Just out of interest, do all the parents of the 16 plus children who can't have their phone in their room at night have an app on your phone to track your child's every move?
No. He has google family link on his phone which we use to discuss his screen time (I don't really check it unless I notice a significant uptick and he can now remove it at will & chooses not to), but I've never set up the locator function on his or his siblings' phones.
Though for me, it's less "can't" and more "he's never tried to do so, probably because from 11 he's put his phone in a certain place when not using it". His phone was sitting next to his father's phone while they both play video games together this evening before he went to bed. It sits there a lot. He likes some games on it and to use it for music while working, but it's never been something I've needed to confiscate (though in a situation like 123sunshine has I would). He has other things to do in his room that don't involve screens.
How are you going to cope in two years when they are legally adults and can do as they please?
I don't discuss adulthood with him in the manner of 'do as you please', that's not how I view it. I discuss in benefits, risks, responsibilities & working together, in how I can't stop him (I've helped him with his physical training, I haven't been able to physically stop him since he was 12), but his choices have impact. As he shared a room with a sibling, he can't really do as he pleases in there. As he shares a house with the rest of us, he has to mindful of the rest of us too. As he has goals, he needs to do things in line with them and if he needs help with that, that I can do, but I can't save him if he doesn't.
More to the point how are your kids ever going to grow up with their parents behaving like this?
I view growing up as a gradual process to scaffold as suits the individual child rather than a 'you're old enough, figure it out'. I had the latter especially around computers and it sucked. I ended up in a lot of risky situations, I felt like I couldn't get any support because I was told I should be able to handle it, that we kids knew this tech better anyways.
I took a different approach with mine in being up front that tech has its challenges to figure out and we'll do it step by step, just like with the outside world where we started with free access to the park over the road, then when that was fine we'd move to the larger park down the road and so on, backtracking if issues happened. We've had a few with my oldest, but no where near to the same extent I had and he worked with us to prevent things happening again.
He's managed college from 15 with us working together to make a study plan, he manages his bank account with us having helped him set up apps and systems to organize his money, he manages to put together a fitness plan every quarter with some group brainstorming, and he manages to put his phone down regularly which to me doesn't seem to be the juvenile option.