...to hold on to teenagers' phones when they are here for a sleepover

[dubmumof2]

Quick background - my teenage DC (15 & 13) are not and have never been allowed their phones overnight in their bedrooms for both sleep and safety reasons. They set their phones to charge downstairs before going up to bed. I have in the past had to charge a phone in my bedroom for a period when I discovered that a phone was being retrieved in secret when the house was gone to bed!

I've always had a similar rule for sleepovers - phones are handed over at 12 midnight or 12.30am and charged in my room (not downstairs from experience). Everyone is informed of where their phone is and told that if they want to talk to parents etc in the night that is fine - they can have their phone from me. I have lots of reasons - concern for what they may watch when I'm asleep, concern for the potential ideas that groups can spur on to film sleeping friends and post them (illegally!), know of middle of the night sorties to meet other groups having sleepovers arranged by phone. I feel I am in loco parentis and those are risks I'm not willing to take.

Had two new 13 year old friends last night for the first time. Group including regular sleepover attendees and new then considered this rule very unreasonable and I spent from 12.30am to 4.30am defending it, preventing numerous attempts to get the phones back by stealth or argument, and addressing charges that I wasn't allowed to keep them from their phones......

I didn't budge and am unlikely to revise the rule but AIBU? Do any of you have similar rules or am I an outlier here?

I’m surprised anyone stays at yours for a sleepover. Your kids must be mortified.

YABU!

I was being kind- you sound like an over controlling parent (fucking crazy) and I would be at your door with serious concerns if you took my child's phone from them. In fact I might call the police!

Your house your rules!!

Did they know their mobiles would be taken off them before arriving?

If you didn't then next time let them know, it's their choice then.

For my DS 12 bday we took about 15 away camping, bonfires and all that milarky. I made it clear on the invitation that mobiles would not be welcome, and that I understood if a parent wasn't comfortable with that and wanted to decline the invite. Obviously a child could phone their parents anytime on my phones. But this was a non-mobile party.

Every single parents agreed!! Boys spent the evening cooking sausages and marshmallows, then scaring themselves silly with horrid stories. Not one asked to phone their parents.

You are NOT controlling, it is very sensible reasoning behind your decision and may implement next sleepover. :)

Omg call the police MN19 is fucking nuts!!

Mmm.... round here DC are allowed to take phones on school trips.

In fact there's an expectation that they do have them. They are all asked to put the teachers' school phone number into their phones when they have a bit of free time. This was when DD was 13. No confiscating of phones at night or at all.

People on here are absolutely nuts.

Of course teenagers shouldn't have their phones overnight in this scenario.

The only way the OP is being unreasonable is by (perhaps?) not specifying this upfront, so that people were aware ahead of time.

Teenagers have no NEED for their phones overnight - how do you think the previous millions of generations survived?

I'm sure I've previously seen threads where an OP is concerned about a teenager's excessive phone use overnight and is met with a chorus of 'why do they have their phone overnight?'.

You have - they crop up all the time, and the absolute consensus is, kids should not have their phones overnight.

I must be the only one who doesn’t give a shit if my kids have their phones overnight. There’s nothing they can do on them at night that they can’t do during the day.

I have no idea what time my eldest goes to sleep as she’s too old IMO to be policing a bed time. But she’s always up before me and is never tired.

My youngest still has a bed time, but still has his phone in his room. If I caught him on it after lights out then I would take it, but he hasn’t given me a reason not to trust him this far.

Some of you have very little faith in your kids tbh. How will they ever learn if you never give them the opportunity to do the right thing?

Omg your kids must be so embarrassed. YABVU. I’d be really angry if I was one of the people other kids mums and wouldn’t want my kid staying over again. Although the kid probably doesn’t want to after that. It’s a sleepover, why are you being so controlling??

I would make the rules clear up front and then no phones. It's ludicrous- a child does not need a phone in a room past midnight.

Well, if you were taking the phones at midnight, so that they could sleep, that surely defeated the object; given that you were arguing until 4 in the morning

Do you think children become extra naughty after midnight? A bit like Cinderella in reverse?

How utterly mortifying for your children.

YABVU, with bells on.

My DCs had phones for safety reasons as well as for keeping in touch with friends, cousins, etc. If I heard from them that someone's mom had confiscated a phone I wouldn't let them sleep over at that house again.

Disgraceful, I've been at a sleepover and been bullied whilst the parents have been asleep, I would have loved to spoken to my mum who would have made an excuse to come and get me, I didn't want to wake their mum and tell her about her own daughter.

THIS ^

My DCs and I had an alert system that would signal to me to take them home. I had requests from DDs to drop off tampons, a request from one DD to come home because her asthma medication hadn't been effective, and a request from another DD to come home because she felt the man of the house was creepy.

At a sleepover, I would contact the parent if I got a text, and come and rescue whoever wanted to come home, using some pretext.

I’ve often removed phones on sleepovers.

I've made it through 14 pages of this 21 page thread, reading mainly OP's posts. I don't see OP mention it (apologies if I missed it or its on pages 14-21).

Are your primary concerns the use of cameras, Internet access, and text messaging/communication with others during the night then? They can certainly do the same things via those laptops and tablets.

Communication can still occur via Twitter, Facebook, Steam, Instagram, etc on tablet, laptop, pc (not sure where your pc is in your home). Hell even Xbox and PS4 can be used because you can message friends through games. They can access the Internet on a smart TV too if needed, sign into Facebook, whatever. So they can use any of these mentioned.

I see you're trying to keep everyone safe and out of trouble but back in our day, no one took the landlines away from us at sleepovers for fear of us parading through the streets at night, er, well they didn't me at least. ;) I am glad too. I loved the telephone growing up.

For some a phone is comfort, either in something to do or someone to reach out to, and you're taking that away from them and considering what I said above, I feel if they are so inclined, they will find a way. They're teenagers after all. My mom kept me on a short leash, I still found ways to do things.

Furthermore, if it becomes an issue for your DC, they'll just opt to stay over at their friend's houses more and more. Then they can keep their phones and do what they will do there.

*They can certainly do the same things via laptops and tablets.

Sorry, edited parts and forgot to remove words that no longer made sense.

Forgive my other errors. :)

What if having to come and wake up a sleeping adult who is practically a stranger to ask for their phone so they can speak to their mum, puts them off doing so?

I assume the OP has a landline. Children should know their parents' phone numbers.

Not your property to be touching imo, it's one night where every party involved (in the teen world that is) should be having fun, not arguing with a woman. One bloody night OP and that's it

Sashh Yeah..no. Not that many households have landlines these days and certainly not all kids are good at remembering numbers.

As Torn and others say, not OP's property so she should NOT be taking control of it.

My kids are definitely being brought up to believe that a strict rule borne out of love and concern for safety is not embarrassing parent behaviour!

The problem with this, @dubmumof2, is that kids come to the teen years, develop a mind of their own, and start identifying more with their peers than their parents. They start figuring you out, and therefore the parent-teen relationship is different from the relationship between you and that child when he was 8.

They can find plenty in your approach that is embarrassing regardless of how things were between you up to the teen years. I am not talking about typical teen embarrassment at mum's cheesy Christmas jumper or dad's dad jeans or the way mum and dad pronounce names of current music favourites wrong, but embarrassment based on real complaints of controlling behaviour, accompanied by deep sadness caused by the impossibility of bridging the gap you are creating between you and them, and loneliness, which is what teens feel when they are left to negotiate their world without a parent in whom they can confide because that parent responds from a place of fear and pessimism, not confidence.

I realise that someone who has actually considered assessing the 'influences' her 13 year old is now being exposed to may find what I am about to write heretical, but identifying more with peers is what normally developing teens do.

Teens who are not social are the ones to worry about. Does your older teen have many friends? Ever go out? Have people over much? To what extent does your less social teen feel responsibility for maintaining your comfort level, your equilibrium?

Tbh, I am considering whether they are welcome again - giving that a lot of thought and weighing up impact on DCs friendships and influences...
It has been my observation that parents who are concerned about 'influences' on their teens need to work on their need for control and the anxiety that lies behind that.

It has also been my observation that teens who are subjected to rules based on fear - this, for instance:
I have lots of reasons - concern for what they may watch when I'm asleep, concern for the potential ideas that groups can spur on to film sleeping friends and post them (illegally!), know of middle of the night sorties to meet other groups having sleepovers arranged by phone

• lose all confidence in the ability of their parents to deal with whatever life is throwing at the teens and they do not talk to them. They maintain a veneer of 'All's well, no worries' even though they may be going through lots. They are especially unlikely to ever talk about peer pressure, because they fear the parent will respond by ending their social life altogether. They stay in situations that make them feel uncomfortable - parties where lots of strangers show up, parties where the fun gets a bit heavy, etc. because they know that being open with you will result in what is effectively a punishment for them, the curtailing of their social life.

Seriously, if you believe these 13 year olds are capable of doing stuff like that, why do you even let your DS have a phone in the first place, let alone invite friends over?

You can deal with teens by clamping down on them, running your home as if it were a boarding school, or you can get over your own issues and start nurturing a relationship with a young teen which will last and continue to grow as he or she grows into an adult. There are many people whose relationships with their parents effectively ended in the early teen years because the parents refused to face and come to terms with their own issues.

Teens need parents to be the adult, not the fear-filled controller.

My friends daughter went for a sleepover, she was 12 and her period started, she had pains and was really upset. She didn't want to tell her friends parents and wanted her mum. She was able to text her mum and my friend phoned the childs mum to explain she was picking her up.
There are legit reasons for a phone away from home and I would be so annoyed to have this done to my child.

mathanxiety speaks a lot of sense

So you think a child would be comfortable coming to you in the night to tell you they needed to ring their parent because:
-Your child was being a bully and they wanted to leave
-Your DH was lurking around and they felt uncomfortable
-Another one of your children was lurking around making them feel uncomfortable
-Your batshit behaviour is making them uncomfortable and they no longer want to stay
-Numerous other valid reasons

I highly doubt it! I would also be very suspicious if my child was made to give up their phone for the reasons outlined above.

Also, not sure exactly what you think they will do with their phones of a night they they wouldn’t or couldn’t do of a day. Are you constantly standing there if a day monitoring use of every child’s phone.

YANBU.

It is your house. They are children and you are in loco parentis while they are there.

I am sure that most parents allowed their children to attend a sleepover before they had a phone. If an 8 or 9 year old can cope with a night without contacting their parents, I am sure a 13 year old can.

Clearly the friends need to know the rule before the sleepover and they can decide what they want to do ahead of time, accept the rule, not come or don’t bring a phone at all if they don’t want yo hand it over.

Thirteen year olds also do need to sleep! If they are on phones all night, they won’t. And this will impact their schoolwork the next week.

Personally I feel that if a child is too immature to be able to go a night without contacting their parents (unless sick or other exceptional circumstances , in which case they can wake the OP) they are too young for a sleepover,

And as for coming at this ‘from a position of fear’, I think the parents who think they need to be contactable 24/7 are the fearful ones who are not allowing their teens to build basic age appropriate resilience.

My DS isn't yet 2 but this thread frightens me for when he's a teen. I'm with the OP, teens do completely ridiculous things when together and egged on. I know I did and I'm very relieved that there was no social media to record all of my stupidity.

If a child wants to go home in the night, do people think they should just call their parents and leave without telling the host parent? Imagine the panic in the morning when a child has gone. I would want to be woken up if a child in my home was unhappy and wanted to leave.

And I wouldn't allow my 13 year old to have a sleepover with parents I didn't know and trust