Mobile phone and other devices

[Rosebud2005]

This has been discussed many times before but ds now 14 gave me his pins up til now as I said I would check now and then to make sure things are safe. His attitude has always been it’s fine, you can’t look at my messages, there’s nothing on there. .. over time I noticed a few things and discussed them with him. Not overly concerning I would say but he can be so naive at times I wanted to mention it anyway. ... I haven’t really looked for a while during the lockdown as I basically always forgot about it but now I notice the pins are all changed. So I bother or not? Do I just leave it and trust things are ok? I don’t want any resentment but I won’t want him to fall foul to anything either. Yes he’s 14 but given that he refuses to even talk to me these days never mind show me the devices I can’t help but feel concerned at times

Probably something is changed, maybe now there's something on there, and, since it has been only his decision, I think doubtless there's need to check there's nothing bad on his devices, otherwise letting you to check it shouldn't be a problem. I would take away all the devices until he gives you the pins, then install a good parental control (family link for android, family sharing for apple) to avoid pin changes in the future, in addition to limit screen time and easily check everything is appropriate and safe.
See that mom physically takes his phone and look through it can bother him, it's right but teens are touchy by nature. With the parental control you can do it remotely, once it is installed there are much less discussion about that.
And besides, many bad news about teens and phone are just between 13-18yo, you need not only to check everything is safe but also to prevent something bad happens, screen addiction too. The parental control blocks inappropriate stuff and let you decide if a new app installation can be allowed or not, it restricts the screen time to few hours (or even just one a day) and block the phone at night.