My 11 yr old son started secondary two weeks ago. All summer he nagged and pleaded for a mobile... I held firm to the line and said no. Once he had begun... He is having a shakey start and on a couple of occasions it would have been very advantageous to have been able to contact him and him me. I relented and got him a phone... Since then he has been obsessed with it. After a couple of days I had to take the phone off him as he was leaving in the morning at 100% charge and coming home having caned the entire battery - which clearly to me indicated a lot of gaming was happening, and subsequently not much else. Following various conversations about the reasons for the phone having been got, tears from him about having it back, tears about not managing to make friends, the phone being sneaked back by him and lies being told to both me and the husband by him about this, all games being uninstalled and parental controls put in place on the device and then him merely begging to reinstall them, I have to say I am completely confused about what to do.
Before this we have always been quite fierce about 'screen time' at home, never taking electronics out and about for precisely this reason - that he and his two younger brothers have always showed the tendency to be obsessive about any machine, time played etc... He just doesn't seem able to moderate himself. After any prolonged playing the behaviour in the house is always horrendous, with them literally climbing the walls, fighting amongst themselves for little to no reason, sleep being effected and on the whole having a very negative effect.
The whole matter has become a point of torture for him and for me. I am worried about this and fear I have lost perspective on general screen use, and now moving to an extreme point of view about the possible solutions to suit us all. I want him to be able to have the phone, I want to be able to contact him, I want him to be able to contact me or the husband, I want to be able to trust him with this and him not take advantage. I realise that away from me I will never know quite how much gaming is going on. He is my eldest and so have not faced this before. Has anyone got some advice?