13 year old and his phone limits?

[louisefit]

Hello I am new to mums net hope I am posting in the correct place apologies if I'm not.

My eldest boy has just turned 13 and he had a phone for his birthday. He is never off it and this as become his life along with the ps4. When I try to tell him he has had enough time on it he just refuses to give me the phone as he's skyping his girlfriend.

This is becoming a problem as he's becoming unsociable with the family and developing an attitude or maybe this is hormones? Does anybody else have this problem? How do you deal with this ?

I find if I enforce rules like removing gadgets his life is really bad this worries me or am I being to soft.

Please help this is the first teenager I am bringing up and it's not easy is it.

My ds is 13 (will be 14 in July) and the only restriction we have is no phone after bedtime which is 9 pm. We are currently introducing supervised homework time also as he was doing his homework while on skype with his friends so the deal now is 45 minutes a day Monday to Thursday he comes downstairs to do his homework and no technology allowed unless is for his homework, research on the laptop for example.

The rest of the time he is free to do as he pleases and while I agree there may be too much screen time I think this is today version of socialising and I cannot be against it.

I only insist on above rules and dinner with the family (again without phone).

I would put some restrictions in place, then you have a grounding ready for when his GCSE work kicks in.

He could maybe have unlimited access until 8.30 but the wifi goes off then, for example, or he gives the phone to you when he gets in, gets his homework done, and then gets it back for 60 minutes.

If he doesn't abide by the rules, you cancel his phone contract. The phone is one of his priorities, not all of them.

My 13 year old ds is like this. We also take it off him at bedtime (he's wangled a 10 o'clock bedtime!) and he's not allowed it in the morning otherwise he would never get out the door and miss his bus!

We are, however, thinking of taking it off him for a short period of time every school night so he can get some homework done. However, he has a tendency to save his homework up for the weekend so he claims he never has any, so he gets his phone all evening!

It is an obsession, it really is, but I am coming to terms with the fact that this is the way they socialise these days (we are really rural as well and live nowhere near any of his friends).

Becoming unsociable with the family is normal at this age anyway. He is trying to break away from you. And an attitude is also normal - think Kevin. But I won't tolerate rudeness - and he knows this.

pasanda DS used to say the same think, no homework until one day he was doing some online maths homework in the car on the way to school at 7,45 in the morning!!

That is when I put an end to it and decided we'll introduce the 45 min supervised homework. He tried his luck one day last week saying he did all his homework and has nothing left to do during the 45 min so I have pulled a book out and asked him to read instead.

By the way- try and read the book called Get out of my life but first take Alex and me into town (or something like that).

It helped me understand that it is normal for my DS to become independent, to try and separate from us and I shouldn't expect him to spend time with me more than what he is willing to give. In fact since I accepted this and stopped trying to force him into enjoying time with the family we get along much better and he started to spend the odd extra time with us after dinner just chatting away.

We insist phones are left downstairs charging on school nights when they go to bed.
And we're about to make our Yr10 son leave his phone, DS and I player down stairs when he's doing homework. Our yr 12 son soon got the hang of leaving his phone on the landing when he was revising for GCSEs
You'll ding you have an unpleasant battle to start off with, but stick to your guns as they soon get into the routine.
No phones at the dinner table had to be introduced because my other half was looking at footy matches?!! So at least they know it's adults too who get obsessed.
Good luck!

Thank you all for the advice on this this is my eldest child I have this to come 4 times over and thought I need to do something now as my 11 year old is following her older brother!

I will take all advice given and start today!

Thanks again.