to take ds1’s phone off him until he takes school serious?

[OneGreatSheep]

so ds1 (just turned 16 last week) is in yr11 now and already messing about. hes been caught vaping AGAIN today outside school and his teacher rang me saying hes late to lessons and not handing homework in.

he says he “doesnt care about gcses cos hes gonna be a tiktok creator” 🙄 i told him its not a proper job but he just laughs. he spends all night on his phone and then cant get up for school in the morning.

dh says to just leave him to it and he will “learn the hard way” but i feel like if i dont step in now hes gonna ruin his chances. i said im gonna take his phone until he can prove hes serious about school but hes kicked off saying im ruining his life.

AIBU? hes my eldest and i prob sound harsh but im at my wits end with the other boys as well and i cant have him being a bad example to them.

YANBU

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. It is so difficult when they are that age. Do you plan on giving back the phone to your son during the day when he’s at school and then taking it back once he’s home? Or taking it away completely?

TikTok has a lot to answer for. Nobody really ‘makes it’ on there and most of the popular ones are popular for all the wrong reasons. Most end up quitting due to their mental health so maybe he needs a bit of a reality check.

Let him laugh but tell him he won’t be laughing when he’s living at home earning nothing while his friends are off to uni, working and buying cars.

It's hard work being a SM influencer. Most have qualifications in marketing, business, or journalism. If he wants to do that he needs to knuckle down. Maybe see if any of his fav people will reply to a message about how to make it a career and he'll see it's not just making a video.

Tbh I doubt he's serious about it and either thinks he just CBA and life will hand him everything on a plate or is being a teenager and probably feeling under pressure and rebelling against the expectations of exams/success.

When people with degrees are struggling to get jobs, it's not good to have no qualifications. Maybe he'll be happy with a min wage job. A lot of people are. But if he wants money then he'll have to work bloody hard at either a job or in education.

Fist bump, My 14yr old doesn’t need school because he going to become a rapper 🙄
He does actually go to school but I’m of the verging same opinion as your husband to panicking. He’s going to do it the long painful way, for a child who hates English he’ll probably have to do it again if he doesn’t put the work in.
However I hated school, had pretty poor GCSEs but a few years later I had finished a L3 college course and went to uni at 23yrs so I know it can take time for some people.

YANBU

i said im gonna take his phone until he can prove hes serious about school but hes kicked off saying im ruining his life.
We had this yesterday.... I haven't taken his phone, (I had a Nokia in my basket but DH thinks we need to be able to track him so didn't get it) but I've locked it down so he only has access to maps, clock, phone and his bus pass/timetable.

I've said if he brings me home a good mark in a test, we can discuss having an app back, if his next marks are bad, it goes again etc. For the first time in 4 weeks, he's brought homework home today!

Set a goal with a reward for good behaviour, for something he really wants.

Your son has to keep his side of the agreenent, and you need to keep yours.

Drives motivation and cancels out bad behaviour.

Don't make it too easy.
Don't make it too difficult.

Empowers the child to achieve so they learn the right way to behave, and when he reaches his goal, keep the promise of the reward.

thanks for the replies. i did only just get him the phone for his birthday last week so i feel bad taking it off him straight away but honestly hes glued to it. he was meant to have a new pair of trainers but we argued cos he wanted stupidly expensive ones so i said no and got him the phone instead, wish i hadnt now.

he reckons he can make money off tiktok and that “loads of kids his age do it” but i dont see how. i keep saying just focus on school and then do videos in his spare time but hes saying im “killing his dreams.”

i prob should set some rules about when he can use it but with ds4 not settled at school yet and ds5 up all night i just dont have the energy to argue with him constantly. dh just shrugs and says leave him to it but then its me getting the calls from school.

He should definitely not have it after 9 in the evening as he needs his sleep, so start with that

Don't be silly, leave his phone alone. You're only going to make a bad situation worse by doing such childish things. Be a parent and talk to him and support him in what he wants to do no matter how little you understand it.

Lol at rose alone

Cut off WiFi access rather than confiscation of phone .

You have done the right thing. 'phones are the ruination of our children. (OTT I know, but children's lives were simpler without them).

If he isn't on tiktok yet he's late to the party. See kids of tiktok, toddlers of toktok etc. What's his talent?

I d use some chat gpt statistics to kill of the TikTok dream, how many people make money? How long is a career span? What content sells? What are the dangers? What mental health problems are caused from TikTok use? And if none of those put him off, where does the data go? Who has access to TikTok data? Why are government officials not allowed to use TikTok. I find this bit particularly disturbing. You could also ask in real time what happens to NEETs? Statistically what career prospects comes from grade 3s? What do I have to do to achieve in my GCSEs? How many weeks are left to the first exam (30). What can I do without 8 good GCSEs? What jobs are available without qualifications etc etc

You need to set some controls on it and a time limit. No phones after 9. He has to hand it in.

YANBU. Take the phone until he earns the privilege to have it.

When my daughter (11) kept going on about TikTok and content creation as a job she desperately wanted to do I asked her to prove she wanted it to be ‘work’ and was therefore a job which would require her ongoing attention and effort. I told her that before I’d allow her to have any social media I’d need to see ideas for videos that would attract an audience; that it would require a basic marketing plan to show who she would be targeting and how she would stand out from other creators; I asked for a schedule for releasing content initially to build her audience and an ongoing schedule to include time to develop ideas/create and edit videos/publish content. It all seemed like a lot of hard work, and not just fun, and it quite quickly stopped being of interest to her for those reasons. Perhaps a similar approach would be useful for your son? Supporting the idea but being really realistic about what’s involved so he can see that he has to work hard in one way or another!

Imagine being the teacher having to deal with parents like the op’s dh who don’t give a shit about their child’s educational attainment.

Has he not had a phone and TikTok before that? If not that’s part of the problem. He’s almost been denied now he’s obsessed. Ask him when he leaves school and needs to pay rent how he proposes to do that with TikTok? What’s his talent? What’s his content? It takes years to be a successful social media influencer. How does he propose to pay for his car? Holiday with his mates? New trainers? It would infuriate me too.

My 13 yo DS has an iPhone which is a child account linked to my phone. I control all screen time from my phone. Can you do that?

Hell yes you should take his phone and no you aren’t being too harsh.

Parenting isn’t being their friend, it’s ensuring they are doing the right things to prepare them later in life (getting a job).

Stop feeling bad and start feeling good that you are taking this seriously. Do you honestly think he’s going to wake up one day and just get it?

Hes on his phone all night? That needs to stop immediately. Stay strong.

i might try the no phone after 9 thing cos he does stay up stupid late on it and then hes dead in the mornings.

the thing is i dont want to totally crush him cos hes actually really good with ds5 sometimes, like he will get up with him in the mornings if ive been up half the night, so then i feel guilty taking the only thing he cares about off him. but then he just sits scrolling on tiktok and not doing his homework so its like hes helping me in one way but letting himself down in another.

he keeps saying he wants to do funny videos but i dont think hes even posted anything yet, he just watches other people. i prob need to sit him down but every time i try he either storms off or dh says “hes 16 just leave him.”

Just put all electronics especially phones on charge downstairs overnight or in your room
You can't take his phone but you can make sure he's not up all night on it

At 16 should be able to self regulate. A bit old to be taking phone away especially as it was supposed to be a gift