Snapchat

[ICSH1]

Hi,

my 12 year old (not quite a teen but not far off!) has had a phone since he started senior school. He sometimes has to walk home alone/ be at home alone for a couple of hours if I’m taking his little brother to clubs etc (his dad works away all week) so I don’t feel like we can cope without him having one.

I’ve always had a close relationship with him and felt like we could speak honestly and openly about anything that was on his mind. When he got his phone I said that he could have WhatsApp but couldn’t have any other form of social media until he was older. He agreed. I have to say that I (probably naively) took it on trust that he wouldn’t download anything he shouldn’t and haven’t regularly checked up on what he has on his phone.

we recently discovered that he had downloaded Snapchat. When we confronted him about this he initially denied that he had it and it is probably the lie that has upset us most. My husband and I didn’t shout at him but explained why we have always said we don’t agree with him having social media and also how disappointed we were that he had tried to cover it up. As a punishment we took his phone off him and he was grounded for a week. He seemed to deal with this really well and we had lots of really interesting conversations about social media and the dangers. We read lots of articles etc and he seems to really understand. One week on from having his phone back and he has downloaded it again. I know that lots of his friends have it but it’s the fact that he has deliberately gone behind our backs AGAIN that is really really upsetting me. We pay for the phone, we’ve had respectful conversations with him and he has lots of other privileges but he is just taking us for fools.

i just don’t know what to do next. Harsher punishments risk driving a wedge between us but obviously everything we did before has made no difference.

we’ve never ever had anything like this with him before and maybe I’m an idiot but I’m genuinely shocked that he would try to deceive us again when he is in no doubt what the rules are.

any advice welcome!

Download family link. You can restrict all access to apps you don't want him having & put time limits on apps/phone in general.

Yes we’ve just subscribed to netnanny so will have a way of better monitoring and restricting. I think it’s the lie that is bothering me more to be honesf

I totally get to but I also think kids have the a way of suiting themselves at times. I'd add the restriction until trust can be built up. Our deal is trust in place I won't read messages, caught lying i'll check up on them. We have a 13 & 15yo who aren't allowed stapchat also & we block it with family link

I can remember being 12 and wanting things my friends had so in that way he has my sympathy! And actually when I checked his Snapchat activity before it was perfectly innocent. So it’s not even that I think he’s using social media in a way he shouldn’t (my main concern is he’ll be contacted/ targeted by people with bad intentions not his behaviour at this point though I know that can change) it’s just the constant deceit. This is the first time we’ve faced this issue and I’m just completely at a loss

They all use Snapchat instead of text these days. He probably is missing out. It is such a tough one.

And I do get that. Ironically my husband and I were going to sit down and work out if there was a way to use it in a way we were comfortable with, we do t want him to be left out but it’s really the lying. And how quickly he’s redownloaded it after being told not to and why we felt strongly about it