Teenagers and phones

[LivelyCrab]

This is inspired by another thread where a 14 year old is always on his phone when he’s at home.

I’m not quite at this stage yet, but it got me thinking. I was definitely no angel at 14 and probably spent loads of time in my room, but I was reading or drawing or even just hitting a tennis ball against a wall and being in the garden. I know that if I’d had a phone I would have been on it all the time.

I realise that most kids probably have phones by 14 now. But is there not something truly depressing that when they’re at home that’s all they do? Even computer games are better because at least there can be some outside engagement, with family joining in etc. I don’t want this to sound judgy at all, because I know I will be in that situation, but do people still have rules for 14 year olds and phone use?

I have the same worries. It’s hard because they use the phones to arrange things with mates etc so you don’t want to take that capacity away from them (not for long chunks of the day anyway), but at the same time you don’t want them languishing on screens.

its always in the media at the moment that some areas and school and collectives of parents are jointly putting off smartphone acquisition for their kids (jointly = in solidarity = no peer pressure). This solidarity is crucial otherwise overly managing access to them is making your kid the social pariah/odd one out.

Oh and to answer your question I still have limits for my teens eg phone away at 8.30pm and also chunks of time in the day where I remove them. But even doing that causes tensions and makes you feel bad because then it’s like you don’t trust them 🤷‍♀️

• Time restrictions - mine gets 1 hour per day controlled via software on his device
• Block certain things on your router eg I've blocked TikTok and YouTube