At what age did you remove your teen's phone restrictions?

[bendmeoverbackwards]

Dd3 is turning 14 tomorrow. We've just had a row over her screen restrictions. It currently turns off at 11pm, late enough I think. It used to be 10pm and she recently asked for it to be moved to 11pm. She's a night owl like many teens.

She now thinks at 14 she should not have any restrictions on the phone at all. To be fair to her, I don't think she would be on it all night and all phones stay downstairs overnight.

I was discussing this with my friend who has 4 dc and is a very good parent has recently taken her ds' screen time off and he's so much happier. She thinks they miss out socially and having to catch up the next day can be stressful. My dd is ASD if it makes a difference.

What do you think?

DS14 wants it 24/7 ( and used to have it) but due to issues such as rudeness, being exhausted in the morning and not engaging with online teaching we’ve instated an 11 o’clock curfew. My advice is don’t give in. I wonder if there is status amongst teenagers in extracting 24/7 internet access from their parents and so they pressurise us for it?

I also wonder how representative these threads are, as parents tend to come on and say they impose restrictions. Do parents who don’t feel uncomfortable about admitting to not managing to impose restrictions?

Ds is 14.5 and I’m not easing up with the phone not in the bedroom yet. He’d be on it all night.

15 and 13 year olds and they still have restrictions overnight.

Screens are addictive. I wish someone would control mine.

They bith m

@Robotindisguise she does find it hard to put down. It used to really annoy me that even when we're watching something on TV, she would be doing one of the colouring apps at the same time. But I've realised lately that it's a comfort thing, similar to a fiddle toy I suppose.

I find it really hard to tell how schoolwork is going. Dd gets on with it in her bedroom but I have no idea how much time she is spending on work. She's finding the work quite hard now especially with learning at home. However....reports from school have been quite positive so maybe she's doing ok.

@whataboutbob

I also wonder how representative these threads are, as parents tend to come on and say they impose restrictions. Do parents who don’t feel uncomfortable about admitting to not managing to impose restrictions?

That's a good point *@whataboutbob*

In a way I'm sorry I allowed my older two to have their phones in their rooms. But it's only been a recent thing (dd2 was 17 I think). They do have alarm clocks but prefer to use the phone as you can set multiple alarms and it's more flexible. They both leave the phones away from their beds so they have to get up to turn them off.

FWIW we never had restrictions, both DC self regulated with their devices.

Both are sensible and know that they need sleep so if they'd overdone it one night they would suffer in the morning.

Your DD sounds sensible enough I'd have thought

You can always point out her siblings were 17/whatever when they got their phones overnight, so it would be unfair to treat her differently. (Speaking as an oldest sibling )

As a general rule, it's better to keep the phone restrictions until 18yo, but it depends on the teen.
Apps and socials are so addictive, it's very hard for teens to manage it well. My 17yo DD still has parental control restrictions on her phone for screen time and inappropriate stuff since she proved she cannot manage it by herself.
11 or 9 hours of screen time in a single day seems insane, even for an adult, IMO it's an overwhelming evidence your daughter cannot manage it properly, I would not hesitate to put immediately the screen limit back on, she will thank you later. The recommended maximum screen time for teens is 2 hours a day (including any screen), even one hour could be appropriate for entertainment and socials apps, so I would stick with it. Screens should be off at least one hour before bedtime, they take away the sleep and cause over-excitement, 11pm it's too late so I would definitely revert to 10pm or even better 9:30pm (as a general rule, you can allow more time on request if appropriate and occasional).
I wouldn't make phone's restrictions a big issue, not even something like bad consequence, that's just something useful and the easiest way to get rid of screen addiction.

Thank you @Mary8076 very wise words. How many hours shall I allow her per day? It’s difficult in lockdown as they are talking online to their friends much more than normal.

depends if its a school night or not

Mine are 13 and 15 and they give me their phones at 10pm during the week but I don't take it off them on Friday and Saturday nights when they don't have school the next day

I don't have any restrictions on dd's phone use, because I trust her to self manage. She is a bit older than your dd though - 15, nearly 16.

I think it really depends on the individual child. My dd is quite health conscious, and knows how important it is to get plenty of sleep. She also isn't that stuck to her phone. I know she uses it late occasionally, but overall, I feel that I can trust her to police herself.

You know your dd best, so it's hard for others to say what will be right for her.

I’m in awe of these teens who hand their phones over with no argument!

@bendmeoverbackwards As others have said, it depends on the situation and the teen. I think 2 hours a day would be enough for leisure apps. With many parental control you can set different time limits for specific apps, maybe for your daughter would be more appropriate having more than 2 hours for phone callings, for chatting too (it still seems too much to me, just my opinion), and/or maybe one hour for instagram, facebook, socials and youtube. Personally I think it's better just to set the limit to 2 hours a day and leave up to her what to do in this time, but I would leave more time for educational apps if she uses these too. She can ask for more time and you can choose according to the reasons of her request.
I understand it could be very hard going from 11 hours to 2 hours a day, maybe it would be more acceptable some day with a limit of 4 hours before setting it to 2 hours.
I think many teens don't make big argument about it just because they are used to that, so it could be hard in her case but with short time she will get used to that, just explain to her the good reasons behind the restrictions.

My dd is nearly 15 I turn the WiFi off or block her phone at 10 on school nights. Weekends or holidays she can keep it.

We never had any
I believe in self regulation and after a week or 2 they settled down to a normal level of use

With eldest it happened quite naturally when he started college, then started paying for his own contract. So up untill nearly 17 he charged his phone in our room overnight.
It worked well as he stuck his head in our bedroom to let me know he was home and plugged his phone in. He is 20 now and just had a chat with his little brother who is 16 about how much he appreciated being able to leave his phone somewhere else overnight and not have to be available to his friends 24/7.
16 is doing same phone into our room when he goes to bed.

@user1487194234

We never had any I believe in self regulation and after a week or 2 they settled down to a normal level of use

Same as us. It was never an issue.

Just checking back into my thread.

6 months on and the battle continues. I’ve put the turning off time 11.30pm in the summer holidays, dd not happy and thinks it should be unrestricted in the holidays.

She asked me how long she’ll have the restrictions till, I said we’ll reconsider when she’s 15.

Arrgghhh!

I think 11.30pm seems late, even for the holidays. What is it that she does on her phone late at night that can't be done at another time? If she doesn't have her phone late, what does she do instead? My eldest hasn't had phone restrictions as such but until they finished Year 11 this year, the phone was off and away from their bedroom by about 10pm. The reason for this was partly to reduce the likelihood of getting sucked into dramas with friends as well as to give a bit of headspace and time to do other things in the time before bed. Although DC1 spends lots of time on their phone, it was part of a balance of activities e.g. school work, revision, part-time job, music practice etc. so didn't feel as though it was all-consuming.

If your DD is nagging to have restrictions lifted but is spending 9-11 hours a day on the phone, I wonder if it might be worth the two of you thinking about what a reasonable allocation of hours might be and to use restrictions to limit the overall time rather than the hours of use e.g. 5 hour limit from midnight one day to 11.59pm the next. If she uses it all between midnight and 5am the natural consequence is that she has no time to use the following day. If you are concerned that she doesn't have sufficient self-control to wait until a sensible time in the morning to start her phone time, you might want to set enforced downtime from midnight to 05.59am so the five hours can only be used from 6am. If she still has unused time after 11.30pm then she has until midnight to use it up so in essence, you've extended her access hours whilst increasing her responsibility to manage her time.

@SE13Mummy she's on the autistic spectrum and I think much of it is comfort. She'll be watching something on her laptop and playing a game on her phone at the same time. I suppose it's the modern equivalent of a fiddle toy.

I did used to have a time limit for each day (as well as the switching off time) but it caused a lot of problems, dd said she would be in the middle of something and it would turn off which I get is annoying.

Her main issue is that her older sisters (now 18 and 20) didn't have the same restrictions when they were younger. I can't remember the exact reasons for this - just different children I suppose - and the tech has moved on a lot in only 4 years.

11pm seems fair to me. You say phones downstairs at bedtime.
What time does she go to sleep and wake up?
If she, for example sleeps at 11.30 and gets up 7.30 I would set her screen time to cover her waking hours. At least this way you will know SM won't tempt her to stay awake for just another hour etc

And she's not up for any discussion really. Her autism makes it hard for her to make decisions, she just wants to be able to use it freely.