Aibu to impose these restrictions on kids phone

[FuzzyYellowChicken]

Ok I'm just interested to know.

Currently these are the restrictions on my 12 y/o phone and we are locked in a battle. Of course it's ultimately me who will win, but she is extremely persistent and I get tired of hearing the same thing again and again....

• It unlocks at 8.00am

(This is due to it impacting her ability to get ready for school on time, so it unlocks when she is ready for school)

• It locks at 9.30pm**

(For what I consider to be obvious reasons... Sleep)

**"it is taken out of the bedroom at night due to previous "guessing the parental control password" and "the adding 1 extra minute and turning off and on again hack"

• It has a screen time limit of 2.5 hours per day

(Again I would consider obvious reasons... Phone addiction hindering ability to be part of the real world... Messages and phone are not part of this so if she gets an "important" messages that warrants a reply then that is possible

• Only certain apps are allowed. I can control this. She is allowed WhatsApp and Roblox. She isn't allowed tiktok. I can access her whatsapp and Roblox accounts myself whenever I need to

According to her, I am "ridiculously" strict and no other kid her age has such strict parental controls.

I actually think I'm "ridiculously" lenient.

I do however notice that her peers DO seem to be on their phones after 9.30 and access apps I don't allow... So this makes me question myself. I am naturally not a very confident person either.

Anyway very interested to hear from other parents of kids aged 12-13 what their policies are and where I sit on the scale of strictness.

It sounds lenient to me, but not ridiculously so.

My 12 year old has a non-smart/brick phone only. He uses it to text to say he's arrived at school safely or if he's waiting to be collected and we're late.

He does have a lot of screen time at home (watches YouTube (with restricted mode but tbh he knows better than I do how to turn that off if he wants) and Nintendo games, but no social media.

His 11 year old best friend (our neighbour) also has a brick phone and no tv or computer at home, reads and paints a lot, sees friends in person instead.

I think it’s reasonable. My step son is 12 and he’s trying to be a lot older than he actually is and a lot of these kids are.

We take away his phone on school nights and give it in the morning. That thing is going off all hours. We wonder what those kids parents are thinking, but in actual fact some people just don’t parent.

On the weekends were more lenient.

@FuzzyYellowChicken 2.5 hours is a lot when kids shouldn't have any more than 2 hours a day on a screen.

My DS (14) gets 1 hour. It unlocks 7.30am (catching bus time) and the 1 hour covers his travel time.

We use family app so he has unlimited access to sensible apps e.g. homework app, duolingo, calculator, chess etc...

At the weekend he can have screen or phone time if all homework is done and he needs to have done like for like minutes doing other stuff (sport, music practice etc...).

i have no restrictions on my 13 year old phone use. He always forgets to turn it on which drives me mad when I want to call him. He talks to his friends through his computers, he also is on discords and talks about music and anime with people. Like it or not this is how teenagers communicate and build their communities. Do you lead by example? How is your screen use?

Do you have any idea what or who he is being exposed to?

Why does a 12yo need to communicate with her friends before school, over a phone?

A 12yo with phone restrictions isn’t being controlled. She’s being given limits and boundaries for her own good (nobody but she will benefit, and no harm will come from less phone usage than more).

We tell our DC that some of the brightest people in the world are paid millions to invent these addictive gadgets and apps. They’re stronger than some adults’ brains can cope with, adults whose brains developed in the pre-internet age. What hope does an undeveloped 12yo brain have against these people? It’s like tobacco usage in the 50s. In the US, there used to be vending machines in middle and high schools. Catch ‘em young, you’ve got a consumer for life. This is the same (but worse, because we know definitively).

Parents seem afraid to parent, to say no to their children. I can’t fathom thinking that limiting a young child’s phone usage might be “controlling”.

My near 12 year old has similar. You are perfectly generous. I would say 9.30pm is a bit late as she should be going to sleep about then and needs an hour screen free time before bed. My eldest did lots of lying about who is allowed what. I've recently messaged all the mums to ask and it turns out, I'm one of the most lenient and I it was all lies. Ask the other mums I would recommend and tell your daughter if she doesn't stop asking you'll delete netflix or replace her phone with a brick.

Mine is similar too. I have a 15 year old and 12 year old. Both have to leave their phones downstairs and go off them by 9ish on week nights, maybe 9.30 at weekends. The 15 yr old got Instagram at 13 and Snap at the end of Yr 9 on the condition that I follow her and she is on the family centre Snap account. 12 yo only has What's App, no Tik Tok.

They do have their phones in the morning before school for about half an hour - eldest takes hers as she has a long commute and her school often does activities on phones in lessons. Youngest is a 15 min walk away and school has a strict no phones policy so she leaves hers at home.
It's all about balance and what you feel comfortable with. I have done a straw poll with their friends parents/year group when they've been begging for something, and realised we weren't actually much stricter than most.

My teen has only just been allowed a phone past 9pm at 15. At 12 they were locked past 8pm, back on an 6 bit no phones until ready for school or at meals. Didn't limit screen time but any apps were monitored and I have their passcodes. When they are old enough to pay their own phone bills they can make their own rules

No child should be on Discord, particularly with no restrictions. The anime community there is widely known to harbour paedophiles and groomers.

@BodyKeepingScore paedophiles and groomers are everywhere. My dd is not on discord but it makes more sense to warn them of risk with regular, open discussion than ban them from everything that would be perfectly safe without paedophiles (I.e everything)

Why does a 12yo need to communicate with her friends before school, over a phone?

@Onlyonekenobe at the very least, to discuss the day. Is it definitely non-uniform? Was that homework meant to be for today? As I posted earlier, my DD gets ready on video call and she's forming deep and meaningful connections with those friends. We are all working parents and things change so sometimes they'll swap lifts and things. Phones are not the devil.

That is quite a lot of time online, does she access any activities outside of school?

Can you access your kid's WhatsApp account remotely? I want to be able to do this.

Child is 13 and has only WhatsApp Social media wise, plus YouTubers access.

Child is not always with me hence wanting to be able to tap into it.

Between us parents it's a real challenge keeping on top of the WhatsApp communication's for various reasons.

You can load whatsapp onto a laptop too.