Checking DC’s phone.

[awsedrft]

Do you check your 14 year old DC’s phone?

When DC got their phone a couple of years ago, it was on the understanding that I would check it. I used to do this regularly but it become very sporadic.

I checked it now and have found some messages between DC and his GF (also 14) that I feel I need to talk about with him. How do I go about this? AIBU for checking the phone at 14?

I think I’ll be checking to 15-16. Mine are still young though!

You pay the bill, you are in charge and you keep him safe. Yes you get to check it.

If the pictures are sexually explicit, then they count as indecent images of children even if taken by the children themselves, and possessing/sharing such images is a crime. You should definitely address this with your son. Explain how people’s lives have been ruined by intimate photos/videos ending up on porn sites for everyone to see (friends, family, teachers, colleagues, bosses, etc.) and how hard it is to get them taken down once they’re up. It only takes one of the kids to lose their phone, or a classmate using their phone to send the pictures to others, or even their accounts being hacked and that’s it, the photos are out there in the world forever.

Depending on if your son’s GF was aware that you check his phone, you could point out he has also violated his GF’s trust because she presumably wasn’t intending for her BF’s mum to see those pics of her, yet he knew the risk and kept the photos anyway! If I were her, I would be absolutely mortified. You should inform her parents about what’s been going so they can have a similar conversation with their daughter.

”Never share a photo you wouldn’t want your grandma to see” is a good mantra to live by.

I would have absolutely hated this invasion of privacy so yes I think yabu.

I too would've absolutely hated it, very pleased I had a pay as you go so I paid it myself and therefore wasn't subjected to this. As for people saying they'd check their child's phone at 16 that's ridiculous, they're close to being an adult.

My parents would have saved me a whole lot of trouble if they'd checked my phone when I was a teen.

Does he know you check his phone?

But at 16 if they have a gf or bf and send each other sexually explicit pictures they are breaking the law. Better for me to discover it rather than school/police if the other parent finds it and my child ends up with a criminal record. Ds confided in me that his friend had done this with his girlfriend at 16 and I pointed out the above, what would the friend do if the police came knocking on his door?

Checking phones is parenting and is recommended by the police link for you here in case you have never heard of this case and Kayleigh was 15. https://www.leics.police.uk/kayleighslovestory

OP I don't envy you, sometimes conversations are very hard to have and we had a you can turn your back to we aren't face to face policy. It meant we still had the discussion but we weren't staring at each other whilst it happened. My youngest son is now 17 so there have been a lot of talks with both my sons about girls/consent/the law.

Blimey, I am so glad I am not a teenager today!

A condition of having the mobile phone was that we would check it but also we had an open door come and talk to us about anything, we would happily advise especially when it comes to handling situations with friends/frenemies/extended friends of the group ie not your friend but your friend's friend.

@coffeecupsandwaxmelts me too, imagine how easy it is for someone to screenshot or share everything you have written especially when a friendship goes wrong. Anyone with a phone should know this, child and adult alike. How many people have had to apologise for things they wrote years ago on twitter? That is the world we are living in.

The OP said messages, why are people talking about sexually explicit pictures?

Every parent should be checking phones regularly and should have controls over downloading apps etc.
it horrifies me to hear that young teens have no-one checking on this because it's so risky for them.
It's not an invasion of privacy if it's done openly and is the agreement for having a phone.

He knew (but presumably forgot) that phones could be checked.
Depending on what you found - I would perhaps backtrack, tell him you are going to check his phone (and give him time to delete the content) and then have a conversation around why he might have deleted some items...
I wouldn't go out of my way to embarrass him but there's obviously something he's doing that needs stopping.

@CatchThatBallOfFire you can parent / advise them of the law without actually checking their phone at the age of 16 when their literally so close to being an adult, going to uni, working etc. I'm not talking about younger children, that's proportionate, but over 16, if you don't have trust in your child / you're not prepared for them to take responsibility themselves for their own actions, somethings gone very wrong before hand.

@booksandcats22 I think to the end of year 11 is reasonable, my friend's son doesn't hit 16 until the 29th August. I hate this whole they are almost an adult argument, just because they are almost an age 2 years from being an adult doesn't mean they aren't sometimes incredibly stupid and heading them off at the pass might save them from trouble. The deal with the phone is that you know when it is given that the parent checks, that might make you think twice about writing or sharing stuff. There isn't a full expectation of privacy.

As I said my youngest son is 17 and I already have a child at uni. This isn't hypothetical for me and they have felt that they can come to either myself or Dh on how to respond to certain messages and how to word things including to teachers during lockdown. I have also undergone safeguard training for working with children so we are told how grooming gangs in our area work, what to look out for etc. Sadly both my sons have had friends who have had suicide ideation one of whom went through with it and fortunately survived and got help. However, there were messages on a group chat just before it happened but my son was asleep when they came through, another friend tried to talk him down. It was gut wrenching to read. Luckily Ds came straight to us when he saw the messages.

Picture messaging is super common.

You’re right OP hasn’t specified what the contents of the messages were so could well just be text. Even so, if it’s sexting, this could quickly and easily escalate to sharing pics so best to nip it in the bud.

It's the job of a responsible parent to check what their children are doing online / on their phones. Not because you're nosy but because you need to know they are safe

I checked by youngest's phone until he was about to turn 15. He's now 16.5 and I wouldn't dream of it but only because he's shown me that A I can trust him and B he will talk to me if something comes up that really concerns him

I wouldn't read the text messages between a 14 year old and his girlfriend (assuming you know her personally and she is not a hairy handed 50 year old pervert).

I feel it was a huge invasion of privacy and not any different to bugging their private face to face conversations.

There is a fine line between monitoring your child's phone and who they are talking to for their safety and blatant snooping of private messages.

YANBU. Of course you should check his phone. You're the parent and you owe it to him to keep an eye on things. They don't get privacy at 14, no way at all.

I did at 14. I stopped at 15. I don't think 14 year olds should have privacy when it comes to social media - they're too young to manage it responsibly

No, not for either DS aged 13 and 17.

They are sensible boys and don't need me checking up on them

After 16 I didn’t check. Tbh I very rarely checked anyway, my youngest ones were smart enough to use Snapchat and no trace of any messages etc elsewhere anyway so was pretty pointless.

Oh well, let them drink, smoke, have sex, drive cars, travel abroad alone, go to clubs, move into a flat share and work at 15...after all they're close to being an adult.

I've told DD 12 that I'm not going to read everything on her phone but that I can and will skim through messages.

I gave her the analogy that if she was chatting to a friend in her bedroom I would not stand outside taking notes. But if I was downstairs and heard an argument, I'd come up and ask what was going on.

Also, does anyone know if it is possible to read a WhatsApp chat but leave the messages marked as unread?