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?

As someone said there will be lots of different answers - only you can decide what your child needs.

Of course a large number of 14 year olds will struggle to self manage their phone use - look around you at adults!!! The devices are DESIGNED to be addictive. We need to protect our teenagers as much as we can so they can grow up without addiction and without the loss of several hours a day of their time to phones.

So - personally I believe in controlling the phones - I would use an app Qustudio to do it so you don't even have to take the phone you can just lock it between certain hours and after certain times.

I have a child who struggles to get up and here is what I think - children need to develop intrinsic motivation at some point.

You need to set some rules and then the child suffers the consequences. Here is an alarm clock, here is the time I will remind you to get up -now it's up to you.

yes it will be painful for a while - but in the end the child needs to learn.

We had the rule no devices at the table, none upstairs. We ALL followed it. It worked very well and DD18 and 20 now thank me for being so strict.

Dd13 is pretty sensible, ds11 is NOT . Both have restrictions. Ds11 can't use his after 8 pm and dd after 9. Both leave them downstairs over night. Ds is not allowed his upstairs as has Sen and could inadvertently get into a pickle. Both can only download apps if i approve them on my phone..and Both know that I can look through their phones when I want and I check them periodically which is thankfully always very boring..

DS 14.5 has some restrictions. via broadband lots of content is restricted for the household. Gambling, porn etc. he doesn’t have TikTok. Asked for it when he was 12 and I said no and then hasn’t asked for it again. Has snap. That was taken from him once for some pretty epic bad behaviour. But he got it back. No phones at meal times. No phones past 9pm.

Spot checks can happen but haven’t for a long time.

DD just has a phone now as she’s going up to year 7. So far so good. She only has what’s app. No snap or insta and no TikTok.

We have been very lucky with both children’s peer groups who seem to have similarly sporty/non gaming/social mates. DS has a healthy relationship with his phone and his screen time is less than 2 hours a day. Dd has more restrictions and her phone shuts down at 8pm totally and she has 2 hours screen time set as a limit. All of this is controlled through our parent apps.

I have said to both my kids if the only thing they desire to do is phone/screen time then we have problems.

Clearly all humans react differently to potentially addictive substances - whether that is smoking/ gambling/ video gaming/ staring mindlessly at tik tok.

We have adults who can't control these behaviours and adults who can.

We have teenagers (brains designed to seek dopamine releasing risky situations by evolution) - given addictive phones and expected to self control - to 'choose' not to use them while they have them in their hands.

I have seen the glazed look on teens faces as the hours go by watching crap videos - do we think as adults we are doing them a favour letting their lives rot away like this?

I can guaruntee no adult will look back and say hey thanks parents for letting me spend 9 hours a day on my phone when I was 14 or 15.

Teenagers are having freedom curtailed in real life - ie. going out/ being free with friends - while they are given unlimited time in a meaningless, sedentary and deadening online world - I think we will all look back with regret at this time.

I hope one day smartphones are seriously restricted for under 16s

@RoseMartha no we turned them off this summer although as college starts it has to be downstairs from 10pm and overnight (as is everyone's) and she & I are using snap maps so we can see where each other is, if needed.

Unrestricted but alll devices off by 9.30 the latest

I take my 14yo DD phone before 9pm every school night, have relaxed a bit over holidays. Not allowed at table for meals. App restrictions but no time limts currently, i have tried but they dont seem to work for all apps. She spends far too much time on it when not otherwise busy, so may need to get stricter going into GCSE years.

This is reassuring to read! DS1, 14, is always telling us we are the strictest parents in the world & all his friends have no limits on screens!

He has a 3.5 hour limit on weekdays, 4 at weekends. Bedtime switches on at 9pm-8am. No screens upstairs overnight. But I will give him extra time/switch limits off if he is with friends, at Scout camp etc.

My dc (13 and 16) have no restrictions on their phones and have access whenever they want.

This is because the phones sit on the charging station most of the time while at home.

A couple of times in the past ds2 (under 13 at the time) was spending too long on his phone so we pointed this out to him and he cut it down.

If they were behaving like yours is, we would definitely restrict it!

Ds2 has unrestricted phone time and has it in his room charging overnight so could in theory be on it all night, but isn't. He gets up and goes to school on time so no issues.

No 14 year old should have unrestricted access to their phones with no parental settings. There are some kids who aren't really interested in their phones and don't really need time limits but I'd say they're the exception in my experience.

Same here. Mine are also now all in their twenties and doing fine.

They also used their phones as alarm clocks to get up for school.

We didn't allow phones at the dinner table unless to look up something and clarify a point of any discussion we were having.

I think people do get far too hung up on this restrictions lark. That doesn't mean completely unfettered access to stuff, but there's no need for the twists and turns some get into.

Phone charged downstairs so definitely not at bedtime. I have an adult content ban set up. Meals are served on time, if I had to chase DS 13 up because he was on his phone to come for food then that would be an instant phone ban. Can use pc for schoolwork.

To be fair he does use his phone in the morning but is up dressed, had breakfast and ready so he cycles down to where he meets the bus and spends half an hour staring at a screen. It's not ideal and there are better things he could do with his time but it's a reasonable compromise.

We took DSD’s phone away for a year at that age as she was so addicted she was tantruming without it. Her personality transformed in that year. She became so much more sociable and active, took up a sport. At 14 we returned it with restrictions.

DN on the other hand barely looks at her phone. She isn’t interested in it at all and never needed it to be taken away

My 16 yr old comes off phone at 10pm on a school night. It was 9.30pm when he was 15. No phones at the table, when doing homework, or if we are doing something together as a family. Other than that, he is allowed his phone when he wants it, which has been the case for the past 18 mths and before that we had much stricter limits. This has meant that he no longer reads, he used to be a voracious reader but when we allowed him much more phone time he stopped reading - sad. But the horse has bolted and I feel we can't row back now as his behavior is excellent, grades good, and he is very sporty and social . . . so no obviously reason to restrict his phone again more.

Nope, down with us an hour before DS14 goes to sleep. No TikTok, Snapchat etc.
As above, DS wouldn’t sleep if unrestricted, we’re aware he needs to learn self regulation but he struggles with it (ASD) and is something we’re working on.

11 and 14 have restrictions. There is a total time limit for the day, within that time limits for certain apps so can't spend 4hrs on YouTube for example and then the phones lock at a set "bedtime". Older teen was released from restrictions after GCSEs.

None of mine use phones at the table and all bloody well know that when called for a meal they come.

And no Snapchat etc. Vile thing. The post GCSE older teen installed it once restrictions were gone. Not much I can do there, can't exactly keep on restrictions until they leave home. They have WhatsApp to be in group chats with friends.

No way would I give a 14yo an unrestricted phone.

Our set up is time limits on apps, down time overnight (just Audible and alarm, no other apps accessible), no social media other than WhatsApp, web filtering on, downloading apps needs parental permission.

You need to work out what’s suitable in your situation, but those are what work for us. We have relaxed the limits from when she first got a phone, and will continue to do so by negotiation.

My 14 year old has a phone but no data/wifi, no access to the Play Store, so no apps, it's simply for calling and texting (he doesn't have an email so can't sign up for anything) we got it as he had to stay home alone for like half an hour when I had an appointment and my partner (his dad) was at work in case of an emergency he can't take it to school (school pilicy) doesn't have any friends numbers just me his dad and grandparents and aunts and uncles and leaves it on a stand in the lounge room all the time never takes it to his room he takes it when we go out but rarely touches it only if he want to take a photo.
He uses it more as a camera than anything or to ring his grandparents.
Though I guess we are lucky he doesn't go out without us or by himself with friends as he isn't mentally ready yet (some special needs are going on so he isn't into the whole socialising bit or looking at apps).
Is there a way of restricting further til you can see the changes needed or taking it from them for a week or so, so they may forget about it.
I hope you can find a way to help the situation.

My 15 year old gets 3 hrs a day (screen time restriction on the phone) and it shuts down at 10pm only leaving calm app, phone to call me if needed and alarm. She gets 5 hrs a day during holidays which I think is too much really but probably I use the same.

Shes not allowed Snapchat or Tiktok and doesn't use YouTube except very occasionally for music videos. I have adult content restricted on it and I've checked her messages occasionally (just the group chats really) when there's been friendship issues. None of this is because i don't trust her - it's everyone else I don't trust, plus phones are addictive and bad for you. She already has ADHD so she doesn't need anything else affecting her concentration too.

I must say, I’m relieved to read it isn’t just me who restricts this much. DS’s phone down here can light up with texts etc until early
hours, so I know he’s not lying when he says his friends keep their phones all night.

I got very lucky with him and he does understand and acknowledges he needs the break and the toxicity of social media but I am aware it’s sheer luck he doesn’t fight me on it.

Absolutely not.