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 😩

I think there is some confusion re the sexualised images. She was posing in the mirror on the annoying way girls do these days pouting and curbing their body- in one image she had rolled her pyjama top up to show a fake belly button piercing - and another lip synching on the bed with a bra visible at the top. She wasn’t posing in underwear like on Only Fans- they were stupidly naive posts. I looked on her tik tok account and many girls her age are doing the same- taking selfies of themselves at home with midriffs out, pouting etc. Yes they were sexualised to an extent but more so in a way of which girls this age think is normal to pose on social media.
If I didn’t check her phone like I do, monitor it or be on the ball with her sneakiness and pass code changes I wouldn’t have known. And I know a lot of parents don’t even do this.

It doesn't matter what other girls do.
She's only 12.
You have no idea who she has shared these images with and why.
Please don't minimise it.

That sounds holistic and comprehensive such an amazing safety net you students are lucky. My dc would not dream of that sort of support. Do you work for a private school or state? I don't know of many schools are that supportive. If any online materials supporting self esteem, books or resources could be shared that would be great. My dc is not in that situation but you never know while they're going through hormonal upheaval and brain development. There is a lot of difficult mental health related behaviour around us though. It seems endemic even with girls who have supportive parents. Has it always been this way?

Yes too many young girls post this content. It is very normalised on TikTok.

Non selective state school, very diverse. It's the same throughout our trust.
I think it's one reason we got a top Ofsted rating, tbh.

It's alarming that it's "normalised".

It is relevant. The point is a child can be managed to use electronically devices without situations getting out of control.

I really think you need to do some research into internet safety when you are making posts like this about it being normal and unproblematic.

No, I've been teaching for 39 years, always non selective state schools, it's never been this bad. I feel very concerned for a lot of teenagers, particularly girls. The access to online harm, of various kinds, has been catastrophic.
It's going to take a huge amount of effort and determination to progress with this.

12 years old?! My 11 year old is a baby compared to this (in a good way). Wouldn’t occur to her to take or send these types of images (she doesnt have WhatsApp, TikTok, Snapchat etc and knows the second that rule is broken is the second she will lose her phone altogether) and I simply wouldn’t allow her to wear make up to school.

What’s happened to some of these children? Where are they learning this shit?

No one here is confused but you are desensitised to preteens sexualising themselves. OP it is horrifying that you are normalising this. Your daughter is 12 and you need to wake up and protect her.

I’m an NOT normalising this - hence why I’ve taken the phone away and spent time talking to her about it. I am not desensitised / it is a real problem amongst girls not just my daughter! I am trying to protect her hence why I am doing this.

Ok. It's really positive that you've taken her phone away, and that you've seen improvement.
We're talking about the images, though, and it does appear that you are minimising it. Perhaps you're defensive? Don't be, it's happened and it needs to be dealt with.

In our case parents were called in to see the head, the kids were spoken to by the head, a range of sanctions were implemented depending on severity of offensive language (one child was excluded for three days, the rest were given formal warnings and they all had to write apologies to each other and were booted off the end of year trip). The school liaison police officer came in and spoke to us. The message was loud and clear - monitor their phone use. No 14 year old deserves privacy on a phone. Parents should be able to see what they’re texting/messaging. The police officer was adamant on that point.

I presume if it’s sending explicit images the action from school will be more serious as it involves safeguarding.

Our case did not involve images, it was basically two groups of lads, each group abusing the other group on Discord. We were all shown our own DC’s ‘contributions’ and some of the context, but not the whole thing. I later learned that one boy used racist language and got the three day exclusion.

All of this was out of school activity - but the school dealt with it. I learned a lot - I didn’t actually know what Discord was beforehand. DH and I had to implement stronger parental checking - he works in IT and as I deal with most school-related things he took it on. We learned very quickly that an academically able 14 year old - more able than his older DB - can be remarkably stupid when an argument is going on via Discord.

He learned from it, did well in his GCSEs, seems to be well regarded in 6th form. The Head told me he’d be fine, but at the time I was horrified. About the best we could take from it was that at least he was 14 in Y9, not 18 at uni.

@Maray1967, I'm glad it was effectively followed up. I've come across similar. We involve the police liaison officer, and of course, any images of a sexualised nature are dealt with very seriously indeed.
I'm glad it was resolved.