To be annoyed this mum took DS's phone

[burtonplanet]

DS(13) slept over at friend's house, along with one other boy. After dinner, the mum took DS's and the other boy's phones. The friend is not allowed a phone, and the mum didn't want anyone on phones during the sleepover. We have strict controls and app limits on DS's phone, such that he wouldn't have been able to do anything on it after 9 pm anyway except text or call home. We tightly monitor everything he does on there and know the dangers of teens having phones, but we feel like we're on top of it. We live in the centre of a small city and he walks and takes the bus everywhere. We like to be in touch with him and see where he is on FindMy, and he also needs an app to get the bus, and a few apps for his hobby. He messages with friends a bit but isn't really on social media. AIBU to think this mum was out of order? I know it's her house her rules, and on the one hand it's not a big deal because DS wouldn't really have used it anyway, except to probably text us goodnight and say if he was having a good time. But it just feels really judgy and unnecessary. This is not the only mum I know who is very anti smartphone and it just feels a little over the top. Just because a kid has a phone doesn't mean he's going to be on it all hours looking at porn and bullying people on social media. Sometimes they are just useful tools. Because this friend (who is 14!) is not allowed a phone, he is not allowed to walk anywhere on his own and lacks a lot of the independence we feel like it's important for DS to have. We don't want to be helicopter parents! Tell me if I'm BU.

I think if she had said to me, I would prefer the boys not to have the phones over night, I would have said 'that's fine, I agree, we always set DS's phone to be pretty much useless after 9pm, except for the capability of texting or calling only us.' So that bit of communication would prevented her from doing what in my view was overstepping by just taking it off him

So basically if she asked first you would have still disagreed?

That aside there is one glaringly obvious flaw in your logic. You say there was a third boy at the sleepover. Would you have been happy if the third boy looked at porn or tiktok on his phone and showed it to your son?

Totally out of order to take his phone.

I mean, couldn't he have just asked her if he wanted to contact you? He wasn't locked in.

I really do feel for these kids whose parents are so spectacularly unimaginative that they actually believe they’re protecting/helping them by giving them 24/7 smartphone access. The level of ignorance is quite staggering.

Would it have been ok for her to confiscate his wallet or an item of jewellery?

I don't think this is a fair comparison, unless his jewellery gives him the ability access all of the porn in the world.

Imagine the fates of all the girls if that one girl who texted who parents hadn’t had her phone on her.

All the posters clamouring if they can’t ask an adult to leave then they shouldn’t go to sleepovers are twits. I was molested by a friends older sister at a sleepover. I didn’t have a phone but if I had it certainly wouldn’t have happened.

Sexual assault is unfortunately not uncommon at sleepovers, by friends, parents, older siblings. Children’s safety campaigners warn agains sleepovers without making sure your children know what to do if they feel at all uncomfortable (and obviously making sure they can contact parents on their own phone). Child molesters don’t wear a badge, they most often appear likeable and safe, because that’s how they get near children.

I’m very against smartphones for children, but I would make sure my child had a brick to take to sleepovers when they aren’t at home.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/drugged-smoothies-oregon-father-sleepover-b2507178.html

Not at 4 years old, surely. My kids didn't have phones until they started secondary school at 11.

Reception children would be a nightmare to look after with phones. If they leave the school premises it will be with a teacher.

If you know your son's friend doesn't have a phone you might have foreseen that his mum would not want phones in the bedroom overnight. I don't think either of you are wrong, just that you have different 'normals', so never thought to discuss this in advance

Are teens nowadays completely incapable of functioning without having their phone 24/7? How on earth did millions of teens survive before mobile phones?!

Obviously Mumsnet is massively hyperbolic and OTT about ‘screens’ 🙄and will doubtless tell you that you should learn a valuable parenting lesson from this saintly mother who was simply trying to protect your child. But that would be bollocks. She shouldn’t have taken your son’s phone because it is not her place to decide whether your child can have a phone with him overnight or not, any more than it would be her place to tell your son what sort of pyjamas he had to wear or what toothpaste to use.

I also think that it’s actually a good idea for a kid on a sleepover to be able to have their phone with them in case, for whatever reason, they’re concerned about something and don’t feel comfortable waking their friend’s parents. Having been at a sleepover as a child in the days when nobody had a mobile phone, and at which something happened which made me feel unsafe, and where I had no means of contacting home privately, I’d want a kid to have their phone with them overnight.

I don't think you are being unreasonable. This would annoy me! My child, my rules!!

This. We have the same rules in our house.

Absolutely no phones in bedrooms ever.

Are you in the room all the time at your child’s sleepover?!

And what about the other children there? What about the parents’ rules and preferences to not have their child in a bedroom with a camera and internet access? Or do they not matter?

The odd thing, and really the only odd thing, is you feeling judged by this parent. Why do you care? She obviously has different rules in her house, she obviously thinks her rules are best else she’d have allowed an exception, she may or may not be judging you for your rules. Why is this important to you?

FWIW we have a no-gadgets-in-bedrooms policy in our house, and sleepover friends sleep in my DCs’ bedrooms. By now my DC know to tell their friends this before they stay, if they don’t know it already. If a child can’t sleep over without a phone by their side, well I’m not prepared to be in loco parents for them. They’re not ready to be away from home. Sleepovers aren’t a human right! (My DD does actually have a friend who’s never had a sleepover yet because he HAS to be able to FaceTime his mum when he can’t sleep (he has sleep problems) and no parents in our circles allow gadgets in bedrooms. I think no sleepovers yet is a fair and reasonable outcome for this lad.)

I didn't have to be.

But my response was to a post where the poster said there would be long unsupervised stretches in any given sleepover, and I questioned that. Unless you know the children well, it's smart to supervise - sticking your head around the door and reminding them to brush teeth, wash faces, telling them when it's time for lights out, etc.

Fwiw, I didn't do sleepovers with more than one friend at a time except for special occasions like a birthday. My DCs had frequent sleepovers, one friend at a time.

“She shouldn’t have taken your son’s phone because it is not her place to decide whether your child can have a phone with him overnight or not” but it is her place to decide whether or not her son can sleep in the same room as other boys who have mobile phones and could potentially show him all sorts of inappropriate material.

Agree with intermittent supervision but even by your description out of, for example, five hours from 7pm -midnight, the majority of that time will be unsupervised, albeit broken up by the occasional popping in of a parent. So yes it’s hours unsupervised.

Who are these teens who cannot be trusted with their phones?

If you think your child will engage in bullying or any other horrible behaviour with their phone when out of your sight, maybe don't let them loose in someone else's house overnight?

I'd have expected the mum to let my ds send a text and wait for a reply from me, to tell me that he wasn't able to keep his phone, then we could have decided if he was happy with that and I'd have decided if I was. Or if not that, then proper warning before he went. It was wrong to just take it away and assume this was ok, I'd have been annoyed.

If you don't trust your child or their friends, why are you letting them go on sleepovers or hosting sleepovers?

Why are these little horrors so badly brought up?

I also will never understand why some parents are so keen for their kids to have phones?! My eldest is 9. I am DREADING the getting of the phone and l honestly will put it off as long as I possibly can.

We do not do sleep overs, because my child is too young for a phone. I think you have exactly the right idea though!

My daughter had an asthma attack in the night when she was at a sleepover. Thankfully she had her phone and phoned me. She was too shy to wake the parents. I was able to talk her through taking her inhaler and stayed on line until it passed. So yes, I think it was unreasonable and not her place to take the phone.

I think she's doing the right thing and I'd bet you're not as on top of it as you think you are. All the training I've done says even really young children can easily get round all the things we've put in place, and believing that we've done it makes us complacent like letting them have phones in their rooms at night