Does your 14 year old have their phone 24/7 with no content restrictions?

[strictmum]

My 14 year old is kicking off and crying that her phone is to be given to me at bedtime and has the WiFi turned off at mealtimes. This is because otherwise she is on it until past midnight and can't get up for school in the morning. This leads to grumpiness and shouting at her younger sibling and me because she is. stressed she is late and we are getting our coats and shoes on ready to leave when she is because we leave 10 minutes later and are now in her way. School are strict on lateness and issue detentions. She is often late despite me waking her before 7am, making her tea and porridge and her not needing to leave until 8.10am.
I make everyone a cup of tea and her's if often cold by the time she gets up meaning she needs to hear it up in the microwave. Other mealtimes result in meals going cold on the table because she doesn't come down when I say it's ready because she is on her phone and will continue to watch tiktok or message friends at the table. I'm unreasonable to object to this I'm told.
Apps are restricted to 14+ and adult content is restricted. Again this is unreasonable and means she can't use a chat group app for a game she plays (which I didn't realise at the time).
She expects complete privacy with her phone despite telling me random people have been in contact and sent photos and messages that are inappropriate. She sees it that I don't trust her but I've explained that it's not her I don't trust.
It's her phone is the argument I get through floods of tears and she expects to have free access to all content and to have it 24/7. Any disagreement and complaints are made to dad (we are divorced) and he agrees that I am unreasonable and ridiculous in my parenting and he will try to alter the restrictions.
She had a GCSE exam this summer (they do one 2 years early) and instead of revising she was busy on her phone telling me she was revising with a friend except the friend wasn't doing the exam. She was very upset and crying she didn't get the grade she wanted and I've explained that you can't spend revision time chatting to friends and on tiktok and expect to get a top grade.
Back to school needs make up and perfume she says and I'm expected to take her out for the day to the city to buy her these things when quite frankly I don't feel like doing it with the attitude I get and the running to her dad to complain and try to circumnavigate the phone restrictions. She will use her dad to slate me because are gets an echo chamber of hatred.

What happens with phones in your house with teens? Am I too strict over the phone?

@somewhereovertherain what jobs did they have? She'd love a part time job.

She's due at the hairdressers this afternoon. I've set her an alarm on my Alexa and put it outside her door because hers isn't connected. She's got money on her card from me to pay for it as she wants to go on her own which is great that's she's getting more independent. Let's see if she makes it on time. The hairdresser won't do her hair if she's late.

Good luck OP!
DD is nearly 13 and I know things will/may change but we don't allow Snapchat, TikTok or YouTube shorts (the last one is a bugger as you can't restrict it while still allowing normal YouTube). YouTube is on restricted mode. She has a private Instagram account but it's linked to mine so I can see what she's interested in/watching and vice versa!

No phones in any of our rooms at night time and we have a tech draw where all family tech goes in the evening unless we need it to search something up, buy something or research.

No phones for anyone at the table.

I restrict content via broadband security so Reddit for example is not accessible. I also have restricted content via mobile phone providers.

At present DD accepts all of this and always asks if she can play ok Roblox etc. She can get upset by passive aggressive chat amongst friends ok WhatsApp so talks to us about it and voluntarily left her year group WhatsApp chat as she found it rude and inappropriate.

What I will say is the reason for banned video shorts is because her behaviour was appalling when she was watching them and she'd fall into a time vacuum too. Much better improvement when we banned them. (After the initial YABU fall out first of course)

DD15 has downtime and screen time limits, and is one of the few in her friend group to have any restrictions. The downtime is from 11 pm until 6 am Sun-Thu, none on Fri and Sat. Screen time limits are for tiktok (90 min/day), instagram (30 min/day) and browsers (150 min/day, but she also uses them for school); the limits apply across her devices. The other apps are not an issue, but if there were no limits for tiktok, she would be on it non-stop.

I can and have in the past checked her phone, found nothing of concern. She has snapchat and whatsapp for communication with friends, again, I have not found anything to worry about there, but ymmv.

She doesn't and never has brought her phone to meals and she doesn't game (no gaming equipment either). Also, and I'm very lucky here, she has no issues getting up in the morning and getting herself ready for school. If that were an issue, I would make the downtime earlier.

If she kicks off she gets a dumb phone for a week. She'll soon learn that it's easier to follow the rules than not.

I don’t think YABU and you sound really caring and supportive and doing your best to walk the line of doing what’s right and giving her some freedoms.

FWIW our DC are 11 and 14 (11yr got her first phone last week ahead of secondary school) and our rules are:

• no tech at all in bedrooms at any time
• no phones later than an hour before bedtime
• no tech at the dinner table
• no tech on dog walks
• no tech when we’re watching a show or film as a family
• They can have WhatsApp but no other social media (they both decided this after watching the social dilemma together)
• we have passwords and can access at any time

We involved them in these rules and decided as a family most of them. We’ve said we’ll see how things go with homework etc and if it isn’t getting done or grades slip then we will look at how to help by withdrawing phones. I think they’ve accepted most of this because we’ve made them feel like they are part of the rule making but we’ve also always had rules like no tech at the table for the whole family so haven’t had to instigate or change rules - which I appreciate is harder for you to change. I also think it must be so hard when her dad is being utterly useless in supporting your rules!!! But hopefully you can show her this thread and show you’re not being unreasonable

Nope 3 hrs a day max, shut down and down stairs overnight. You tube, insta and tik tok restricted to 30 mins each a day.

The 16yr old has just been allowed snap chat.

My ds, 15 has unrestricted access to his phone and gaming pc. I do however have rules, sun-thurs both go off at 10pm, if school work/behaviour starts to slip then both will be removed indefinitely. He knows that mealtimes are tech free and he also knows that I follow through with consequences, it's also handy to have insomnia and frequent loo trips in the night so there's no sneaking on the pc/phone as his rooms next to the bathroom and he sleeps with the door open.

Same as @MerylSqueak a set time every day to do homework but right from year 7 if there was no homework they could watch Youtube or read but it had to be "educational" and to be honest there is an absolute wealth of edutainment content on Youtube to watch which ties in with stuff they are doing in school or just interesting stuff to learn about history, politics, world events, geography, music etc.

They could then go on tech but had to be off at a set time to set the table and help prepare dinner. Re phones it does depend on their friendship group too. Both of mine had to hand their phones over Ds1 had mates messaging at 3am to say "streak" or just an S on snapchat which was basically to see how long they could keep a streak of contact going so basically a load of shit. Ds2 didn't have that, all his friend's parents also removed phones at night.

At the end of the day they are meant to be sleeping so why do they need their phone? They don't unless when they wake up they go on it or set their alarm to message mates. Both of mine were able to get up in the morning, straight into a shower, were pleasant, made conversation etc because they got a good amount of sleep. It is so important to them and they can feel the effects and understand feeling overtired. It isn't like they are 5 and can't figure it out.

Locking down content on phones is much harder than a laptop or computer. The internet is an adult playground full of weird and disturbing things. If there was any histrionics over phone use then they were forced to take a break because clearly they can't handle it. If you haven't already seen in The Social Dilemma on Netflix it shows how they deliberately keep them hooked. Worth a watch with your child to let them know it isn't their fault they get hooked, it is meant to do that.

DD has content restrictions on phone and home wi-fi.
Her phone goes off at midnight.

Mine is almost 13. He’s not allowed TikTok or Snapchat, we check phone anytime if needed, phone off at 9:30 Sunday to Thursday and 11pm at weekends. Otherwise no restrictions. Oh and homework is mandatory early evening or no tech. He is a gamer so same timings for gaming. I swear he has spent half the summer in his room gaming with his friends - who are all in their respective pits! 😂

We have downtime set overnight, and devices not allowed upstairs or at the table. They have alarm clocks. We ask for them to be put away during homework sessions if distracting and have time limits during term time, less so in hols but we keep an eye to make sure they do other stuff. I still think they are distracted too much but they adhere to these rules and it's a tricky balance. 13 yo and 16 yo.

I might show her this thread so that she can see she's not alone in having age appropriate expectations regarding her phone.

My 14yos are not allowed phones in bedrooms. So that stops seriously late nights. It also stops doing things 'in secret' as they are always using it in a public location and I could walk in at any moment and look over their shoulder.

She's read 3 comments and said she doesn't care and has gone off in a strop🙄

We have the exact same rule for our 12 and 14 year olds. I can be a bit of a pushover but I never back down on this. The potential consequences (porn, grooming etc) are too severe to risk it.

Please restrict your children's use. Please. Not my own children but one very close has been groomed and is now too old to bring back and is so involved we can't unpick the reality and whats fake. The lies. The deception and manipulation have all but destroyed a family, her future and our own mental health. Please restrict them.

@bagsofbats Does your 16 yr old still have restrictions? I am interested as my eldest recently turned 16 still does and like the op's dd is kicking off. Similar behaviour to OP dd getting out the door but constant phone use makes her more aggressive. And will look at inappropriate things and I have had to call police multiple times re her phone use in last few years. Can not manage snapchat and gets into beef with girls which has led to fights in person as well. Her dad my exh says I need to give her it 24/7, I disagree. Total disrespect in all areas, not helped by exh being inconsistent . She also has SN.

I don't check ds2's phone at all, never needed to, if there was a problem he'd tell me. He has unlimited usage, but he gets to school on time unassisted, does all homework, comes down for dinner straight away, so I have no grounds to argue for change.

Watch "I am ruth" on channel 4 with your daughter. Enough to put me off smart phones for my children (and most social media for myself!) for life!

Ds never had any restrictions on phone or games consoles. We did have an open conversation about things like cyberbullying & images being sent. He always knew that he could talk to me if he received anything that worried him & he showed me several times things that bothered him, we were able to talk about them. When he was in Y9 a girl sent him some awful threatening messages, he was able to show me, take screenshots so I could speak to school about them. He soon started to self regulate & volunteered to turn things off early on school nights.

My DD1 didn't even get a phone until she was 13. Quickly addicted, we use Google family link to restrict content, time on apps and downtime. TikTok is the only app we don't allow.

It's nice that some kids can handle their phones well but plenty of kids still need parenting in this area.

Downtime at 8pm until 8am. I am happy to extend it if she is out later or with friends, weekend etc.

Once she unlocked it and I discovered she had been on her phone all night, the punishment was no phone for 5 days and since then she has to leave her phone in the kitchen overnight (got her a basic alarm clock for her room).

I hate all the micro managing but she has not shown me that she can be trusted. Most of the time she is just wasting time on youtube, AI apps etc, destroying her attention span, not studying etc. I just think kids would be so much happier without phones!!

sorry forgot to add, she is about to turn 15.

My 14 son has a Nokia 6310 !. But then he has a collection of 70’s vinyl.

It’s interesting watching them grow up at that age. He’s having guitar lessons with his best friend Charlotte ( they’ve know each other since infants school ) but they are starting to look at each other differently. Makes me worry for their future.

I trust mine to be sensible.

But she also gets herself up ready and out in the morning and is always on time to school.