Having access to 13 yo sons devices

[Magicalunicornsandthings]

13 yo has phone and computer. Should parents have access to these? Not to constantly check but perhaps random spot checks or in case of strange behaviour, and all the unthinkable. For context, this is a young 13 yo with not many friends, spends all hours God sends in his bedroom and no other interests.

I think it’s the responsible thing to do but AIBU? And can anyone provide context, your experiences?

Of course. And you should be checking way more often than spot checks. Some of the threads on here are eye opening.

Yes, you should have access. And it should be more than spot checks. Do you have any parental controls on his devices?

There was a thread relatively recently where a 13 year old boy sent pictures to someone. He was then blackmailed. Parents were completely unaware. Had all the conversations with him about internet safety, trusted him not to do anything stupid etc..

100%.
I would check randomly minimum of once a week.
Have you installed any parental control software?

100% you should have access, and should make use of that to regularly check.

That way, you can satisfy yourself he's safe and he will know you're keeping an eye him so hopefully won't do anything too stupid himself.

At that age, I did check dd's devices. She is now 16 and I don't!

Yes. He's a child. Qustodio is a good app to use for both phones and computers .
Google play store and can be used on Apple too

Of course a parent should have access. I did random spot checks on my kids phones until they were 15.

It’s my duty to keep them safe l

I should have been more clear, I suppose I mean once a week when I say spot checks.

Parental controls were on there until he got into them and changed them all. In my opinion, changing passwords/ actively blocking parents from devices is a cause for concern. Trust is there to be earned and he has done the opposite.

Needed a reality check from other parents though.

Yes 13 is very young and god knows what he'll be looking at. Have you got parental controls on his stuff?

I checked my DDs devices, and made them leave them downstairs at night, until they had finished their GCSEs. It was a battle but it's one I'm glad I had with hindsight.

Yes you should have full access.

My youngest is now 15 and I don't tend to check now but I sometimes warn him that I can at any moment and that it's important I trust him to be sensible in his messages / what he's sending. I feel it's far better to work towards this so they don't 'take it underground' so to speak and start hiding stuff

At 13 I checked regularly

YANBU.

I have twin sons, who will be 13 in February. They have had their own phones and laptops since they turned 12 last year. We use Qustodio to monitor their online activity. Husband and I plan to continue monitoring their online activity until they are 16.

You should check but need to be aware of all the tricks he could use to get around your supervision, for instance on a PC he could use a bootable USB stick to load a live OS like TAILS into the RAM, and there would be no trace of this if you later checked his internet history in Windows.

My sons have devices/internet access on the understanding that they have no internet privacy til 16. I dont check often but I do check to see what they are looking at (more at 11/12, less often as they get older).

Full access. We spot check and use Qustodio. Qustodio is great for keeping an eye on searches, apps used, time used - much more so than any parental controls that come with phones IMHO.
I would also worry about the time your child is spending in room on devices.
Our DS has limited screen time in gaming, phone and laptop and isn’t allowed to use or keep his laptop in his room. His Xbox is also downstairs in a shared area. Given the chance our DS would happily stay online all day at the xpensenof everything else - but we don’t give him that option.

My friends teenage children have devices on the condition that she knows their passcodes and at any time can pick them up and look through them. They're never secretive with their phones and she's always worried about what sort of content DD is seeing on tiktok but when she checks, she's just following videos of guinea pigs.

My DC are too young for phones but my colleagues DD has had one since she was 8 with unrestricted 4G and public social media accounts that her mum doesn't know how to access/monitor.

Thanks everyone, I’m going to have a look into this Qustodio.

The thought of the USB with a different OS sounds all a bit clever but I wouldn’t put it past him. I’m aware he may also clear his browsing history and messages or whatever too.

Just a side note, this is my stepchild and he has the computer in his bedroom at his mums house who doesn’t check anything. I totally disagree with it.. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t overreacting though, as my three children are younger.

With younger children in the house I would say this will be an area of concern, they maybe exposed to - either accidentally or deliberately- to things that are not age appropriate via their older sibling. He may. Have in ways around them that you may not like due to things he’s seeing online.
It’ll also be harder to monitor and limit the youngest ones as they get older when you have a sibling who can do what he wants.

I know that some of DS friends are allowed stuff I wouldn’t never allow becuase they have older brothers. Games and films and online access that I consider far too old for them. And they’re ‘knowledgeable ‘ about things that they are too young for that they know of but don’t really understand and I can see how it affects their behaviour though the parents seem oblivious.

Ds is 12 and knows I check his devices regularly. His x box is in his room so he has to have his door open when on it.

I also have the payments from it set so they come out of the account that gives notifications on my phone so he knows any transitions I will know about

Yes and of course and I’d be checking often. Not just spot checks. The internet is a dangerous place.

DD is 14 and a condition of her having access to the internet/devices is random spot checks.

It's my job as her parent to help her navigate the pitfalls of such an open world with many marvels and twice as many pitfalls.

As her personal rules on the internet show maturity and understanding so does the level of privacy she earns with a strong caveat that any content or contact that doesn't sound/look right that she brings to my attention. She knows that I'll take her back to zero privacy if my trust is breached.

Thankfully my "remember everything you send/post online/stream can be seen by your gran eventually" message is one hard wired into her so and one I've heard her lecture friends on so that's less of a worry.

Yes I have his WhatsApp messages attached to my account and I can download and browse through at will should I choose his laptop and mine are connected I've literally took over the xbox before and shut it down remotely and the other day when he flipped out I told him I was changing his switch settings to baby and restricting access I soon got an apology and he stopped the behaviour ASAP

He is 13 and knows I know more than him for now

Keep an eye on him OP. If my parents had checked my devices when I was young I wouldn't have got into half as much trouble as I did.

You can check, but that shouldn’t replace an open dialogue from you about online safety and having trust from your child that if they’ve made a mistake, you’re a person who they can go to and be honest with. When you check a child’s phone, short of a full forensic interrogation of the device, it’s just a surface level scan. And you’re looking for a needle in a haystack. To get around your checks your children could:

Delete conversations / browsing history regularly.
Relabel suspicious contacts with school friends names so they don’t flag to you.
Use apps such as Snapchat and Insta stories where things disappear.
Use private browsing mode so their browsing history isn’t stored.
Have accounts which they log into in their friends devices that you don’t know about.
Buy another phone and hide that from you.

That’s just from the top of my head. Some parental apps might flag some of these but not all.