At what age would you think it is acceptable not to know your child's passcode on their phone....?

[SmallDucks]

15?
17?
18?
older? Younger?

Ooooh so tough

Seriously? Never had any “problems” with my teens and their phones that they did not tell me about straight away and I guided them on how to handle them.

Its not ‘lax parenting” to give your child privacy and also teach them safety and be there for them.

Most of the “teens with problems” due to phones in my experience actually have over restrictive and privacy invading parents. These teens create secret accounts behind their parents backs and then won’t tell their parents if things start to go tits up, because their parents would seize their phones and punish them for daring to have a secret Insta or Snapchat account. Then the poor child is left floundering with no guidance and no safety net…leading to much more serious “problems”.

I've never checked their phones but have often told them that I might, and had we ever had any concerns we would have definitely checked. As it was they have been good kids, no issues at all.

Have you read any of the posts above detailing exactly how easy it is for teenagers to hide things from their parents even with phone checks? I think @Discovereads approach of education and an approach where her children know they can come to her about anything online is probably the most sensible one. You can spot check a phone, but how will you know about the secret Instagram account they have, that they only access on private browsing mode? Having a relationship with your child where they feel that they can be honest with you about the trouble they are in online without fearing your reaction is probably the best way to set your children up for success.

Never! They would hand them over if I was concerned about anything though. Eldest Dd is 23 in a great job, buying a flat, just got back from Paris with her lovely BF and booked a holiday to Thailand in December. She has a great bunch of friends and social life. Never had any problems with her at school or out of. She drives a Mercedes' and treats me and her grandparents to meals out etc. so it never did her any harm, me not checking her phone!
My DS is doing his A levels, has a lovely girlfriend and group of mates. No problems in or out of school. I respected their privacy.
To me, 51, it would be like having to have shown my parents my diary - mortifying!

One of the biggest problems is using SnapChat. The messages disappear after they have been read by all recipients but they are a constant source of cyber bullying among teen girls ( IME)

I don't know them but a condition of them having the phones is that if I ask they need to unlock the phone immediately and give it to me to check and I do that pretty regularly. I also have screen time and content limits via Our Pact and the wifi.

Knowing the code doesn't mean you'd actually look. But it's handy just in case

handy for what?

i’d say 16. Mainly because while I don’t know the passwords, up until 16 I can use parental controls via icloud to limit screen time, set age appropriate content, restrict app downloads etc.

teens need privacy. They will be exploring relationships, slagging off parents, swearing, pushing boundaries. They need space to do this.

if you check up on them too much as pp have said, they find ways round it. Second phones, turning off locations, secret accounts.

Those saying 16 - I was working the season at a holiday place (left after my last o level exam) 300 miles away at that age so my parents had no idea what I was doing May to October. Came back and worked in central London full time to save to go travelling.

Those saying 18, I was in Australia with hardly any contact because it was before the days of mobile phones. Let them live and gain independence!

handy for what?

A significant behavioural change warranting possible medical attention/intervention.

They start stealing from you (could they be gambling?) You want to know why and they are being cagey.

The school/college calls and accuses them of online bullying etc.

I don't know the passcode for 16 year old DSDs phone. I don't think my DH does either. Not sure how much we'd gain from going through her phone at this point. The last time we did, she was 14 and that went so badly (we may as well have helped ourselves to her diary), that we had to figure out a better approach. We've been able to get a more productive conversation out of her by just talking with her (which sometimes involves sending her WhatsApp messages despite being in the same house).

That said, I do still have screen time monitoring and limits in place through the Apple family settings. She has to get permission from me to add an app, and when I want to, I can see how much time she's spending on which apps and limit the ones she can use. I still imposed Downtime this year to get her off her phone by midnight.

TBH, I don't remember my parents knowing my AIM or MSN Messenger passwords. They definitely didn't know the passwords for all of the different message boards and email lists I was part of back in the day. They had no access to my email once my friends taught me how to set up my own Hotmail account at age 14 (thank you summer camp).

They could have peered over my shoulder while I accessed these things on the family PC in the living room, but they rarely bothered. We had more and better conversations when they made an effort to watch TV shows I liked with me, or listen to a band I liked.

A girl I went to school with had very, very controlling parents who checked her phone through her teens, didn’t let her go to parties etc. Her mum was a police officer so had probably seen the worst of the worst.

She got to university and went mad with drugs and sleeping around because it was her first taste of freedom.

I currently only have tinies so it’s easy to say now, but my goal is raising kids who feel comfortable talking to me about things.

I feel sorry for some teens who have no privacy. Can't imagine being a teenager again if my parents insisted on looking through my phone, my room and every other item that MNers want to snoop through!

@DucklingDaisy
Agreed. My friend at school with the strictest (controlling) parents got pregnant at 15 as soon as she was allowed out after school. Lovely girl, just hadn't been allowed any freedom so went a bit crazy as soon as she finally had some.

She sat her o levels with a bump, poor girl.

My kids were taught boundaries, consent, about sex and porn from me, their dad and school. They both have lovely relationships with their BF and GF.

No need to ever check their phones.

@ThroughThickAndThin01
Good luck to your son. My friends son did the same. Went to Arsenal and now plays for Barcelona. Hope he does well

Not sure. They know mine and access it frequently to make calls, check messages etc when Im driving, busy etc and I know theirs. Probably when they don't want me to know it?

Currently 16&17 and have no issues with me knowing it so far but I don't check their phone, just use it when mines dead, can't remember wherre I've left mine etc.

14 here

Not all 15, 16, 17 year old young people are equal.
Some are very sensible, independent and don't necessarily need the same guidance and support as a very vulnerable child of the same age that wants to fit in but doesn't for what ever reason, whether it is due to lack of emotional intellegence or having a list as long as your arm of ACE's. Some young people will sail through this age with no issues, some will be exploited, some will be bullied and humiliated and others will be the aggresor.

There is no one size fits all. I agree that privacy is important but safeguarding is also an issue. I know there are many on this thread saying ''I taught my kids to come to me if there's any problems''. So did many of the parents of young people that I work with when they found out that, actually, there is a serious issue with the phone and the child was frightened to death to tell their parents because they knew the parents thought they would never do anything like 'that'.

I have never known the pass codes for either of my children’s phones. They are 21 and 22 now.

16

Totally depends on the individual child surely? I know my ds (age 13) and how naive he can be so I check his phone regularly. He’s not allowed to download apps without my permission, and the agreement is that he doesn’t get to have a phone unless I have access to it anytime I decide I need to.

And I have picked up on a couple of things from his phone that needed to be addressed. Nothing terrible, but stuff that it was best I knew about.

No it’s not the only way I keep him safe. It’s one of the ways, and a useful way. I will know when he’s old enough for me to stop checking, but I can’t predict that yet.

16

When they pay for it.

18 or when they pay for the phone and calls themselves.