To have said this to SIL re checking her DD's phone?

[weymouthswanderingmermaid]

My niece started year 7 this year. She's settled well, and is generally a well adjusted, well behaved sensible child. My DC's are younger and not quite at the smartphone / social media stage yet.
DN got her first phone when she started secondary school. Me and SIL we're chatting about DN yesterday, and SIL told her about several WhatsApp groups my DN is now on. Friends chatting and making social arrangements, and the like. I asked SIL if she was checking them / her phone is general, and she was horrified and said no of course not, she doesn't know her password anyway. I said that to would be sensible to check it every now and again, and to let DN that she would be doing so. To me, 11 is so young to have private access to WhatsApp and social media, and it's a parents duty to monitor it to keep the child safe and check for issues like bullying.
I explained that what I was saying was what i understood the general advice to be for parents, not just me being a snoop. I honestly did not say any of this in a judgemental holier than thou way, I was trying to be factual but helpful, iyswim?

But, SIL has not taken it well. She's seen it as both a slight against DN who "can't be trusted", and against her parenting, as I suggested she wasn't doing it right! SIL is a lovely, sensible woman and great mother. I really didn't expect that reaction

I don't have any children that age, so I don't profess to be an expert. But I do find the checking thing weird. If your child can't be trusted with a phone then they shouldn't have one, surely?!

Mine has one on the condition that I can check it from time to time. I rarely do but that keeps him (hopefully) being responsible and thoughtful about what he posts.

There no chance on Earth I would have agreed to get an intelligent phone without DS agreement to let me into his social media life. I don’t comment or participate, O just checked to ensure he is not doing anything stupid.

Of course their phones should be checked. It’s completely naive to think the people they are talking to are who they say they are.

I see it all the time with the children that come in to hospital. Being groomed, risk of CSE, suicide pacts, self harm pacts. Bullying, threats.

It’s happening now and I find it really scary. You’re completely naive if you think this isn’t the world our children are part of.

If my children get phones I will be checking them to keep them safe and they know that.

If your child can't be trusted with a phone then they shouldn't have one, surely?!

It’s not about trusting your child. It’s about who might be contacting your child.

Telling someone how to parent rarely goes down well so although I agree with your points, I don't know why you were surprised by her reaction.

She has an 11-yr-old, of course she'll be aware of the arguments for and against social media usage, and how to monitor it. Schools do lots of awareness raising about it. She made different choices than you would but you can't honestly think she is in a vacuum and unaware of her choices.

Anyone who compares a phone to a diary needs to have a serious think about what they are saying.

A phone is an internet connected device which children use to be connected to potentially the entire world. It is absolutely nothing like a diary

Phones have access to porn to chat with strangers to bullying.

Literally insane to compare to reading a diary. By checking a phone you are protecting the child not intruding on them

it's not about trusting your child, it's about who might be contacting them

I'd expect a 12 year old to know to be cautious and this about trust essentially. As your child should know not to speak to anyone unknown on the phone and therefore if they can be trusted with a phone they won't interact with such people. If they can't be trusted to do this, they shouldn't have a phone.

I would NEVER and have NEVER read any of kids messages. What I have done though is keep the lines of communication massively open between them and me so I can give them advice and so they can be tuned into the fact that there are risks online. And so that they can come to me with any worries
I do not feel the to police their use of their mobile. They're good sensible kids with good friends that I know well. And I've equipped them well re the evils of the world.
However if I noticed changes in their behaviour, or mood then that might led me to check their phone but so far so good.
Every parent is going to do things differently and that's just the way of the world. There's no right or wrong way, some people police the mobile use, some people prefer to less intrusive but more open... whatever works

That's just not how grooming works though. We saw on a child protection training once - the trainer showed how someone could do a search and find little bits of info (made up presumably) and from that was able to send really convincing messages about being a friend of a friend and having met you once at that swim competition, etc.

I also don't just check, I have them on family through iPhone and this means apps can't be downloaded without me knowing and internet history cannot be erased.

Rain that's why it's so important to educate our kids re privacy settings and oversharing etc

Personally, I think reading text messages is akin to eavesdropping on conversations or reading diaries. I would never do it.

A parent said something very similar to me very recently at school when we had had reports of her 12 year old DD sending abusive messages and sharing pornographic images to other children. Fortunately, dad was a bit more savvy and took more of an interest in their daughters phone use. Mum was totally shocked and really quite devastated when it was found to be true.

If parent knew just how much time that schools spend on this kind of stuff they'd be gobsmacked. Unfortunately it's normally because parents just can't be bothered.

It’s a hard one tbh. I was a checker for a really long time. I thought it necessary because safety and all that, but honestly it felt intrusive and creepy reading messages between DD and her friends. I know I personally wouldn’t like my family reading the messages between me and my friends, and it just felt all a bit wrong.

DD hated it too, and I’m actually pretty sure it just got to a point where she would delete everything she didn’t want me to read anyway, because she knew I could check at any time. So checking became pointless. Teenagers aren’t stupid.

So I don’t check anymore and just have to trust that she would come and tell me if there was anything I needed to be worried about.

I'd expect a 12 year old to know to be cautious and this about trust essentially. As your child should know not to speak to anyone unknown on the phone and therefore if they can be trusted with a phone they won't interact with such people. If they can't be trusted to do this, they shouldn't have a phone.

And how do you find this out? If you think you can tell by your child's behaviour in the rest of their life, or by having had some chats with them, whether or not they will ever be fooled into getting into chats with inappropriate people (who they might think are friends of friends), or whether or not they'll ever get caught up in inappropriate chat/borderline bullying in whatsapp groups and so on, then I think you are a bit naive.

The other aspect of it is that privacy in chats with friends on a phone is not something they should be taking for granted at that age anyway. If they're saying something they wouldn't want anyone but their friend to see, then an online or text chat is not a wise way to say it in the first place. If you're putting something in a text you couldn't bear a parent or anyone else to see, then the chances are it's something you shouldn't be putting into a text full stop.

Never mind their own parents - what about their friend's phone being seen by family, siblings, or just grabbed by other friends and nosed through? What about a fall out with friends that leads to malicious sharing of screenshots from past conversations?

I think knowing their phone will be checked every now and then by parents is a useful way to keep a bit of a check on kids oversharing personal or inappropriate stuff via their phones when they're still young.

I'd rather do that then give them the false impression that a phone is a 100% safe and private way to pour out their heart and soul to friends (face to face is what you need for that), complain about other friends or anything like that. It's not, even without parents checking it.

I hear what people are saying about giving unsolicited parenting advice, I suppose it never goes down well!
I don't agree that checking phones is like reading diaries. Kids are putting something out into the public domain, we need to ensure that it's being done in a safe and benign way that won't cause them harm.
I'll be in this position in a couple of years, and will absolutely have phone passwords and make it clear that phones can and will be checked regularly.
I won't say anything else about it to SIL, but as someone has said hopefully will have planted a seed, we'll see!

@orangechews it's about bringing your child up to be responsible, having a good relationship with your child, making sure your child can open up to you etc, having conversations with your child. If you can it be sure that your child is safe with a mobile phone, it's simple...then they shouldn't have one.

I don't agree with snooping or constantly checking your child's mobile phone

Can't

Also, discretion is possible and important. When I do check my kids phones, I never ever refer to anything I've seen on them, to them or to anyone else other than their dad (and not routinely to him). I will never do that unless/until something crops up that actually requires intervention. I'm more interested in checking that dangerous things are absent than in knowing all the details of the ordinary things.

@orangechews it's about bringing your child up to be responsible, having a good relationship with your child, making sure your child can open up to you etc, having conversations with your child. If you can it be sure that your child is safe with a mobile phone, it's simple...then they shouldn't have one.

Those things aren't mutually exclusive you know - you can do all of those things and still keep an eye on a phone. Do you have a secondary-school aged child? Because at the moment just not giving them a mobile phone is nothing like the easy option you make it sound. It simply isn't that neat. In our house far far more time is spent in conversation about these things than actually checking - but the checking is still there as the final safety net.

I have never checked ds phone, he has had a smartphone from the age of 10, what I have done instead it always kept lines of communication open, let him know that he can always talk to me, no matter what about, that I won't get angry & I won't blame him. By doing this he was able to tell me when he was getting threatening messages from someone he thought of as a friend & was getting trolled on social media. I was able to support him through a friend having an eating disorder, taking drugs, self harming & prostituting herself to pay for the drugs. He had tried to do the right thing by speaking to her parents but they refused to accept their daughter was doing this, I was able to go in to school with him & speak to the safeguarding team to get her help & support & get them to involve her parents.

Serves you right. Your DC are not property. Teach them social skills and boundaries and encourage them to come to you if they have problems or worries. All this snooping and surveillance does far more harm than good - your DC see you as the enemy and work out ways to hide things from you as soon as they can.
I don't check DS' online interactions. He talks to me if anything bothers him. He has a right to privacy.

WhatsApp requires users to state they are 16 or over when they create an account. Seeing as your DN, and anyone else under 16 who uses it, has already lied, I wouldn't be too certain of her reliability or capability of judging boundaries on social media.
Does your SIL pay the phone bill? What takes place on that phone is HER responsibility so ask her how she'd feel if her daughter was caught up in a nasty little bullying ring, albeit on the fringes.
I work in safeguarding and if you're not checking your children's phones you're naive at best, foolish most likely, and damned negligent to boot.

YANBU
My DS is 14 and couple of weeks ago we had to report our family friend to the police for grooming him.
I’m glad we caught it before it got to the point of something physical. We only found out about it after checking DS’s phone.

The police and safeguarding in CAMHS near me gave a talk and suggested checking until child is age of consent and to use Net aware and NSPCC learning etc to set limits and educate on the dangers. It's totally different to a diary. It is more like doing public readings of your diary blindfolded, where you can't see who is in the audience and don't know if they are filming you and think you're just talking to the cat!

I think you were being a good Auntie!

I'd also like to mention that so many parents think that because they have a good relationship with their child, because they've brought them up to be respectful, because the 'lines of communication are always open', because they know what's expected of them - all these things that we try and do with our child - does not mean that they will not get involved with sharing what their friend do or get drawn in to things that you really don't want them to. They don't always go to parents because they don't want to 'lose face' with friends.

A lot of the children that I come into contact with at school who have become embroiled in cyber bullying, sharing inappropriate images etc are really nice kids from nice families whose parents have been blindsided by some of the situations. I know there will be posters reading this thinking 'well that would never be my child' and my advice to them would be to just be cautious. It's a complicated issue and our young people are being handed devices with which they can access things that we really wouldn't want them to see or read.

I do find the notion that ‘good lines of communication’ keep children safe from everything a tad naive. I would say we had excellent communication with ours. They were very sensible children. That doesn’t mean there aren’t times they are unaware of the consequences of actions or scared of the behaviour of others. It’s as dismissive of risk as saying you can’t know where they are all the time.

Many fourteen/ fifteen year old girls send silly sexually inappropriate pictures. That’s ill advised and they might come to regret it. As a parent I’d want to know that and stop it but worse still is the impact that ‘harmless bit of fun’ can have on boys who it’s been sent to. I have found a couple of photos of nearly naked girls on my sons phone when he was around fourteen. No crime in receiving them but a potential prosecution and sex offenders list if he’d done like one or two others and sent them on to a friend.
If it’s an attachment and download from a message saying ‘look at this mate, it’s Becks from Youth theatre with her tits out’ and they download load it (what fifteen year old boy would take it to their mother for advice) then it’s accessing child pornography. I know of one eighteen year old ( not mine) who was prosecuted and served six months for downloading a picture of his sixteen year old ex girlfriend naked. He’s on the sex offenders register now. The family believes the girl did it as an act of revenge for being dropped. Either way it’s a life ruined.
It’s really, really not like a diary. It’s not necessary to be read every message but certainly look at things like Facebook or WhatsApp where there can be ganging up and really unpleasant behaviour.
As parents we have a responsibility to know what is going on in our children’s lives.