To “take away” a Christmas present that XDH has bought for the children?

[AmIALoser]

I’m pretty sure that XDH has bought our shared children (7, 6 & 5) a mobile phone each for Christmas. In my opinion this is way too young and should be discussed between us first at some point in the future, probably when starting secondary school.

WIBU to remove the phone from the children and hide somewhere? Contact with XDH is supervised due to abuse and he has no overnights.

This! Put it in writing to him by text

I would text him and explain if he has got them phones, you won’t be allowing them to use them because they are far too young so you strongly suggest he returns them. If they only have supervised contact anyway, he can’t give them access to the phones. Ridiculous gift for children so young.

My daughter was 9 when her dad bought her a phone, still much too young in my eyes.

Ive said firmly “not in my house” so she only uses it at his. Internet is turned off on it, so the risk is reasonably low.

In your position I would block internet on them and keep them safe on a high shelf, and use them once a week to call daddy on. Id also check that they don’t have trackers of any kind on - phone trackers are an easy way to get round supervised contact because they allow you to “accidentally” bump into the child.

I disagree.... Abusive men will give too-young kids mobile phones in order to circumvent their mum.

I've seen too young kids really traumatised by having contact with their fathers unsupervised with (secret?) phones.

It will contradict the supervised contact only...

I'd tell him if he won't tell you - you'll have to open them in advance... If they aren't mobiles... Just rewrap obvs...

Does he realise that what you say is important?? And practically he has 'less power' as he's having to have supervised contact due to his behaviour...??

Sounds as if you're correct re the phones...
Like hell would i let the kids open phones and then be the bad guy and disappoint them... .

Kids loose things don't they ...mine do ...
Let them open the phones and,help the children loose them at a later date

Actually I now see he's coming around WITH the presents....

OK so I'd speak to social services for advice...

Tbh I'd be very tempted to tell him that you will NOT let the kids have them, and if the kids open presents and discover mobile phones , you'll take them away immediately and they won't have presents from him?

So he better go and buy them gifts appropriate for their ages.. (rather than throwing money at gadgets to circumvent you... 😏)

Not really the point of your post... but isn't that awful having to supervise the visits yourself? That sounds like a special kind of torture to me.

Not related to me, but my exH has supervised visitation of his younger kids (not mine). He has a list of approved people who are allowed to supervise (his family members) and he's not allowed to phone the kids.

I'm not really involved, but I thought phone calls came under the same category as supervised contact?

I've always found knowing the legal position, even if you don't do anything with it, to be really helpful and strengthening when needing to put a boundary in place. Lots of solicitors give a half hour free.

I haven't used my divorce solicitor to represent me in a decade, but if I have a question, they still have my file and are happy to answer the odd question on an ad hoc basis if I just pay them for the time to discuss. I've found knowing where to go for advice to be so helpful over the years. Makes you feel like you have back-up.

Maybe you could just make contact with a solicitor, have your first free half hour and ask them this question as part of it? As kids get older it gets more complicated and more stuff comes up. It might be good to have a good solicitor to reference who has the background on file? A solicitor's letter is often a good way to terminate a dispute.

It is a parenting decision, but parenting with SS involvement and supervised contact is a different kettle of fish. You have to be careful, I once had it suggested by SS I would be seen as not protecting my child adequately by removing contact fully enough if I didn't take certain actions. My child is of an age where court orders etc wouldn't apply anymore, but I'm still careful to take the correct decisions as an outsider would see them.

Anything which can be enable contact you're not aware of should be really carefully considered.

Also, yes awful to give kids that young phones.

My friend's ex did this (very abusive situation). She couldn't stop him doing it (unsupervised contact) but at her house it lives in a metal biscuit tin, and not ever charged.

He stepped it up by locking the phone down so that only he could see what their child was doing on it, and he had enabled tracking etc. So this physical isolation of it was the only way to fix that.

There’s another thread on MN regarding XDH buying his 6 year old a phone for FaceTime, it’s caused no end of problems to both the child and the mother. Start as you mean to go on and tell ex that if he’s got them phones, they will stay at his house.

Without your constant supervision those will be lost by the end of a week so Id just lose them after the first few days

As you are doing supervised visits yourself and no court order is in place it sounds like nothing was seen as serious on his side or you didn't take it further at the time.
I think blocking his gifts would be viewed unfavourably if he decided to take court action, but you can definitely set rules if it is phones.
My niece's mum bought her a phone at a ridiculously young age, but it stayed at her mum's house and was not allowed at her dad's who is the main carer.
You could have a set time they are allowed to use the phones and check what is on them. We have limits on my son's phone and my rule is it stays down stairs at nighttime and I know the passcode to check it if I wish.

My nephew had a phone age 5 when his mum left to be with OM walked out leaving my db with only 50% custody.

It was a lifeline for my DN who could talk to my db whenever he wanted on his phone (mum moved straight in with OM so once day they were living with mum and dad, next day with mum and some random new guy which was scary for my db and the kids).

A properly set up phone will :

1. have no broad access to internet
2. have none of the 13+ apps including WhatsApp (DN used FaceTime and messaging to keep in touch with db
3. will not give kids access to installing apps without permission
4. will have time restrictions on any fun apps such as YouTube kids
5. will be reviewed every couple of days by a parent to “block” undesirable YouTube crap and promote better content in the feed and so on

If your ex has done this to stay in close contact with his kids, I say Ok

It doesn’t have to be that way. If you do it right.

My kids have supervised contact with their farther and my main advice (though not what your asking) is stop supervising it yourself. He is the one who needs supervising due to his behaviour. If he wants to see his children then he is responsible for arranging to do it in a way that's safe for them (either ask his family or pay for it). I also absolutely would not have him in your house, you're giving him more opportunities to continue the abuse/controls, which isn't good for your DC to witness.

As for the phones, I did allow my 6&8yo's a shared phone to contact dad, but it is so locked down that it does nothing else. They talk through an app called 'just talk kids', me and their dad are the only people who can contact them. It just sits on a shelf when they're not talking to dad, not because i enforced it, there just nothing interesting to make them want the phone any other time. My now 9yo does talk to dad, but the 6yo is to young to focuse on making conversation and refuses to talk to him 90% of the time. As yours are even younger, I'm pretty sure the novelty for ex will were of pretty quickly when they just put the phone down and runs off to play.

You can manage this in a very low conflict way. For example by having a locked box that the phones get put inside for the 20 minutes a day (or even better at weekends) you give them access to it for example. And you say to him that’s what you’re going to do.

Definitely don’t get bullied into letting children of that age have open access to phones. My child had locks on the phones until she was 14 - they do not need access and there’s so much research coming out showing how bad it is for them.

I agree you contact him in writing saying just so you are aware my policy in my home is no phones until children are at least teenagers, and once they do get them usage will be closely monitored, I’ll have full access and the authority to remove them. I know you’ve bought them gifts but if those gifts are phones they will be removed immediately, the dc are far too young for them. X y z are inexpensive things they’d love to receive from you.

I’ve just added the last bit with the recommendation to make sure he can’t use the message against you.

Far better to simply say no phones at that age.

What makes you immediately jump to conclusion he has a phone for them? Has he ever said he will get them a phone or are you just thinking it could be one? You might be worrying about nothing if he has them other gifts.

With a reasonable person, yes. But with an abusive man who is currently not demanding additional/unsupervised contact/threatening court proceedings it's better to go low conflict than to try to set boundaries that could lead to him reacting.

But these are give an inch take an ell type men, rinse and repeat, the op needs to establish absolute rock walls of boundaries, especially with something like a phone where he could contact them. ‘They don’t get phones in my house until they are teenagers, and when they do they will be strictly controlled. If I don’t have full access, the phone will be removed.’