Teenager blocking me on her phone

[WorriedFrazzledAndFedUp]

Just as the subject shows really

DD(14) has started blocking me on her phone when she fancies - and it is something that's a bit of a safeguarding issue now.

Her father who I'm divorced from bought her iPhone and I have no passwords, no way of keeping her digitally safe anymore. He has said he can't stop her from blocking me.

Is that true - is there a way on an iPhone that he could stop her blocking me on her phone - I'm really worried she's going to put herself in an unsafe situation and I won't be able to contact her.

Thank you

If you’re not paying the bill, it’s a tricky one.

Maybe approach her to and say you respect her privacy, and you know how grown up she is, but that you’re not ready to let her go out if you can’t get hold of her in an emergency. Agree not to bombard her with unnecessary texts. A gentle approach may work. Don’t let it turn into a row, or she will act up and you risk being blocked permanently.

The only way to stop her blocking you is by having the passwords and changing settings.

So long as she isn’t blocking both of you, you know you can still get hold of her.

I don't think you can stop a phone blocking a particular number. If I can't get hold of my 14 year old when she's out, she doesn't go out next time. A

I would tell her that part of the rules regarding her having a phone is that she does not block you. If she does it again you will remove her phone. If you prefer her to go out with a phone for safety then she can't go out. She needs consequences and boundaries here or nothing will change x

How lovely of her father to buy have that phone which you can use as a weapon against you and he doesn't have to deal with any of the consequences.

Sorry, which she can use as a weapon.

I take my DD’s phone away if she blocks me.

At 14 can you find out why? Are you calling her a lot? Is it embarrassing or making her angry or something. Talking things through is better than taking/banning etc IME.

Thanks for your replies

I was hoping there might be a method of stopping phones being blocked that I could send my exH so he had no excuse to not set that up.

I only found out about the blocking yesterday - I thought at other times maybe her phone was off or had run out of signal/battery.

Reasons for blocking I think are a combination of autism, hormones and mental health issues. I think she is possibly pathologically demand avoidant too. She gets very angry if things don't go the way she thinks they should or don't seem fair. I am contending with quite a lot of being sworn at at the moment too.

She is supposed to give me her phone at night time and will extend the time she holds onto it - and I've found the only way to get her to part with it is to continually ring the phone until she brings it downstairs. (I give her a countdown over a half hour period beforehand and ask for it a few times before I do this) It avoids a direct confrontation and it's not ideal - but it's what has been working. Apparently she blocked me so she could continue using her phone the other night

Yesterday she was out with friends without telling me where she was. Half an hour before curfew she told me she'd messed up the buses but was going to get a later bus and the time she'd get it - it would mean being home half an hour after curfew but I said on this occasion I'd let it go as she didn't realise the buses were so sporadic.

She then missed that bus and told me she was going to be another hour. Admittedly I was angry on the phone though trying to sort out how on earth she was going to get home. She decided she didn't like me being annoyed and blocked me - so now she was out a bus journey away. I can't drive. It was past her curfew.

I then had to phone her father to ask him to call her and tell her to unblock and ring me so I could ensure she was safe and could get home.

She is grounded for the rest of the week and has the threat of losing something she's looking forward to over the weekend if she flouts this.

I don't call her excessively, only when necessary. I have a rule that if she's out after school, I need want to know where she is and if she changes location (though she's not been sticking to this recently).

I thought things between me and her father were improving recently in terms of being able to co-parent in the best interests of our daughter - but he emailed me the other day to tell me that him "mediating" between me and our daughter wasn't working. I'm not expecting him to mediate - I was just trying to involve him more in the parenting - I've had a lot of challenges to deal with over the last few years that I've had to contend with alone and had to keep to myself or he'd do things to make things worse - so it has been silly of me to let down my guard with this recently. I'm thinking he's probably stirring the pot from his end, which is really sad.

I absolutely think him controlling her phone and iPad and me having no password or way of making sure she's digitally safe is a way of getting at me. I have to just be calm and work with all of this the best I can.

Don't get me wrong - generally my DD and I are very close. She's open with me about most things and I keep lines of discussion open so she's able to come to me with things that are worrying her. Just when she goes into meltdown it makes things very difficult.