14 year old has a Burner phone

[GCRyan]

I now know that my 14 year old son has a burner phone.

On his “official” phone that we bought I have it locked from 10pm -7am on school days and midnight to 7 at weekends. It has blocks for gambling, porn and similar key works. He has an allocation of 4 hrs per day, with 1.5 hrs of Snapchat and 1 of TikTok. The rest mostly used on Spotify. He has loudly complained how restrictive I am vs other parents. I feel I am being generous. He has threatened getting a burner for several months and I have ignored this until I found it yesterday.

Am I really out of touch with the volume of phone usage for 14/15 year olds?

I need guidance. I expect if I just take the burner he will get another and then will be much more vigilant in its secretive usage.

Does anyone have any words of experience/wisdom to share?

And yet we have empirical evidence to prove the harm smartphones and social media are causing.

But if you don’t believe it, you do you. Crack on with wasting your time and your brain cells and allow your kids to wire their brains to be idiots. I’ll keep my kids off their phones and we will see where we end up in 20 years.

My 13 year old and 15 year old only have 2 hours a day! They only have what’s app, no social media like Snapchat, TikTok etc.

Some apps aren’t restricted such as amazon music, news, maps and other essential ones. They can always phone and message. Shuts down 11pm to 7am.

They have a laptop each for homework (with porn, gambling etc websites blocked).

We all seem happy with this.

My 14yo DS has less time on his phone than yours.
My friends with kids at same age/school year 9 all have similar restrictions and parental controls.
I don't think you're going wrong with your approach

You set time limits for each app in the phone settings and the phone polices it for you and shuts off each app after the allocated time.

Sorry for the delay in responding. I believe one of his friends may have bought it as our son wouldn’t have a lot of disposable cash. I don’t believe he’s involved in county lines. The burner is a cheap second smart phone. Apologies if I misused the way “burner” is understood.

Not all phone use is watching short reels for hours.

You don’t have to. You can set up the time limits on the phone itself and it does the counting for you. When the time is up , it locks you out of the app.

The phone was bought in a phone shop. He has been pushing boundaries for a good few months. If I confiscated the phone I know he will just source a new one and be more sneaky. I am trying to navigate this.

I’m sure you’re intelligent enough to know the two aren’t actually comparable, despite your “evidence”.

Honestly I think your restrictions are way too strict!
Especially limiting things like Spotify! No wonder he's got himself another phone.

In 3/4 years time you'll be on here complaining that your son has gone to university and wants nothing more to do with you!

I don't think you're being restrictive at all, I think you're trying to be a good parent! Have you seen that Australia have banned social media for all under 16s?
At 14 though I don't think he should be on snapchat at all, very easy to be groomed on there and it's not for kids in my opinion.

Do you mean a burner phone as in an actual burner phone, like he's involved in drugs? Or do you mean he's got a spare phone from a mate to use at night time when his is locked?

4 hrs reading a fictional story in a book, vs 4 hours reading mumsnet threads on social media ?

10pm isn’t that late. Dd used to go ECAs that would go on till 9.30pm then we would drive home and then it was shower drink and bed by 11pm

My mother used to think that every one should be in bed by 9pm (including her)
My mother had the worse mental health of anyone.

Thank you for your encouragement. I appreciate it. I have seen Snapchat as negative and maybe I need to lighten up. I wasn’t trying to restrict music or “good” stuff. He has a school laptop for school work, so doesn’t really use the phone for school.

Is it though? On a school day he doesn't have much time before school and he shouldn't be on it during school. Then there's homework and sports clubs and talking to your family around the dinner table, all of which should take precedence over being on the phone. There really aren't many more than four spare hours in a day after that anyway.

Which just goes to show what a horrible distraction they are for kids whose parents don't limit their usage like the OP. If they are spending much more than four solid hours a day on their phones then they aren't paying enough attention to everything else.

Have you had a good look on it to see what he’s been using it for? Anything concerning, would take a different approach. Just to access more internet/social media? Consequences for lying and then a chat about the rules and safety and try to find a compromise .

In the home, he's presumably on wifi so work out with your provider what can be done to limit wifi to allowed devices. No wifi he can have 100 phones and none of them will work, unless there is a SIM card and he is using data. SIMs with data means a contract, which is harder to get at 14.

I’m in bed ill today with not much else to do. You’ll be pleased to hear I haven’t spent a solid 4 hours on this thread, just hopped on and off as it suited me and I’ve also been reading a (nonfiction) book.
Anyway you’re derailing, the original point which still stands is that addiction to social media is not remotely comparable to “addiction” to reading, and reading doesn’t come with the other aforementioned downsides of social media.

yes. you are being very restrictive.

I understand having a time cap on socials and blocking dodgy websites, but surely he should be able to listen to music etc as he pleases

Spotify doesnt count towards the time allowed if the screen is locked whilst playing.

A burner phone is a phone you give to someone in authority in place of your actual phone because you don't want the information on your actual phone compromised.

Or a phone you are willing to dispose of quickly if it becomes compromised.

Hence the name "burner". You're willing to lose it or literally "burn it" because losing it has no consequence for you.

I don't know what the name for this phone is, "shadow phone" or "covert phone" is probably more appropriate than "burner phone".

Ultimately although you can probably take simple steps to block it in the house and stop the use of it on your home network, it would be harder to stop it being used on wifi networks out of your control - ie public networks.

So you could probably irritate him but not stop him completely from using it without physicially taking it away.

DS15 has 45 minutes a day! He can request extensions though. Texting and email are unrestricted but they switch off at night, except for texting family. Newspapers are unrestricted too.

He actually agrees with this and says he wouldn’t give his own kids phones until his age.

Snap is in theory for communication with friends, but there are those brain-rotting short videos on there now.

No-one needs TikTok.

4 hours a day on a school day is restrictive, you have to be kidding.

I’m so surprised at the majority of cinema saying you’re too strict with controls on social media and time. 4 hours a day is more than enough. It’s pretty obvious that social media is doing harm to our teens yet most people think an hour a day in tik tok is not enough?! He finishes school about 4 I imagine so where would he fit in time for longer?

He does sport at school and is on the school team. He plays a musical instrument and practices without prompting.

I felt I was reasonable with screen time but appreciate that music and general stuff is all clocking up usage as opposed to just social media.

I am not concerned about county lines.