My impression is that your parenting style is a weird mixture of overprotectiveness (not allowing an 11-year-old to cross busy streets) and recklessness (allowing her to have her iPhone in her bedroom).

The problem with overprotectiveness is that children do not learn in their own time to deal with and protect themselves from danger, while if your dd cannot go out much alone, she is going to resort more to online "friendships".

I think you and her father could do with some family therapy to make sure that you are both protecting your dd while teaching your dd how to protect herself

You do come across as treating her younger than she is and although you are entitled to impose your own rules, doing so will most likely mean her not bring able to do things that her friends do, and her feeling excluded. This in turn means she will be more likely to lie to you and hide what she is up to.

I have a twelve year old who does not have one and nor will he until he is 16

Wow you are in for a rebellion in a huge way. Your poor ds will be a prime target for bullying and exclusion

I understand your frustration but attempting to the put the genie back in the bottle is afield errand. May I suggest you got to a specialist IT shop and where you can talk about your situation and get expert advice.

DD has just received my old iPhone 5 but we have rules and the main one is that it’s a privilege not a right. The thing is charged in the living room. I was all set for putting a curfew on her iPhone (the router would automatically cut the WiFi for her phone after 7 pm) but we recently moved and the WiFi signal is rubbish in her room.

Your main issue is your co parent, I’m a single parent and I don’t have to deal with this crap.

The iPhone has not changed your DD, there’s something in the dynamic between you and her father which has made the iPhone central in a power struggle. The iPhone is being used as a tool for rebellion against an approach (banning)) that no longer worked.

Time to get ahead of the curve let her exhaust her data on YouTube because you’ve blocked her IP address in the router.

I have a twelve year old who does not have one and nor will he until he is 16.

I completely disagree with this mindset - restriction isn't going to do him any favours imo. What we should be doing instead is help our children attain critical thinking skills and the common sense needed to navigate this modern era. Think about it. Wouldn't it be better for your children to develop the kind of savviness that allows them to use technology to their advantage?

Technology is not going to be any less prevalent in our daily lives just because you fear it.

I think mkmo's approach is incredibly lax and ineffective. Caringcarer is imo at the other extreme (caring how is your child meant to learn how to use such tech safely without experience of it? Or indeed negotiate life generally if you're so strict? Genuine question because I've seen posts on here by 18/19/20 year olds at uni raised like this who are now very anxious and don't trust themselves with certain tasks/equipment)

As per most pps the phone isn't the cause of all this behaviour, the lack of cohesive co-parenting is.

When my dd was 11 smart phones weren't really affordable enough for children that age to have. That was shockingly only 7 years ago!

She got her first at 14 and even then it was an old one of mine which I reset to factory settings and monitored closely.

The rule was I could see it and check it any time while I was paying for it.

But her sneaking off to McDonald's is nothing to do with the phone, she would and could have done that with no phone or a basic phone. That behaviour would have resulted in a minimum 2 days grounding for dd. 1 for going somewhere she'd no permission to go, 1 for lying about it. Grounding meant no phone too though. The continued lying would likely have meant it ended up a weeks grounding.

There's now also much more software you can use to limit and monitor her use. You can set parental settings, have find my iPhone on it there's even apps that let you see all the messaging she does. Do some googling and talk to apple.

If her dad is too lax (have you actually spoken to him about this?) then as the resident parent you still have options. You could reset the phone to your preferred setup when she isn't at dads, remove it altogether when not at dads.

You'd need to check legalities on this but I wonder if as resident parent you can override him on issues where you feel there's a risk of harm? Certainly he can't dictate what happens when she's in your care.

My relationship with ex at this point is non existent, but when he was still seeing dd and we were co-parenting we were on the same page on the important stuff. She tried around this age to play us off against each other unsuccessfully and that involved some lying too - telling each parent the other had said something derogatory, claiming overly strict/lax behaviour in parenting. She came unstuck precisely BECAUSE we talked to each other (also because she forgotten a key fact - that we'd been married 10 years before splitting and together almost 13 so we knew each other and what each other was likely to say/do).

Whatever your current relationship with ex, unless there's abuse of course, then you need to kinda get over yourself and issues with him and communicate about your parenting.

Both get on the same page ASAP (doesn't hurt to get ahead of things and discuss possible future issues like dating, study for exams etc too)

The thing about saying older children grew up fine without phones is that they simply weren't the common thing that they are today. In classrooms I've seen a dramatic change in how many pupils have phones even over the last five years. If a pupil has a "brick" it's because their parents are making a point - you can get a smartphone for as little as £15.

Cohesive coparenting is impossible. He has done this precisely to try and cause a rift between DD and I, and to paint himself as hero saviour. He won't even discuss it with me.

It sounds like youre being far too suffocating.

Really, not wanting my just turned 11 year old online topless and hacking her hair off, with the potential to speak to strangers and wanting to know where she is is suffocating?

So I imagine you haven't properly taught her the dangers? Of course, there need to be limits in place, but not even allowing her to have iPlayer is extensive. You don't like the phone because of who bought it.

She's acting like a normal 11 year old, making a five minute detour for a mcflurry isn't a baby step into prostitution. There are 11 year olds who walk to school every day, do you want to hold her hand to cross the road until she's 30?

Really, not wanting my just turned 11 year old online topless and hacking her hair off, with the potential to speak to strangers and wanting to know where she is is suffocating?

I refer you to my previous post, OP. You are overprotective in regards to her real life and being much too lax and defeated in regards to her online activity.

Then remove Iplayer or put parental controls on it!

The fact is most of her peers will have smart phone. I don’t think removing it all together will be realistic. You need to work out how to manage the situation.

Install parental controls.

Monitor what apps she is using.

Speak to her about online safety and that you are placing a lot of trust in here. Let her know there will be regular checks on her phone and if she breaches your trust the phone will be removed.

No phone in her room at night.

not wanting my just turned 11 year old online topless and hacking her hair off
you seem to be using very very extreme cases and presenting them as if they are every day occurrences. You need to get on the same page urgently with her father you say it is impossible but it sounds as though the only one making it impossible is you. And you say he has bought her a phone to cause a rift if that is the case then surely you’re playing right into his hands. What you need to do is lay down reasonable boundaries and have open conversations with her. If you continue to carry on so ridiculously an awful lot will go on behind your back.

OP what you need to understand is that she's extremely lucky to have a parent, like yourself, who loves her and cares enough to want to shield her from all of these dangers. But the problem with that is that it only leads to rebellion. She needs to have at least some say in what she does, you can't control everything the way you did when she was a baby. We all make mistakes, and quite frankly, hiding behind a bush from her mother is very low on the list of things she will live to regret.

I don't see the problem with an 11 year old crossing a road and going to McDonald's. I was going into town with friends alone at that age, going to McDonald's or the park or the cinema and walking home again!

Why on earth was going to McDonald's with a friend a problem?

My ex tried to give our 7 year old a phone in order to speak without having to communicate with me. I get your frustration at your ex, but get your DD on side and learn about Internet Safety together, what you expect of her, and that you will always be there to listen at any time. The more issues surrounding your DD using it, the more your ex is rubbing his hands in glee knowing his plans have worked.

You can track her phone on your phone. Try use it as a positive learning curve for your DD.

I’d have a huge problem if my younger dds aquired a smart phone at 11. They are unnecessary.

Bullying is rife through them. It’s easy access for any kind of preditors. It’s access to sites and media you don’t want young minds seeing. Children be some immensely addicted to them - adults are!

It’s a gate way for young people to see unrealistic images of other amazing looking young people and their self esteems are affected by it.

Nope not us.

The problem isn't where she went - it's that she didn't have permission and that she lied when challenged.

He has said she doesn't need controls so I'm going to be the bad guy whatever happens.

My eldest is 23. There were times when she was younger I simply said ‘no - young’ . She got over it. We have a great relationship and she’s incredibly independent.

Society today is so caught up in lowering the boundaries earlier and earlier just to appease young children - incase they rebel. Let them rebel. It’s part of growing up.

Her pissing off to another area just shows she’s not ready enough to be trusted. She should have been where she said she would be. 11 is still very young.

He has said she doesn't need controls so I'm going to be the bad guy whatever happens

Be the bad guy. Some one needs to be responsible parent.

What ever you do - don’t let her get on facebook 🙈

The problem isn't where she went - it's that she didn't have permission and that she lied when challenged.

She lied because she was scared of your reaction! If she'd said "X and I fancied an ice-cream so we went and got a McFlurry" what would you have said? Would you be genuinely angry?