Rule Breaking

[dugensmum]

14 yo son is constantly breaking our rules on tech. He is sneaking his phone/iPad to bed with him. He keeps getting caught, punished, banned and then starting over again. This happens at both my house and his fathers. This latest episode happened at his fathers and I have now said that he loses his phone for an indefinite amount of time. I've tried getting angry, talking calmly and rationally and everything in between but he keeps trying to get one over on us. In every other aspect he is a well behaved respectful young man which I am greatful for. Any ideas?

Is he up all night on his phone/ipad? Does he not get up in the mornings?

If you truly want him to not have them you need to take them off him and put them somewhere he can't find them.

I regularly do spot checks on his phone just to make sure he's not involved in anything dodgy which is how I found out the first time he'd been up all night at his dad's. Him and a mate pulled an allnighter!
He gets up for school fine. We have a cut off time for tech of 7pm weeknights and later on weekends and he brings it all to us and we put it away. This latest episode at his dad's after everyone went to bed he sneaked to the tech box and got his phone. He got caught by his dad's gf and lied to her face when asked if he had anything he shouldn't

You need to start putting things in your bedroom.

7pm no tech rule seems really early to me, I'm not surprised he's rebelling about that. Maybe do a deal and make it slightly later?

Put his phone/tablet in your room, no brained!

Brainer!!

Maybe allow phone for a bit later on the agreement that you take phone/ tablet to your room until he shows that he can be treated like a more mature person.