Phones in bedrooms overnight?

[FTstepmum]

Do you let your tweens and teenagers have their phones or gadgets in their bedrooms overnight?

We take our children's away between 8pm and 9.30pm, but our eldest girl (15) is upset about it, she wants to text her friends etc.

The battle for screens in our house rages on...

No screens upstairs in my house. We have a playroom which is now mainly a computer room / Screens room. DS 12 has an iPhone so I bought a wireless charger and have it on a bureau at bottom of stairs. I check it’s there at bed time and it is 9/10 sometimes it has gone upstairs but he tends to be grateful for the reminder rather than annoyed as otherwise it wouldn’t be charged for the next day.

This article today in the FT seems relevant, if depressing.

I personally think this generation of kids have been badly let down by parents just letting them be the guinea pigs www.ft.com/content/0e2f6f8e-bb03-4fa7-8864-f48f576167d2

I've had a surprising amount of grief from other parents for being strict about phones.

DS 14 phone automatically goes off (family sharing l) at 10.15 during the week and midnight at weekends. Aside from the fact he would be in it until silly o clock given the chance, he spends enough time on it during the day, I really don’t think he needs any more time on it. DS thinks I’m over protective and controlling but I can live with that 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Having it turn off automatically is so much easier than trying to prise it out his hands every night…

In real life most of DS’s friends seem to have access to their phones all night which of course means he feels even harder done by

We took DD’s phone from her overnight until very recently (Year 9).

But she has it on the proviso that all homework is done and she puts it on silent at 10pm and goes to sleep, which she pretty much does. She loves her sleep, though, and isn’t one to stay up late chatting or watching videos.

If she arses around and breaks our agreement, I will take the phone back.

They go on charge on the landing or in kitchen overnight.

I can't regulate my own usage so I don't see why they'd be able to.

Ours are 15. I expect this to be in place until the end of secondary school.

On the subject of self regulation - our nearly 18 year old puts her phone in the living room herself voluntarily every night even though she stopped "having to" at 16.

That's self regulation just as much as sleeping with a phone but not looking at it.

It's good to form healthy habits and model them as parents by leaving our phones downstairs (all five phones live on the side table together during the night, which also means everyone knows where they are in the morning) IMO.

Alarm clocks are still cheaply, widely and easily available - the "needs a phone all night for the alarm" arguments that always proliferative on MN threads like this always sound like a massive reach...

and surely we all know that being able to get up in the morning does not prove that an individual isn't sleep deprived!

MY DD (15) does because we really relaxed rules over lockdown and then it feels likes its almost too hard to reverse it. She does spent a lot of time on her phone but she's a good kid and it doesn't seem to effect her badly.

Learnt my lesson though and my other DD (13) has to keep hers downstairs at night and it's taken away at 10pm... much to her annoyance ;)

They have always been banned from bedrooms (including our own, unless we're away!) and my now 15 year old puts hers outside her room after 10pm (didn't have to nag).

My 17 year is old has his in the room but that's up to him - he's not one to scroll all night anyway and turns it off himself when he's ready for bed.

No phones in bedrooms after bedtime (10ish) - they have a charging station downstairs so he tends to plug in there and then up to bed.

Not until after GCSEs in this house.
Ds17 can self-regulate now but certainly couldn't at 15. Ds2 is 13 and phone is plugged in to charge downstairs in the kitchen overnight.
It never ceases to amaze me the times of night that he gets notifications through from his friends.

Noone here has phones in the bedroom, adults or teen.

That means, phones are down either around dinner time or latest 9pm.

DD has already insomnia, related to ASD and school stress, a phone or laptoo nearby would just make it worse.