To think a 10 year old shouldn't be on their phone at 1am?

[WhereCanWeBe]

NC... My stepchild (just turned 10 last week) has unlimited access to their phone at the residential parents house, all throughout the Easter holidays their last seen on WhatsApp is midnight/1am, latest time this week was 1.40am. My DH checks each morning as he's so concerned. He has spoken to his child only for the child to say they have been allowed a 'late night'. I don't have a child that age myself but surely this is ridiculous?

Before anyone pipes up that it's not my business/it's up to the resident parent then fair enough. I'm just trying to gauge what's normal for 10 year olds and mobile phones!

Wouldn't happen here. DS has a phone but it stays downstairs when he goes up to bed, and his lights are off by 9 pm usually. A special treat school holidays late night might be 10 pm or so, certainly never 1.40 am!!

My 9 year old doesn't yet have a mobile phone but does have 'late nights' in the holidays, which equates to 10pm. A 10 year old on their phone at 1.40am, on WhatsApp, who are they talking to at that time?? Who else is awake at that hour for them to be active on WhatsApp for? That would be my concern.

When DD does get a mobile phone, probably next year in prep for secondary, it will be downstairs at bedtime and will probably have the same locks as the laptop, meaning it can only be used during certain hours.

My 10yo has a phone but knows he's not allowed it after bedtime. Phone stays downstairs till morning otherwise I know he'd be on it all night aswell!

Your DH needs to sit down with the ex and agree some rules.
Before school steps in. Friend had similar issue, though they’re still married, where DH didn’t see issue with child gaming etc late a night. They got called into the school - their year 6 DS was falling asleep in class and couldn’t focus.
it was the wake up call the husband needed… he’s a massive online/gamer type himself so didn’t think it was a big deal h til school intervened.

My late night for a ten year old would be 9.30pm. Are the parents up till really late too and it suits them to have everyone lying in?

It’ll be like having jet lag, going back to school 🙁

Children cannot self regulate when it comes to phones. WE find it hard to even as adults!

In regards to this, I agree but the resident parent moved 30 miles away to new partners area so it was a mutual agreement to do 80/20 so husband can still work and pay CM. He phones child daily, pays extras like school trips/uniform etc and we take the child away when we go on holiday. Husband does try his best but I do agree he's stuck as can't control what goes on in a house that's not his.

My ten year old has a mobile, mostly used to control the house lights and music system, google things, and text friends. No Whatsapp or tiktok etc as we are sticking to the age limits which for Whatsapp is age 16.

Every evening around 7 pm the phone is handed in to me and I put it away until it’s requested sometime the next morning.

This child’s parents are negligent idiots.

How is the child not exhausted??? ‘Late’ for my kids at that age would have been around 9.30pm/10pm.
Friends husband who let the son game late a night claimed the child was a ‘night owl’ turns out he wasn’t at all once the phone and games were restricted… he didn’t sit up all night reading, put it that way.

Just a thought but a child’s mobile phone can have apps on it which allow the parent to track its location and control it including setting time limits when the phone goes dead, blocking soecific websites (I’ve blocked 100+) etc. Your partner may not be the resident parent but he’s still a parent, I don’t see why he can’t have an app controlling the phone, perhaps next time the child visits he could add an app to their phone that allows him to turn off the phone at 8pm?

‘No Whatsapp or tiktok etc as we are sticking to the age limits which for Whatsapp is age 16. ‘

While I totally agree on Social media I think WhatsApp is another thing - it’s how kids do grp messaging other than Snapchat.
With WA you can actually see what’s written, what grps they’re in so it’s not too bad.
we only has one issue with one and DS deleted it. Ours got it at 12. We monitor it.
Snap on the other hand - that’s a bloody nightmare, f-ing hate that app.

Extremely poor parenting to allow WhatsApp let alone access to a mobile phone unsupervised.

I don't think a phone is necessary for a ten year old.

Work in a school with this age group. Majority have phones and many have social media which causes us no end of issues when group chats get out of hand.

And yes there are the few that do stay up late on phones - reason is usually parent doesn't want to be the 'bad guy' and say no because they fear their child then preferring the other parent. Or child may have a meltdown and the parent doesn't have the ability to deal with it or are too emotionally exhausted to handle it.

See how things are in term time. Husband would be within his rights to contact the school and ask how DC is doing, whether they seem tired at school and how their concentration is. (Please, for goodness' sake don't bad mouth the mother or even mention her while doing this).

Our 10 year olds don’t have phones but 1am?, I’d be very surprised if that were common.

So your husband didn't put up a fight to prevent his ex taking his child 30miles away? He mutually agreed to it?

If he'd taken that to court it would have been blocked and 50/50 custody granted, if that's what he wanted of course.

The consequence of not doing that, is this. Bit late to be asking for advice now.