Younger teens - do you check their phones?

[bendmeoverbackwards]

My youngest dd is 13.5. We've had a lot of rows recently over her phone. Since she had it a few years ago, we agreed that I would know the passcode and check it periodically.

She now hates me doing this and thinks she should be trusted. Up to recently I checked it very infrequently and just had a quick look at her messages and what she was looking at on TikTok.

However in the last few days she has changed the passcode without telling me. When I've asked her about this, she has suggested that rather than giving me the passcode, why can't I check it with her in the room? Although she hates me touching it too so that would also probably lead to rows.

What do you do with teens of this age and at what point do you stop checking?

I use the sky buddy app on both of my teens (12/16) phones. I can set age suitability guides, ban certain social media, check search history and set the phone to turn off at certain times. So I know my kids 100% can't access the Internet between say 9pm and 7am but they can still have their phone for the alarm etc.

My eldest son is 20 and has ASD and had a porn addiction from having unrestricted access to his phone. It resulted in an arrest when he stupidly clicked on something he shouldn't and didn't realise that anime/hentai sex is classed as porn too (it's vomit worthy) . It had a teen girl in her school uniform in it. He was 18. The charges were dropped but it was a horrible time for us.

His use of porn had also fuelled a trans thing and an absolute conviction that he was either a girl, a furry or both. We had no idea at the time that that was were it stemmed from. We basically spent age 15-19 on suicide watch with him. The whole time I stupidly trusted him when he said he would never look at anything like that.

These days my router, their phones etc are locked down tight. Nobody can access porn and it's all extra safe for work. You need a PIN number to watch an 18 movie on my phone. In hindsight my autistic son getting into that mess was my fault. We are told constantly to police our kids Internet usage and because he had never lied before I trusted him. That's on me and was my failure.

My daughter is yr 7. Yes I check and will do so until she pays for her own phone

DD is 14.5, I still check her phone from time to time, not as often as I did in Year 7. But she always knows that I might. She's not allowed TikTok in any case. Changing the passcode and not wanting me to look at it would make me question what she was up to.

Re trust, I have always said it not you that I don't trust, it's other people. Your friends, who might share/say things, and also strangers.

Thank you and I'm sorry to hear about your ds @HotPatootiebootie

We all have iPhones and I set downtime on dd's phone from the device itself. And her phone stays in downstairs overnight.

@NancyJoan she is generally trust-worthy and can see her becoming more mature. I think she just wants the privacy. Whenever I've checked I haven't seen anything dodgy, mostly just silly chat with friends and videos of animals.

@NancyJoan

Re trust, I have always said it not you that I don't trust, it's other people. Your friends, who might share/say things, and also strangers.

Yes completely agree and this is what we tell dd. But she says if there was anything dodgy she would delete it and tell us.

I did not check their phones. We only required that whatever SM they had that we could follow or friend them and we monitored that way. This gave them some sense of privacy but also I think kept them in check because they’d be thinking, my mum and dad are going to read this or see this post. My eldest is 24 and youngest is 16 now. Two boys, two girls. They always came to us if anything disturbed them or if they were being cyber bullied (did happen to one DC) and we took care of it together. We did teach them online safety and security as well.

I don’t check my 14 year old ds’s phone. I would only do so if there was a specific phone related reason. It would feel like a big invasion of privacy to me and I could imagine I could find things that would make us both uncomfortable- and I don’t mean porn or anything like that. Just things that are private. He’s aware of safety issues and ramifications of misusing tech.

I’d add as well that teens are pretty sneaky so even with monitoring they get round things - most of DS’s friends have 2 Instagram accounts for example, one is their official one that their parents etc follow and they post pictures of dog walks and the other they set up and they immediately block their parents and associated accounts!

Definitely check phones. Your DD is under a false sense of privacy, anything she writes down in messages etc can be shared instantly with one or hundreds of people. So it isn't private, other parents will also be checking phones.

She is a child, even the police tell you to check your child's phone, see www.leics.police.uk/kayleighslovestory she was 15 so supposedly older and wiser.

If she won't tell you the passcode she loses the phone. Simple as that. The internet is an adult playground, why on earth would you not check what they are looking at?

I hate this invasion of privacy bullshit. When she got the phone there was no expectation of privacy because she was told you would check it. You are not spying on her but just making sure she is staying safe.

There are often threads on MN from very distressed mothers who realise that their children have got themselves into terrible situations online - and quite often they are children who were trusted, had all the online safety talks etc etc etc
8 year olds seeing porn
12 year olds sending nudes on insta
15 year olds meeting up with middle aged men
I would be saying to your dd that at 13 her phone is a privilege and not an entitlement

Thank you, very sensible advice. So you don’t think me checking it with her standing over me is enough? This is what dd is suggesting so I don’t have to have the passcode 🤷‍♀️

Tell her you want the passcode or she loses the phone. And check it regularly.
Also look at parental controls etc - HotPatootiebootie has good advice there.

My middle one is 14 and I randomly ask to look at his phone. Ocassionally he gets a bit cadgy and wants to delete things first - usually if he's been mean in a message or someones been rude back.
To me its a flag when they wont share.

I've always said if you don't share the device password, I don't pay the bill or share the wifi key.

I have once device blocked DS2 from the wifi to make a point. It could have gone the wrong way so don't know I'd recomment but was the fastest appology and device password handing over ever. He asked his brother why the wifi wasn't working and was told he was blocked (sad mum had to get DS1 to teach me how).

I check my y8 dds phone every few weeks or so. I know her pass code and she isn't allowed to change it. If she doesn't follow the rules she loses the phone for a few days. She would hate that so she follows the rules

The issue is that a teen could easily delete things she doesnt want you to see before handing it over. So no, I'd say a condition of her having it is you having open access to it. As others have said, she knew a condition of having it was that you see it. I would also put some effort into staying more IT savvy and formally blocking things like pornography access via your router.

(Also definitely recommend blocking access at night- teens are awful and managing their device use and sleep!)