Do you check your child’s phone?

[Ekerty72]

Hi lovely people in my tablet!

Having a bit of an issue with my DD, 12 years old. We gave her a phone about a year ago, no real issues. I have checked it on and off just really on the advice of most people who have preteens.

However I checked the other day and called her out on a message that she wrote during the school day (strictly no phones allowed). Anyway, she hit the roof, was incredibly embarrassed and furious with me for reading her messaged. Which led me to think that actually I get, I would of been so humiliated to have my mum read my private messages as well.

We’ve noticed now that she has WhatsApp as a hidden app, so we can’t access it, also i saw this morning that she went to the toilet with her phone on the table, then immediately came back for it and took it with her. So clearly she doesn’t trust us anymore which is quite sad.

She is a good girl no issues apart from form general grumpiness!

So the question is, when did you stop checking your children’s iPhone, and was I unreasonable to check her phone?

Thank you so much for reading :)

Anyone else on this thread got a hairy handed type PMing them about it 🤢

Yes I check phones. They can't download any apps or content, so only have apps I approve of (no TikTok no insta no WhatsApp etc) They can save their pocket money and buy their own phones and pay their own contract if they want complete freedom. However both Dc like the fact I'm in charge, it means no peer pressure as they can say "yeh my mums a baggage (or some modern day term of endearment) and won't let me have X Y or Z"

They can save their pocket money and buy their own phones and pay their own contract if they want complete freedom.

And then they go and do exactly that.

I am looking for some advice please.

I have an 11 year old son, he has a phone. Part of the agreement of having the phone, is that I have access to it, I know all passwords and regularly have access to his phone.

last night I came across some message on Snapchat between my son and his female friend of the same age. In the saved messages from what I can see, it looks as though they’ve sent some potentially inappropriate pictures to each other. Snapchat pictures were not saved but I reached my conclusion from the saved messages which I won’t go into detail about.

I am shocked and have not spoken to my son about this yet as I do not know how to approach it or what to say. So any advice would be so greatly appreciated.

From a worried Mum

I am shocked and have not spoken to my son about this yet as I do not know how to approach it or what to say. So any advice would be so greatly appreciated.

Don't tiptoe around it. Tell him what they're doing is very dangerous and potentially criminal. And if he can't use the smartphone sensibly - you'll take it to a pawnshop.

Take his phone away for a couple of weeks.

Spend time going through and reading everything.

Remove apps that are unsuitable. Then go through and lock it all down with parental controls.

He is too young to be thinking about this stuff.

He gets it back once you've made it safe. Check it regularly.

I checked everything when she got it at 9 as there were endless group chats and all kinds of nonsense on there I needed to help her navigate. Now that she's 12 she knows I need full access to her phone - no hidden apps - and I can have a look whenever I want. I don't read her messages but I have a scan through and see if there are any new people or anything that looks odd. Otherwise I just say all the time how I will help her if she needs help and there's nothing too embarrassing to tell me about etc etc.

(One of our good friends's godson was caught in an online sexploitation nightmare and sadly chose to end his life at 16 and that's made me more vigilant than I might have been otherwise)