school refusal, tech and so on

[FredoWasWeakAndStupid]

OK am on here in the middle of the night because I woke up and realised DD (age 13) was up. She may just have got up to the loo, or it may be screen time, and I need help about how to control that. I am not tech savvy but have realised her tech use is impeding trying to get on top of wider problems.

She has been school refusing for 2 months - hard to say how much she's been absent, probably about half the time. It was triggered by an unresolveable fall out with her main friend. Anxiety and withdrawal have taken over. School are trying to help but it's slow and they are under resourced - they agreed to a part time timetable to coax her back, and she will start sessions with a youth worker after holidays. I am looking into private counselling and assessments. I suspect a diagnosis will come but of what I am not sure. She has sensory issues with food and textures. She is fairly able workwise, but disorganised, and at home her room is an inexplicable mess. She has spent the whole holidays in her bed, much of it on her ipad.

She won't participate in any activity. Her other close friend also went absent from school, and as far as I can see has even worse problems. They have barely been in contact so I don't think it's a case of 'you stay off and I will too'. A third good friend moved away and while they are still in contact, the separation has had an impact.

The confrontation involved in everything is really hard - from getting up to not eating properly to not exercising, leaving her room, even opening her curtains, getting dressed, or getting dressed adequately - if we make her get out to go to the shops she won't put a coat on. Trying to get her screen use under control seems immensely difficult as talking about it triggers confrontations, but the fact is I just wouldn't know bloody how to do it. I can control her phone which is an Android, but the ipad is beyond me. In any case she knows more than me so she will evade controls and has even tried to tell me ipads have no parental settings (which I know is bollocks) and I would have a battle getting her to hand it over anyway. DH is useless with these things even though he has a company iphone, he whinges that because it's not his, it might now allow controls to be set up, and again, she would probably have to show him how.

I came on to try to look for tips on how to get control of an ipad and then got sidetracked by threads about ADHD and other people's desperation in dealing with challenging teens, and how some parents are at the end of the line because their DC have not had help early enough, and it's scaring the life of out me.

I'm just another desperate parent in the middle of the night in the Christmas holidays. If anyone can offer a few pointers about how to start to control tech that would be one step on what I feel is a very long and lonely road we are beginning. I have read on some threads about older teens who are breaking their parents. I feel with a 13 yo I need to start with the tech and face the other issues from there.

Can you not put controls on your wifi? I have a BT router and can control the times devices can access it so can disable access to the children’s devices for certain hours of the day.

@Bringithome

Yeah, I wondered about that - but my tech ability is so crap I am not sure how. It's a Sky router and I am sure you probably can do this, but I don't know how to separate controls for different devices. Is it via the account settings? When you sign up a device ito use the wifi can you then control them individually from the account?

You should have started with tech the moment you introduced tech, as now you'll have a fight on your hands!

Anyway visit Sky Broadband Buddy. It is very straightforward to set up, you can control the screen time for connected devices via app on your phone.

You really need to educate yourself, fast, about the technology you are letting your DD have access to. You need to set up ground rules, and enforce them with parental controls around app usage, screen time. Do you know parents of her friends, so you can find out what they are doing? Maybe they can help you too.

There is MASSES of advice on the internet to help you and yoj could probably phone up Sky if you are totally stuck, it is not really good enough to say you are "useless". If you are so useless you really cannot understand it at all, you should remove all the tech you can't manage or control.

It's pretty well documented now how dangerous it is to give kids and teens unlimited access to tech.

I say this as a mum of a preteen who has her own phone, and an iPad, and an Apple watch. We set her up with narrow device restrictions, the expectation that her tech is a privilege we can withdraw and check what she is using it for at any time. We arent draconian, we are just parenting. I wouldnt let her go off with random strangers in the middle of the night, there is no chance I'm letting her on the internet unsupervised whenever she likes.

Start here for what you can do regarding iPad control settings support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201304

Or step by step instructions for how to do it
www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls/smartphones-and-other-devices/apple-iphone-and-ipad-parental-control-guide/

I found both links by googling iPad parental control- if you do the same search on you tube there will be videos.

If I’m honest it sounds like you need to remove all tech- when she is asleep or similar and build back up your trust and relationship with her. Will it be easy? No but will it mean you take back some power and control with a 13 year old that is needed…absolutely. Good luck

My 14 year olds tech is in my room at night. No chargers in his room. It needs charging he has to come out.

My son does have Adhd so doesn't sleep well but would be far worse with access to tech

I work in a field where I look at what kids are accessing online. Irs great you are tackling this . Please please don't leave her ipad unprotected. She may be watching porn for starters. She must also be given extremely strong boundaries it doesn't matter if she screams and shouts about it. She shouldn't have access to tech after bedtime and yes you can and should take the ipad away until its properly locked down.

There are apps that allow yoi to control all the devices in a house. Google has an app

Step one ensure there are blocks against adult sites on your home router. By 13 She will have likely seen extreme hard-core porn. I suggest all parents look at mainstream porn sites so they know what kids are seeing

Step 2 She must not have unfiltered access to social media.

Don't be hard on yourself this is a tough tough world we are parenting in. But please don't let her dictate the tech situation she needs you to protect her.

I think Qustodio allows control of ipad from an android.

I have been there with our daughter and totally understand how things with tech get out of hand. We had put on locks on our parental controls and then realised they. we’re being sidelined via a VPN which children download for free on the internet. We have been in our opinion good parents, well tried to be good parents, but we failed as far as tech is concerned
At 14 we allowed her to have tech one night a week all night in her room ‘ as everyone else was allowed’ and we regret it - she was in a toxic relationship with a boy and her mental health suffered immensely. We just saw appalling behaviour with us but there was a reason behind that behaviour.
We took phone away for a few months and though this led to violence and social worker involvement I do not regret it. She now has a phone and we are gradually letting her use it for longer. She is emotionally stronger and now nearly 16.
OP I know there are other issues on your message but I do believe technology can affect every aspect of their life. Some children can self regulate, others can’t, and as much as you try children are accessing things they should not. Please try and get back some control. It gets worse before it gets better, but in our case it has got better- and the truth is at one point I though it really wouldn’t. The best of luck

We have an impulsive 9 year old with ADHD and ASD. She has phases of misuse of tech. In our case it's endless Teams calls to other DC from school (which school really hasn't helped by supplying a laptop since lockdown and setting homework on it!). I keep a close eye on what she's doing and lock the tech away in my home office overnight or any time it's problematic.

DH is also wet about it.

I had a builder fit a decent lock to the home office so DD wouldn't burst into my own Teams calls.

Thing is these devices and apps are actually designed to be addictive!

You just remove the tech

My point is that ideally you don't leave it till you've got a big problem. Has your DD seen a paediatrician? Is she receiving any mental health support? What's she actually doing on the ipad?

thanks all for advice, some good stuff here. @icklekid that's a good guide. Unfortunately getting the thing off her to apply those controls will be a problem.

I know I should have got on top of this sooner, I know there are dangers, but some of us are not all on top of things like this as others might be. Hindsight's a great thing isn't it.

We had issues with DD triggered by lockdown & covid. She was refusing to come out of her room & wouldn't talk or accept any help from us or anyone else.

She moved schools in September and she is a different child.

So not tech advice but perhaps that issue may resolve itself if she has a fresh start. It sounds like there are some issues with this other girl?

I think it is one of those where you will have to be the parent and accept she will have a tantrum or similar but it is needed to keep her safe. Just like holding a toddlers hand to cross the road

Install Qustodio or Safe Lagoon and you can block any app and can freeze.the phone any time you want to

Is it life 360 that works on ipads? I've heard that's good.
We have family link on Android. I restrict certain apps and both dcs have bedtimes and time limits.

It's very hard though. My DD was hitting me at midnight last night as she wanted extra phone time. You have my sympathies.

This one

Great help thanks. Have installed Sky BB and it seems ok, bit tricky to get head round adding the 'home' device which seems to need to be dealt with separately to phone and tablets.

@converseandjeans yeah, have thought about moving schools. At this precise minute she's having her first session with the school youth worker so hoping that helps give her adult perspective that is not nagging me.

@megletthesecond we have family link too but I didn't think I would be able to use that to restrict the ipad use after she got one. The Sky broadband buddy seems like it might do it all including filtering for age, and which has certainly helped me feel better. I will look into those other ones too.

We found this extremely useful even for our 16 year ; the book is Calmer Easier Screen Time Noel Janis Norton. It's quite a hand hold some may not like it. We've implemented some of the things and it's helped a lot.
Also use MMGuardian.

My teens 13 and 16 have to hand over all tech at bedtime. No tvs or computers in rooms. That’s the deal for them having tech. At the end of the day, we pay for the WiFi and phone data - if they started being difficult about handing over the phones, I would just turn the WiFi off altogether and stop paying for the phone.

I work with teenagers and have seen older teens who have screen addictions which have taken over their lives and I am not willing to go down that road.

The NSPCC has good advice about setting screen controls:

www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/parental-controls/

But essentially despite all this, you still need to lay down some ground rules about DD not being on the screen at night. But if you are not able to get her to hand the screens over that is tricky as that sounds like general defiance…. I can’t offer much advice on that sorry!

Please be careful of Snapchat, Instagram etc.. she may be targeted by men grooming online it happens alot and you need to check what she's doing. Kidslox is great for checking what she's going on amd gives you lots of control over her usage. I speak from experience with my 14 year old daughter, who was addicted to her phone, I tool it away bin the end.

If you decide it would be helpful to 'turn the wi-fi off' at a certain time of night the easiest way I can think of is to disconnect the router from the (broadband) phone line, it would take a couple of seconds (once you familiarised yourself with what you were disconnecting). Depending on how tech savvy your daughter is you might need to either take away the router or the wire (i.e. disconnect it from the socket in the wall too and take the wire to bed with you), and then plug it in again the next day at a time convenient to you.

I think on sky routers this is coloured purple and off to the left hand side - it the same kind of socket as plugging in and unplugging a landline phone.

Good luck