OMG I swear I could kill whoever invented the mobile phone. Are all 11 year olds phone mad or just my kid? Talk about a dog with a bone!
I can understand her excitement at getting a shiny new phone and adding a friend or two to her contacts list. I can also understand her hoping the phone will ring or a text message will beep just at the right moment so as to announce " look everybody I'm so grown up because I've got my own phone!"
So my DD discovered a "fake call" app. It basically makes your phone ring, showing a recently used contact as supposedly the person who is calling you. She installed it about 6 months ago and her phone simply would not stop ringing. Like a total mug I called Three who said that it sounded like she had downloaded some malware with a game and they very kindly changed her number for her.
Fast forward a couple of months later - after the long chat we had about checking with me before she downloads any games. Same problem. Rang Three again. They sent a new sim card out.
Chat # 2 with DD about downloading games and malware etc.
Fast forward another few weeks. Same problem. Three changed her number AGAIN!.
I checked her call logs and it appeared that her friend was calling her at 3am, 6am etc. I had a quiet chat with her mother about it. Her mother apologises. Next day mother rings me to advise that her child had not made any such calls to my daughter. My turn to apologise profusely and explain about phone problems. (Talk about feeling like a total TW*T).
Then I caught her red handed. She had been downloading a "fake call" app - repeatedly. She had been doing this all along for 6 months, lying to me that she had no idea why her phone was ringing so much.
I placed a restriction on downloads on her phone.
Yesterday DD tried to download "free fake call app" from google chrome.
I am 2 seconds away from taking a hammer to that sodding phone!
AAAARRRRRGHHHHHHHH
I am trying to teach her independence. Next year she will need to walk to the bus stop by herself and get herself to and from middle school and she needs her phone for safety/contacting me. I would love nothing more than to remove the phone once and for all but this is really not an option for me. I work full time and she is growing up and quite frankly I could not bear the stress of not being able to check where she is/make contact with her all day.
I Installed Family Time this morning. That should help.
Is it just me? Am I going mad? Is my daughter "odd"? HELP ME!
(Rant over, now breathing, drinking tea and eating an entire packet of Cadbury's Fingers and feeling much better for it - oh the healing powers of chocolate)
Any pearls of wisdom very welcome. Thanks.