Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

son on phone to girlfriend 24/7

8 replies

toni06 · 02/12/2015 14:56

My 15 year old son has been with his girlfriend about 6 months. He has an active sports life and is out 3 evenings a week and a lot at weekends playing sport. However when he is in the house he is 'talking' to his g/f on social media all the time. He's not allowed his phone at the table and cant take it to bed but the rest of the time he is looking at his phone. He takes it to the toilet, cant seem to watch TV or have a conversation without it 'pinging' with some message. I feel like is g/f is actually living in the house! If I try to have a conversation with him he looks at me like I'm interrupting him. This has only happened since he met her. He wasn't bothered about social media before that. Will it pass? Should I limit the time he spends talking to her? It doesn't seem to make any difference whether he has spent time with her or not. He can have spent the whole afternoon with her and still start on his phone the minute he walks through the door.

OP posts:
foxy6 · 02/12/2015 18:02

Hi my some as like that with his girlfriend at that age. He would spend all afternnon with her after school then be up all night talking to her, except it wasn't social media he used to talk but his mobile allowance, which he soon went over and after we made him pay the £500 Bill he eased off a bit.
I don't really know how best to deal with this sorry as he's not going to rack up a huge Bill. It stoped after the broke up if that's any help.

Donge13 · 02/12/2015 18:43

Hormones are raging, first love and all that. I would leave it so long as he can't run up a huge bill.

toni06 · 02/12/2015 18:44

No he's not going to run up a bill as what he's using is free. That makes it even harder to limit as it just sounds like I'm being mean. He reckons his friends are on their phones all day and night and that he actually loses out by not being able to take it upstairs at bed time. I just feel like he's not really with us as a family any more and any conversation about it ends up in a row.

OP posts:
Donge13 · 02/12/2015 18:51

I had this with dd2, in the end I just decided it wasn't worth rowing about, kind of pick your battles iyswim! We also actively encouraged her to invite the boy at the time around a lot so we got to know him. It lasted 6 months she was heartbroken.

Ragwort · 02/12/2015 19:01

My DS is the same but without a girlfriend, he would be glued to his phone if I didn't wrench it off him. His latest comment was that he was losing friends Hmm & they all laughed at him because we remove his phone at bedtime (9.30pm on school nights - he is 14).

toni06 · 02/12/2015 19:02

Well I feel better that my son isn't the only one. Hopefully the relationship will either develop to the extent that they aren't so dependent on constant communication or it will end. I can't imagine what there can be to say to someone who you've just spend all day with!

OP posts:
toni06 · 02/12/2015 19:07

Yes I have the same issue about going upto bed at 9.30 and leaving his phone downstairs. Apparently he's the only one. But if I let him stay up to watch something he doesn't actually watch it. He watches it whilst looking at his phone. I know others are on their phones all night as I hear both his and his sisters pinging all night.

OP posts:
Ragwort · 03/12/2015 18:20

toni At least your DS and mine can convince themselves they are the only teenagers in the world who have their phones confiscated at 9.3pm Grin.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread