Is it wrong to confiscate kids phones?

[Atealltheeggsalready]

Feeling frustrated now with children’s addiction to phones & computers (not their fault)
Dd is only 7, obviously has no phone etc, but two of her friends on the road have their parents old mobiles. They have games on and YouTube, no other social media
We have a large garden with trampoline, footballs, slides, lots of toys, Lego and games inside, drawing things, paints and so on.
Each time these two friends come (usually separately) they have started bringing their phones (one friend is still 6, the other is 8)
Before this, they’d play on the trampoline, football, chat in the garden, play imaginary games with toys, lego, chase…when they bring the phones, they sit the whole time on the trampoline or bench outside just glued to it and i’m sick of it.
We let Dd go on the home computer to play Minecraft building games sometimes when on her own and tv anytime when friends not here is fine. She has a very outdoors life, but I find it so sad to watch the natural playing being replaced, especially so young.
The last couple of times they’ve come I’ve said i’m sorry but they’ll have to put the phones in the drawer until home time, Dd practically begs for it, I really feel they’re addictive.
I’m not keen on Dd going to one of their houses as they’re just left to watch YouTube (adult, not even kids) Dd has now started saying it’s boring at our house and Ive noticed this friend often struggles to know how to play

Would me doing this offend you as a parent?
I just wish no one had phones/this much technology for kids. Tired of feeling like the uptight, bad guy

A good compromise would be leaving the phone accessible for calling or texting parents but no games.

Surely no parent would say they "have their own reasons" to insist their child can play mobile phone games at a playdate.

Yes it’s not actual Minecraft, but a building type game, pretty harmless

Exactly
It’s always here if they need to use for a call, but I don’t even think it can be?

I'd be happy for ger not to come, though I'd be sad they couldn't play because of a mobile phone. I struggle to see any good reason for an 8 year old to take a mobile to a friend's house.

Well, first their parents hand over the phones....to have some child free time and to not be bothered? To spend time on their phones themselves?
Then they "confiscate" them.
No wonder the kids are effed up.

but the adult wanting to "confiscate" is not the adult who handed them over. She is a different adults with different rules in her house. Kids are very capable of understanding different rules in different environments.

It’s not “confiscating” a phone to say house rules are either that needs to stay on the side while the children are playing or that it doesn’t come to your house.

If a kid turned up with a box of matches or a packet of cigarettes or a kitchen knife would you say “you can’t confiscate a child’s belongings”? And then just let your own child play with those things?

I don’t think “confiscate” is a helpful term, especially in the long view.

However, I think it’s a really good practice to have a big charging station and encourage everyone to use it. If the adults in the family use it too, it’s easier to keep it going through the teen years. Having it in the hallway/entry so it’s as natural as taking off your shoes and coat makes it feel like just one of those things that we do in our home. We don’t bring electronics upstairs in our house.

If you’re too draconian about stuff like screens, you’ll find that in time the friends don’t congregate in your house, which may suit you, or not. Which isn’t to say you need to drop all standards - you don’t. In fact, DD’s friends appreciate my house over another friends precisely because it curtails the peer pressure to drink or vape.

With smaller kids, you can just encourage them to leave their phones in the house “so they don’t get lost in the garden” without making it a bigger thing. Especially if you put the sprinklers on!

There is a natural shift from play to “hanging out” that occurs, particularly for girls between the ages of 8-11 or so, and you’re probably seeing that effect as well. Boys play much longer. Your expectations of how they will play and interact might not be allowing for that. In the 1980s we would have transitioned from playing to spending hours chatting on the phone (after 6pm), poring over magazines, experimenting with make up (secretly) and watching soaps. Watching you tube videos isn’t massively different. Of course it’s harder to do it safely - so giving them access to a shared screen with the volume up is a work around.

I’d love to be raising dc in a time where having firm rules, and saying no was enough. But now it’s much more important that they can trust you and talk to you about the stuff that will almost certainly encounter somewhere. (I’d happily confiscate the whole entire internet and lock it in a drawer if I could)

I think people are far too uptight about this. Just say
"Alex, leave your phone in the kitchen while you play outside, otherwise it may get broken if you drop it on the trampoline"
Or even just get the lego out and ask them what they are going to build.

I have had my son's 13 year old friend here today and both are heavy phone users, but neither had their phones at the table for the 5 hours we were playing board games. We hadn't told them not to bring their phones to the table, they just left them in the other room along with my son's computer and his friend's laptop. I don't think you should confiscate them, as in make the children feel you are guarding their access to their phones, but it's perfectly reasonable to say they don't need to them in their hands while doing another activity!

I don't think you have a right to confiscate from another child to be honest and given that they only live next door it would be much easier just so tell them to take the phone home and then come back. That way at least they'll know not to bring it anymore and you won't have to put up with them constantly asking for it.

Tbh it would be fine with me that your child stay home if it can't leave the phone on our kitchen counter to play in the garden and you don't want to explain the need. They are 6-8 yo old.

Your house your rules.

I would let the parents know first though in case they worry if they try to get in touch with their children on their phone and are unable to because it's been put away. It would also be available for children to contact their parents if they wanted at any time.

There's no point in anyone coming over to just sit in front of a screen the whole time. Unless they are actually playing something together.

I’m hoping after today he won’t bring again, he’s a great boy and hadn’t brought it before and was very accepting and I was gentle about it, but he knows now we don’t use them so there would be no point bringing it again. I’m aware they probably play at his house, but what can I do 🤷🏻‍♀️thankfully he mainly comes to our house. The other friend is a harder situation as she doesn’t come to ours as much and when she does, she wants to go to her house where they watch YouTube, it’s so hard

You’re not the uptight bad guy!
you’re the good guy actually protecting your child from smart phones and YouTube and all that that brings. You’re protecting their childhood.

I would ask them not to be used but no I would not confiscate their property it is not school

No the op is not

Exactly.

I also believe she is.

That is up to you i just think 'protecting their childhood' is being melodramatic

You can't worry about other people's parenting, and there's no point worrying too much as they will all be addicted to phones as teens or adults. But you can definitely say leave the phone on the counter while you are here.

I've had a similar experience, my friend asked me to come to a gathering, and to bring my kids (aged 6 and 7) because there would be six other similar aged kids there to play with. But the whole time every other kid was on a phone! Even the youngest, a 3 year old was on a phone. My kids were bored and annoyed and I don't blame them.

They've been shown to extremely damaging to children's social and mental development and they expose them to a level of risk that can easily be avoided. Nothing melodramatic if you understand the full impact on a young child.

I wouldn’t tell other parents unless they bring it up. As others have said just say phones to be left in the kitchen. If other parents bring it up then you can either tell them why you don’t like them but I’d go with you don’t want it getting broken (on the basis that anyone giving a young child a phone is unlikely to have the best judgement and never argue with a drunk or a fool!)

With you all the way op. Pointless having friends over to play if they're going to sit like zombies on their phones. They could be doing that at home on their own

Then honestly you might just have to scale back the friendship. There are plenty more kids to play with. If she's got unsupervised access to YouTube then my child wouldn't be allowed to play with her at all anymore, that's not being dramatic it's 100% true. Far too dangerous.