Losing my shit with mobile phone use

[millytint44]

So, my nearly 14 year old DD is obsessed with her phone. She literally can't look up from it, can't have a normal conversation with me, gets ping ping ping notifications on her phone every waking hour and every time I try to suggest some down time from it, she goes completely bonkers.... screaming at me etc. I've physically manhandled it out of her hand on several occasions, I actually want to throw it out the fucking window to be honest. She's only got an iphone 7 and wants a new one when this 2 year contract is up, in November... well she's got another think coming. I am done with this shit. I'm worried for her ability to communicate, her mental health, her general well-being if she continues to be addicted to her phone. I think the only way is to get rid of it altogether.

Does anyone else feel the same?

Sounds like she needs serious boundaries. With that behaviour I would have zero hesitation in taking it off her for 24-48 hours at a time.

I'd also stop phone use at a certain point in the evening, e.g. 7.30pm on a school night.

@Paq I try that, to say charge it out of your bedroom after 9pm, and she screams, screams, screams at me and stands on the bannisters and threatens to jump. WTF am I supposed to do?

Let her. She’s a 14 year old having a paddy. Take the phone off her for 48 hours. It gets given back on agreement of safe ground rules.

Did you not think to implement boundaries when she got the phone? I don’t mean it judging. I mean, is she riding over boundaries you have set, or did you expect her to manage her own screen time limits?

"At the minute I have just confiscated your phone. If you continue to act like a brat I'll go through your phone".
Should work

How much data does she have? I got small data plans, so they have to use wifi. The wifi is off between 11.30pm-7am every day, for everyone. If they don't want to use up all their data they get off their phones. I do get moaned at (especially as most of mine are adults now) but it's good practice for all of us to get off our devices.

She’s 14. Let her have a tantrum. Don’t protect her from strong emotions. She needs you to teach her healthy boundaries so she can learn to navigate them herself in the future.

I agree completely

So you set boundaries and then cave in, she'a having a tantrum, even at 14, and then she gets her own way. Let her scream and shout 🤷🏼‍♀️ and i'd be removing all data so she can only use it on wifi

She is screaming because she's getting away with it. Does she scream at school when she isn't allowed her phone? I doubt it.

Give her a certain agreed time on her phone, and if she has a tantrum, she loses it for 24 hours. Mean what you say.

I'd have to be a bit more stealthy.

Hide her phone chargers.

Change the WiFi password.

Don't renew the contract.

Cancel the contract.
Let her scream.

Set some rules.
It sounds like you need to.
Be firm and stick to it.

Isn't this a classic abuse tactic?
Leave me and I'll kill my self?

Take it off her, if she hurts herself, it's evidence she is addicted. The solution to addiction isn't to keep feeding it.
She's a child, and needs safeguarding. If this was cigarettes or vodka would you keep buying it and giving in?
No!!

Take it off her. We did as we found it was totally affecting our child’s mental health- almost sending her crazy. She had no phone for few months and then a brick phone. She was a different child, calmer less violent. Though would be lying to say it was easy. I think for some children phones are a ticking time bomb that we have yet to see the full extent of damage it is doing.
She has phone now but is older and has a little more self control. It’s a nightmare to parent this with some children. Good luck

My 15 year old still has parental controls with time limits on his phone. He accepts and knows that he struggles to regulate with screens. He also knows and has found out the hard way, that if he removes the controls he loses his phone.

When he has lost his phone he is an arsey nightmare for 24hrs or so then reverts to being a lovely person to be around.

His phone locks at 9pm and won't unlock until 7am so there are no phone at night worries which massively removes the stress for is a parents to remember to take the phone, ensure it is charging downstairs etc.

Get the Google mesh system and turn off her IP address to her phone at set times.

It's harder for her to argue with a box.

We did this when ours were that age as it saved greatly on arguments, when the programmed box does it to them it's one step removed from you telling them.

The fact you are the one who programmed it is lost in translation.....

If you asked her "what do you think is a reasonable amount of time to spend on your phone each day?" what would she say?

I would take it off her completely for 2-3 weeks. Let her scream she will eventually calm down.

When you give it back to her have firm boundaries ie no phone in her bedroom, no more gone after 7pm. Be very clear she will lose it all together if she doesn't stick to the rules.

Have you gone through her phone and checked what she is looking at?

Do any of you who are suggesting take the phone off her for a period of time, actually have teenagers? She says it would isolate her from her friends, she'd be left out etc...

I can't check her phone as she has a passcode on the phone and won't tell me what it is.

Let her scream and put parental,controls on her phone.

Calmly Tell her that when you ask her in future to hand over her phone and she plays up you will keep the phone for a whole day and if she continues to argue you will keep the phone for a week.

You could get her an old non smart phone to use in the meantime.

She has to know that you want give in to her screaming.

Just for some reassurance my two were phone obsessed at that age but have grown up able to communicate very well!

we did have the phones out of the bedroom rule until about 16 Ithink

She'll learn to cope. You need to be a bit tougher or her behaviour is only going to escalate

She's 14 it's up to you to decide how much phone time she gets not her social life.
If you don't know the passcode you're storing up bigger problems than some screaming.
You need to start being her parent.

Yes I have a 16yo dd.

I found out to my cost what she was doing on her phone when she was 13yo. She had downloaded an app called YUBO and was messaging 50 plus boys and men.

After I realised what had been going on she lost her phone for 3 weeks and I put strict controls on it from then.

I knew you were going to say you didn't check her phone.

It is absolutely your responsibility to parent your dd and be in control of this.

She's walking all over you.

I can't check her phone as she has a passcode on the phone and won't tell me what it is

That was the rule when we handed over a phone the first time. And yes, I have teenagers one of whom is nearly 20. We set ground rules and didn't give in to tall tantrums because this is toddler behaviour just from a taller person.

Clearly she cannot handle having a smart phone so you remove it and tell her she can have a Nokia brick which she can still make calls on. At 14 she knows how to behave because she isn't threatening to jump out of windows at school is she?

When she is calm you can talk to her and get her to suggest how long she gets to engage on her phone for. She has a passcode that you know so you can access the phone, that is a condition of having a phone. She needs to understand she is addicted and she needs to come up with boundaries for herself. One of the key ones is no phones in bedrooms overnight. She is meant to be sleeping and clearly wouldn't be kicking off if she was actually sleeping.