AIBU to take my Year 7 daughter's smartphone away completely?

[ExasperatedIs]

I’m just sooo fed up of issues with my DD12 and her phone. She’s in Y7 at school and since she started her behaviour has been shocking and she’s always in trouble at school for attitude, being disruptive and late, makeup etc. Her attitude has been off the rails lately.
Anyway, onto her phone. I have had all the restrictions on it - screen time, not allowed to download apps, clean content etc, and she has managed to change this sooo many times. She has been trusted with WhatsApp before but my DB partner had seen disturbing status’s with her posing in a bra (my push up bra!), lip synching to music, crying, various attention seeking posts and she had hidden them from all our family forgetting to hide from her - so we had the discussion again about inappropriate things etc and removed what’s app, months later we let her have it again. Then similar things happened with snap chat and tik tok which she mithered to death to have so thought ok let’s see if she can be trusted and keep her word (promises about not posting pics and videos of herself etc) then again she was posting, attention seeking posts etc) so we talked about why she was too young to have them and using them inappropriately and hadn’t listened so had to wait until she older to have them.
Anyway yesterday I see she has two detentions at school already on a Monday for being late to two lessons. When she came home I said she couldn’t have her phone that evening. When I looked at her phone I could see she had been on it til midnight talking to her ‘boyfriend’ after bragging she had the screentime passcode and could alter her screentime, waiting until I go to bed, and she’s even pretending to be going to sleep when I go to her! She had actually stolen her dad’s phone and got the screentime code from a message I sent it to him. She had also downloaded Tik Tok again and posting videos and pics - posing in mirrors, lied in bed with push up bra on, etc etc. Also saw in her phone videos actually in lessons (phones aren’t allowed on school!) and she had posted pictures actually in school toilets so explains the lateness! So that’s it, I’ve had enough now. No matter what I’ve tried - restrictions, no restrictions, trusting her over and over again, explaining things, she just doesn’t listen and continues to be sneaky, lie and take no notice. Last night she refused to eat because I had taken her phone then said she will tell school I’m starving her! I just feel totally exasperated by it all. Not sure if anyone else in a similar boat and gone smart phone free? How have you managed it? Sorry for the waffle ! I just feel so upset at the level of disrespect and disregard. Nothing seems to sink in with her 😩

Her choice. She has that or nothing.

Do you know these friends.. Sounds like a proper feral school 😬

Get rid of her phone, restrict her internet access (laptop in the living room for homework and online stuff where you can see screens, fully explain that you can see and access all her files, history etc). If the general bad behaviour stuff continues, put further consequences in place!

Take her phone (and her!) to the police station and explain about the bra pictures (may end up classified as child pornography, which is illegal). See if you can get police to speak to her about this, it being illegal, grooming patterns etc. then leave the phone with them for any investigation that needs to occur (if she's shared these photos and there's potential older kids or adults receiving or coercing her into take them hopefully police will do something).
Let school know all this is going on, that they've got full permissions to confiscate any phones seen in her use, and that if confiscated they should only return them to you when you get round to going to school to collect them.

Lots of time at home doing offline stuff, ideally with your family, but could also try to rope in family friends or other friends you know aren't encouraging that behaviour. Perhaps put her in some clubs to help her make friends too. Stuff like board games, painting, cards games, crafts, baking, sports in the garden etc. stuff she probably enjoyed a year or two ago! Make a big effort to also be engaging in these with her, and not using your phone in your downtime (maybe a locked box to put them in?) don't be afraid of her getting board, but make sure she does have actual options of things to do in the house without the internet (Eg physical recipe books, art kits with instructions, teach her how to play cards from written rules etc)

I'd also suggest you maybe want a project to work on together as proper bonding time, maybe something you can dangle as a carrot for good behaviour, something like a bedroom makeover? That could also do double duty as a couple of weeks in you could have a big clearout of all her old stuff, donate some stuff, reorganise etc. (which can effectively function a bit like a search, if you are concerned about her hiding stuff).

Come on op, who's in charge here??

Fuck me, 12 years old and sexting her ‘boyfriend’.

You can make an iphone properly dumb, our son can only access his stars app (alternative to texting so we can view all and any convos on our phones), a few games and his hearing aid app. It doesn’t have safari, camera etc.

The pictures is really worrying, if any have been shared thats a criminal offense. Beyond that, its a worry she thinks its a good/possibly gave in to pressure.

I know. Is this another "we pick our battles" parent?

It's so worrying.
As pp have said, the OP needs to contact the SL at school because of the images she's sharing.
The parents seem to give in to "mithering", but this is serious.

Smartphone Free Childhood has some useful resources. One of the stories they shared was about a family who removed their daughter's smartphone.

https://www.smartphonefreechildhood.org/resource/community-stories-annie

This ⬆️.
Please take notice, OP.

With an Apple phone set up using the family link you can delete her camera to stop any photos

we did this with ds as I didn’t want to give him a basic phone with no tracking or apple pay etc as they were really useful features for paying for his school bus

if you need help with Apple parental settings feel free to pm me

Following....I could have writted this post myself. Almost word for bloody word!

I’d speak to the school for advice. You might also want to read this or even show it to your DD. Some schools have the police in to give a talk:

https://childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/sexting/#:~:text=In%20the%20UK%20the%20age,Protection%20of%20Children%20Act%201978.

“In the UK the age of consent for sexual intercourse is 16. However, it is an offence to make, distribute, possess or show any indecent images of anyone aged under 18, even if the content was created with the consent of that young person. The law is contained in Section 1 Protection of Children Act 1978. ‘Indecent’ is not defined in legislation. When cases are prosecuted, the question of whether any photograph of a child is indecent is for a jury, magistrate or district judge to decide.
Indecent imagery does not always mean nudity; however, images are likely to be defined as such if they meet one or more of the following criteria:

• nude or semi-nude sexual posing (e.g. displaying genitals and/or breasts or overtly sexual images of young people in their underwear)”

She’s proven many times that she’s not mature enough to have a smart phone and that won’t change after a month of banning an app. You’re definitely right to remove the smartphone completely, and I wouldn’t give it back until 16 given her maturity levels and how easily she’s been influenced. Maybe she can get a very simple phone for texting but ensure it can’t download any apps or take photos. There are so many creeps online looking to meet underage girls like this, as awful as that is you need to be proactive.

She's 12 and clearly not mature enough to handle having unsupervised access to social media/the Internet.

Also more worryingly she's creating indecent photos of children, albeit herself, you have no idea whether she's being exploited and where those photos are being shared.

Honestly, I don’t think any 12 year olds should have smart phones so I’d remove it anyway, but not as a punishment. Look on the Smartphone free childhood website for some advice and support about removing phones.

Full disclosure, I don’t believe in rewards and punishment at all as they lead to secretive bad behaviour and performative good behaviour, not real change. I think you might need a serious relational intervention, maybe even some family therapy to help work out how you can talk about your concerns and have her really understand where you’re coming from, and for you to understand her and what she’s dealing and why she’s behaving like this. She needs help and support, and needs to feel loved, liked and accepted for who she is so she doesn’t have to search for that in the wrong places.

We have strict rules in this house compared with dc friends but they work for us and dc still abide by them at almost 15.

1. phones get put on the charging docking station before bed and stay there until breakfast time.
2. Phones are only allowed downstairs (special permission to take to your bedroom with clear reason eg. Please can I take my phone upstairs to listen to music? Please can I call my best friend from my room? - I always say yes because they’ve built my trust at this point)
3. if behaviour deteriorates then the phone is removed (a happen to dd1 as she had a full personality transplant in year 7 - after 4 days no phone she acknowledged the link in her behaviour and phone use and we asked how she wanted us to help her with that… she asked us to reduce her time with her phone - that was quite short term)
4. WhatsApp allowed in year 7, Snapchat allowed in year 8 with close monitoring, Facebook came in year 10 as dd needed it for dance lesson updates. Dd1 is now 18 and got TikTok age 17. Dtds are not allowed TikTok which upsets them but they got over it.

be clear that it’s your role as a parent to keep her safe and guide her and she’s demonstrated she’s not ready to be responsible so stronger rules need to be in place to safeguard and support her. Stay firm.

The consequence of her behaviour is that she does not have a phone of any type. There is no need for her to have a phone at the age of twelve. In an emergency, you can phone the school.
Your biggest concern should be who on earth a 12 year old is sending sexual photos to - is she being groomed?

Yes take it away.

I wish I’d waited until dd was 14/15yo before getting her a phone. I took her phone off her for around a month when she was 13yo for similiar reasons op and she was like a completely different child (happy!)

so you want to reward her bad behaviour by buying her an apple watch.

time to parent, take the phone and she has the basic one or nothing.

she need to be older and more mature before you can trust her with another phone and even then good behaviour needs to be in place.

don’t give in when she won’t eat, she will soon give it up when you don’t back down

JFC just remove the smart phone!

She's a child, and there are a whole host of safeguarding red flags about what she's doing.

Thanks for all the replies didn’t expect so many!! Yes the phone is gone now. She was sulking all last night.
its easy people saying she’s too young and shouldn’t have one but literally ALL the kids have them. And they all have tik tok and snapchat and it looks to me when I look at other girls profiles none of the parents seem to check their phones or seem bothered. Now she’s the ‘weird one’ for not and was the weird one for not having snap chat.
She used to go to lots of activities but these have slowly dwindled. She plays for a football team too and now saying she doesn’t want to carry on. She just seems to want to either lie in bed watching tv or on her phone (when she had it) or go out with friends.
I started working Full Time remotely last October, I’ve always been a SAHM and worked part time self employed so admittedly I’ve not had as much time to do things but we’ve gone for a few weekends away together alone and it’s been lovely and always suggesting things. We go away next week to Croatia. We have a meeting with Cahms next week too. It just all feels so much to deal with and like she’s gone from a young child to a teen over night !!

They were posted on a tik tok account she had downloaded without my knowledge as I had restrictions on her phone that she couldn’t download apps, which she had manage to change and hid the app - the pics were what sadly loads of girls are doing! Posing in mirrors, selfies, lied in bed lip synching with little clothes on with filters. It’s a shady reality and not one she will be participating in. After so many attempts at telling her the dangers of it it doesn’t sink in. And sadly ALL the girls are the same!

Ok, stop with they're "ALL" doing it and "loads of girls are sharing pictures".
It doesn't matter. Your daughter is only 12. Those pictures are a Safeguarding issue and you need to make an appointment with the SL in school.
Get her involved in hobbies, reading, household cooking, whatever. She needs to be mentally healthy.

Not all the girls are the same tbh. I'd say it's a minority, especially at my year 7's school it's the mean/popular girls who are doing all that. I'm happy for mine to look like a weirdo and not have tik took or Snapchat and have her phone taken away before 8pm and she's also not allowed it upstairs.