I think it's unacceptable to go through a teenagers phone

[orangedod]

Am I the only one? I hope I'm not the only one.

I see so many threads and hear so many mums talking about going through teenagers phones and I really disagree with it.

I completely understand about keeping them safe but to me it seems like a major invasion of privacy. I know full well that my mum never went through mine and there was a massive trust there.

What's everyone's stance on this? Am I alone in my opinion?

Their schools are cashless and they need to take the phones to get the homework on there.

Schools have methods that don't involve smartphones. Not every child has one, plus they got lost or broken from time-to-time.

@Fi3ldTrip fine don’t bother checking your kids phones or ever confiscate them. Hopefully your lack of responsibility won’t come and bite you in the arse, and you aren’t hauled into school because one of your kids got too deep with a so-called friend.
I’m sure you’ll feel just fine in saying “well, it wasn’t MY responsibility to keep my kids safe from harm”

@Fi3ldTrip things like snapchat you mean? Look, the inappropriate behaviour and conversations won’t happen in isolation. If you’re not aware of what your kids are doing online (even vaguely aware is enough) or who is communicating with your children, then that’s not good.

Would you happily send your 11 year old to a ....social club of some sort, not knowing where they meet, why they meet, or when they meet? You wouldn’t ask any questions as that 11 year goes out the door or has disappeared for 3 hours, coming back and not saying anything. You’d seriously be “well, I can’t make him tell me where he’s been, who he’s with or What he’s doing... its not my responsibility...”

Foster trust and don't snoop.

That's like saying I'm a good driver so I don't have to worry about rubbish drivers.

I trust my kid, it's others I don't trust.

Ours doesn’t. I’m simply asking how it works in practise? Do your kids not go into town and cities alone? They rarely use cash and we rarely have it in the house. . Buses/everything is paid by Apple Pay. We transfer money. Our kids would be mortified if we read their private conversations. I’d be very uncomfortable doing it and it encourages deceit as nobody would like anybody reading private conversations.I trust them and have taught them how to be tech savvy like I have re keeping safe on the streets. They tell me when they screw up and it’s not on phones.Pretty confident my dc would buy a cheap payg phone, loads of their friends have.

@Fi3ldTrip I'm not saying that you 'get around it'. I'm saying that these are not secrets only known to teenagers - adults are aware that it is a possibility to password-hide things, and can be on the lookout for such things. They aren't secrets just to children.

Nor am I saying that they won't delete things.

But surely having access to their SM accounts and keeping an eye on who their communicating with is no bad thing? They can quite literally communicate with absolutely anyone, and you seem fine to let this go unsupervised.

I'm unsure why you keep popping up trying to 'catch posters out' when these are very real dangers that you should be wanting to protect your children from. It is your RESPONSIBILITY as a parent.

So how are you reading chat on sites where they disappear?

I see things like this - internet and phones etc in the same way I see any other issue with bringing up kids.
For example - crossing the road.
You don’t keep children away from roads and never let them ever see a road then when they are 14 say off you go and cross all the busy roads by yourself.
You start off making them cross your hand when crossing the road, while telling them how to cross.
Then you start asking them if it’s safe and correcting them if they make the wrong choice
Then you start letting them go ahead of you but still in sight
Then you let them go off but knowing you are 5 min behind.
Finally you let them go off completely by themselves

So with phones it’s a similar stages process.

Mine are still tweens/young teens so not completely through the process yet but they got phones halfway through year 6, this was so they could get used to them while still in the safe bubble of primary school where they had known everyone since there were tiny and I knew all the parents (so if any issues we could let each other know)
They had already slowly been accessing the internet and knew the rules like never give out any personal info, never comment on random videos on YouTube, etc
I would check most messages and if inappropriate (was things like other kids swearing, or just saying something that comes across differently in text than it does in talking) etc
I still check phones every once in a while but o don’t read all messages, and mainly look for new contacts on social media etc to make sure they are someone we know etc.

People who think it’s fine to let kids go off forever unchecked are crazy. DS1 age 13 had an older girl come up to him at school and pull his headphones out and show him a dick pic and a video of someone watching porn in the bath, completely unprompted and he’s never seen her before. He immediately let ma and his dad know, we spoke to the school and by the end of the day he had picked her out of a book of photos and it was being dealt with with the police and safeguarding officers etc.

@Fi3ldTrip you do realise that, often, very young children have smartphones? 7/8/9 year olds. We're not just talking about 16 year olds here!

It also isn't snooping, if they are aware it's happening.

Keep popping up, err you mean replying on a thread. Is that not ok if I disagree with you? I’d find nothing on my dc’s phone. They don’t have conversations on anything that stays. The only people they text are boring people like us.

The title is talking about teens. Why on earth do 7 year olds have phones?

Ours doesn’t. I’m simply asking how it works in practise? Do your kids not go into town and cities alone? They rarely use cash and we rarely have it in the house. . Buses/everything is paid by Apple Pay. We transfer money. Our kids would be mortified if we read their private conversations. I’d be very uncomfortable doing it and it encourages deceit as nobody would like anybody reading private conversations.I trust them and have taught them how to be tech savvy like I have re keeping safe on the streets. They tell me when they screw up and it’s not on phones.Pretty confident my dc would buy a cheap payg phone, loads of their friends have.

Every school I've ever worked in, and that any of my kids have gone too, have a system for when a child doesn't have a phone. Unless it's a private school they simply cannot assume that every child will always have a smart phone.

They go out and if they don't have their phone they use a brick phone. They pay for things by their debit cards. They have bus passes and pay for taxis by cash.

I think it's age and maturity dependant. So that can differ from case to case.

IIRC my parents stopped checking up on my internet and phone usage when they stopped actively parenting me around age 15/16. But they kept an eye on my younger brother until he was older because he was much more suggestible than I.

@Fi3ldTrip you don’t need to read their private conversations, but you yo might ask “Who’s Alfie?” Or show what’s going on in Insta these days.... or whatever.

If you have an open and honest relationships with the child, then you need to be asking them about who it is they’re talking to, they need to be able to know you will help them.

Kids get groomed., and scared into thinking they’ll get in trouble if they tell, they get pressured or bribed into doing things like sending nudes etc.

If you GENUINELY think that as a parent, it isn’t your responsibility, then.... that’s scary.

My parents didnt go through my phone, but i didnt have a smart phone back then. I used my mums phone til i was 16. After that i had a simple phone for sms and calls, no internet access at all.
Times are different now and i fully plan on going through my childrens phones regularly once they are old enough to have one.
Teenagers are vulnerable and sometimes very stupid (sorry). You can tell them about cyber safety a million times, you can have an info day in school telling them about the dangers of the internet and how to stay safe. In the end it doesnt help, they do exactly the opposite. Not all of course, but theres always one.
I know this for a fact. I am a tutor and i have taught several teenagers who somehow got convinced to send out inappropriate photos. Even after safeguarding classes.
Its bad enough to witness this with my students, i am not taking that chance with my kids.

And there is no way buses ONLY take apple pay, they’ll take any contactless payment.

The majority of conversations mine have are on instagram or WhatsApp

Only one has SnapChat and she wasn't allowed that until she was old enough to not need her phone checked.

@Fi3ldTrip it's not a case of you not agreeing with me. Children having unsupervised access to social media can have utterly devastating impacts on lives, and this is not even a rare, unusual thing. It's so important and yet so many are lax about it through lack of understanding.

Ours it’s a pain though and frankly I find not worth the hassle. I can transfer money in a a matter of minutes when they’re out, track them, ring if worried....

Ds has had a smartphone of some kind since he was 8, at first it was my old one without a sim card that he could only use on the broadband at home to play games & take pictures on. I have never needed to check his phone because we have always had an open conversation about things, he was able to come & tell me when someone from school was trying to cyberbully him, when one of his friends was drinking, taking drugs & doing online sex that she was getting paid for to fund her habit, I was able to support him & have a meeting with the safeguarding team at school to tell them what was happening. He never locks his phone at home because he doesn't need to, I could look at it whenever I wanted to, but I don't need to because we have a relationship that is built on trust & openness with no secrets.

A child on the internet unsupervised is open to the same dangers as a child alone in a busy city. It's very worrying that some people don't seem to realise this.

@Fi3ldTrip oh so it’s ok to snoop on your kids whereabouts?

Ours it’s a pain though and frankly I find not worth the hassle. I can transfer money in a a matter of minutes when they’re out, track them, ring if worried....

That's a totally different thing to it not being possible

But you are naive Rowena. You aren’t monitoring it. They are having conversations you have no way of reading, going on sites they can delete history of in a second. You demand passwords and they’ll simply up their secrecy methods. You really aren’t seeing anything you want to see demanding a 14/15 year olds phone for a snoop. They will ensure you see nothing.