...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 think you are being quite rude to Church calling her a rather clueless mother. You just have a difference of opinion

I don't believe I was rude at all but you are of course entitled to your opinion

I don't believe I was rude at all but you are of course entitled to your opinion

I think you were rude.

I'm so surprised at that Church! No really I am!

@TheLittleDogLaughed
Are you a social worker or similar?

That comment doesn’t surprise me. But saddens me. I recently called a school about dds 12 yo friend, who was talking about self harming. She’s going to have a lot of issues. Poor girl. Couldn’t go to the parents. Clueless. Too busy doing mlm or down the pub.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. My DD will be brought up with an understanding of consistent (evolving) rules and consistent consequences for breaking them. I don’t imagine there won’t be times when she breaks them. That doesn’t mean I won’t put them in place.

But it depends just how reasonable or controlling those rules are. Too many or too strict and you run the danger of her rebelling constantly. Will you punish her continually? What if she decides that she simply will not obey your Draconian rules and does whatever she wants? What if you forbid her from going somewhere and she decides that she'll lie to you and go anyway? That potentially outs her in more danger than if you give her some freedom but with a safety net in place.

Parenting teenagers is a balancing act. You can't just be authoritarian.

But it depends just how reasonable or controlling those rules are. Too many or too strict and you run the danger of her rebelling constantly. Will you punish her continually? What if she decides that she simply will not obey your Draconian rules and does whatever she wants? What if you forbid her from going somewhere and she decides that she'll lie to you and go anyway? That potentially outs her in more danger than if you give her some freedom but with a safety net in place.

But you have just invented this scenario whereby my DD is constantly punished and subject to a raft of ridiculous, unreasonable rules. Obviously if that was the case it wouldn’t go well. It won’t be the case, and nothing I have said here indicates otherwise. Instead, there is a small group of posters giving their imaginations an outing, then treating their bizarre suppositions about my parenting as fact.

Mothership4, she is a 'rather clueless mother' in this context - her daughter is apparently not yet a teen.

Nothing she has posted here has any basis in actual parenting of a teenager.

And churchandstate is clueless about asthma too, and how it might be difficult for a young teen to go and knock on the bedroom door of a friend's parents at 4am, trying not to wake the whole house, trying to explain to the parents why a drink of water wasn't going to help, it couldn't wait til morning, sorry, and could they please contact her parents.

So much easier to text me, and I would talk to the parents and everything could be sorted immediately. Time and keeping stress to a minimum both matter during an asthma attack.

Oldest DD was offered the drink of water back in the days when children didn't normally have phones. I made sure her younger sister was properly equipped.

Maybe stop posting ignorant and actually quite crass remarks on the subject of asthma?

And churchandstate is clueless about asthma too, and how it might be difficult for a young teen to go and knock on the bedroom door of a friend's parents at 4am, trying not to wake the whole house, trying to explain to the parents why a drink of water wasn't going to help, it couldn't wait til morning, sorry, and could they please contact her parents.

I am not a clueless mother. You are very rude. Please don’t send your children to sleep in homes where they won’t inform an adult they are seriously ill so that medical attention can be quickly secured. Please. If that is what you have been doing, please stop. It’s dangerous.

There is no reason why a child having a serious asthma attack shouldn’t wake the whole house.

It’s like arguing with my mother, who incidentally is a narcissistic and parented in a very black and white way. She still tries to stamp her authority on me now and I’m late 40’s. I only see her in small bouts as her inflexible and unbending stance is too difficult to bear.

Do we have the same mother? Even now, in middle age, I'm fearful of telling my mum things because I know that she will disapprove or try to control me. She controlled every aspect of my life until I got married at 23. I broke plenty of her rules because they were simply batshit. I never got into trouble or broke the law but her ludicrous rules often meant that I wasn't where she thought I was or with who she thought I was with arguably making me less safe than had I been able to tell her the truth.

My style of parenting us very much in line with maths. I am a parent not a jailer.

Lyra, but at an after school club confiscating a toy for he duration of the session and returning it at the end is reasonable - keeping it overnight isn’t. It’s not yours!

MauritiusNext

Yes, I was direct. That poster is advocating actions that place children directly at risk. I am not going to pretend that’s okay. It isn’t.

Please don’t send your children to sleep in homes where they won’t inform an adult they are seriously ill so that medical attention can be quickly secured. Please. If that is what you have been doing, please stop. It’s dangerous.

As math explained the child did ask for help. It was the adult, not used to it, who minimised the situation. How do you know how another adult will react in any given situation? Some people behave in one way when in front of you and then entirely differently in private. Much better that your child has independent means to contact you in a situation where the adult in charge won't, for whatever reason.

I think you're a bit out of your depth here tbh.

I’m not feeling it, Mauritius.

church, if a child is actually on the verge of death fair enough

If it’s a heavy and painful period, migraine, stomach upset, nausea, probably not.

churchandstate, save your 🙄 for when you realise the stuff that your kid sees on phones all the bloody time, either on their pals phones or their pals older siblings phones. Did I say it was right?? No!!!
But unless you lock them up and throw away the key that's life right now. Talking to your kid about dangers and safeguarding is better than pretending it doesn't happen.

she is a 'rather clueless mother' in this context - her daughter is apparently not yet a teen

Thank you @mathanxiety.

I didn't realise I needed to qualify far this as it was quite clear that I meant clueless in the context of how it would be to parent a teen when your child is only three. I actually said it in the post! But obviously some people needed it explaining. Further to this explanation despite being the mother of two teens I would consider myself fairly clueless on how to mother a child in their late teens as mine are early teens and not that independent yet. It's also been so many years i would probably not be particularly clued up on managing a toddler or newborn these days either though hope it would all come flooding back.

Hopefully I have made myself clearer for those who needed clarification.

As math explained the child did ask for help. It was the adult, not used to it, who minimised the situation. How do you know how another adult will react in any given situation? Some people behave in one way when in front of you and then entirely differently in private. Much better that your child has independent means to contact you in a situation where the adult in charge won't, for whatever reason.

Then I can only repeat: that is the rule in my house. If your child needs medical attention when staying in my house, I expect them to let me know immediately. If you can’t agree to that, keep them at home. I won’t have children wandering round hiding medical emergencies from me under my roof. It’s dangerous and ridiculous.

I didn't realise I needed to qualify far this as it was quite clear that I meant clueless in the context of how it would be to parent a teen when your child is only three

Then I am “clueless” if your definition of “having a clue” means you have to have done it. But so what? That doesn’t remove my right to an opinion. By all means, disagree with me. I don’t mind.

@Astormiscoming but at an after school club confiscating a toy for he duration of the session and returning it at the end is reasonable - keeping it overnight isn’t. It’s not yours

I didn't say we did keep overnight. I just said I can see why schools have resorted to saying they'll keep phones overnight. It's not because they actually want too, it's because sometimes you have to put in a harsh sanction (like our "if your kid won't put their phone away we'll ring you at work) to actually get parental support on the issue.

It's bad enough for us where kids were losing 20/30 minutes of play time while we dealt with the endless run of "Put your phone back in your bag... Yes you too.. No, your Mum didn't say you could have it..." every single day. At least they're not missing anything critically important. Plus we can, as we've had to do once, give notice to the parents and withdraw the place. Schools can't do that so easily.

In a school it's an absolute ballache to be dealing with it endlessly. They'll have been hoping the "shit I best not as I want my phone tonight" will have made sure most people didn't risk it at all (which in kids like my DD1 it has) and for the others losing their phone once will be enough.

Wow, you sound so warm and nurturing. I can't foresee any possibility that a visiting child would feel unable to approach you!

But unless you lock them up and throw away the key that's life right now. Talking to your kid about dangers and safeguarding is better than pretending it doesn't happen

Another person using their imagination to pretend I said something I didn’t say.