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?

Its really hard to get right.
We have gone for unrestricted phone access except at night when he goes to bed its handed over until morning and out of his room.
Phone checks are given at any moment, so we will ask to check through at random times.
We also have a policy whereby if there is any findings of things not allowed, cyber bullying, innapropriate messages, porn etc then there will be serious consequences. We haven't had any major issues so far.
We also talk reguarly about online dangers, online bullying and stuff like that. We also have location tracker as he rides his bike a lot and we need to know he is safe and where he is if he is doing long rides on the roads or in the woods with friends *we have trails nearby us that they do.
He has unrestricted social media acccess.
But.. he is just not bothered about his phone. He watches tiktok a little but mainly for background noise if gaming, and uses messaging to organise stuff with friends. He has an old iphone 11 and isnt bothered about an upgrade. He doesnt use instagram. He is on snap but uses it as a messaging service like whatsapp. Hes not on it reguarly.
I think this is working for us, but he is a sporty kid who also loves e sports and gaming and his phone isnt his main source of entertainment.
We havent made it a big deal but based it on trust rather than rules. With an ethos of if you break the trust then we wil come down hard. Ie grounded, phone, tv and games consoles taken away if trust is broken on one thing then they all go.
I did set up age restrictions on tiktok but tbh they can remove these pretty easily by unistalling and resintalling and some other tricks. But I do check this reguarly to make sure it is in place. But he removed it once and we then grounded him. He didnt do it again.
Editing to add that he does do two things reguarly on his phone, he plays a gmae called clash of clans and one called block blast. Be also does his homework in his phone sometimes as his english reading is on an e reader platfotm so he does that and his homework app and timetable is on his phone too. So these are probably the main things he does on it.

I cannot believe I am reading people saying 4 hours is restrictive and complaining about the 1 hour limit on tik tok.
Phones are no good for anyone, let alone children. As adults people struggle to regulate themselves, destroy relationships and help addictions grow.
Yes, they are a necessary evil but if adults struggle to regulate and with mental health how on earth can children manage.
Ive taught for 20+ years and see the damage phones do on children's concentration and enjoyment of life.
Then add in the safeguarding. Every day we have safeguarding issues at school, most parents are clueless about what their children are accessing, who they are talking to etc. It is frightening.

The restruction has not caused these issues. All children mature differently and clearly this child is not mature enough to be trusted. OP you have done your best here dont beat yourself up. The phone has to go. He has betrayed your trust and there has to be consequences for this and trust earned back. You need go safeguarding him, he is a child.

Please do some thorough investigations on this burner phone, it screams county lines to me. Where has it come from?

My children will not have social media. I dont care how much they moan (i have a 12 year old at present, nearly 13) her phone has whatsapp (family close friends only) no group chats, Spotify for her music and 1 game.
She is missing out on nothing, has lovely friends, is social, does very well at school , she needs nothing else.

This excalty

limit apps if need be so an hour on stuff if feel on something too much

but 4hrs for everything didn’t seem a lot with revision /google and music

Also, those parents letting their children use Snapchat, with the disappearing messages and stories you cannot monitor what is being sent/arranged/swapped/carried/exchanged.....the things I have been willingly shown at school is frightening. Random phone checks wont reveal all.

There's obviously issues with phone usage but you can't restrict them forever and at some point they have to live in a world with mobile phones and no parents to restrict the use. My main concern would be county lines if they've got a burner phone, which is a massive concern really so need to get to the bottom of how he got a burner and it's use. Also what he's up to when out of the house (which can't be restricted by clicking on an app.) Where abouts do you live? Does your son go on lots of train journeys etc? Any other concerns?

OK, so I used it as an extreme example because I couldn't be bothered to write a lot of different things down. But teens do use their phones do to homework and revision or use educational apps, some like DuoLingo, my DC listened to audiobooks of the English Lit course books. The trouble with imposing a blanket restriction is that you don't distinguish between "good" screen use and "bad" screen use.

You're dangerously generous. Nobody needs tie Tok, especially not 14 year old boys

You should be forcing a complete month off of all electronic devices, the whole household, you included. Even TV. I really mean it.

Mine, too.

And I've double checked it there - Spotify does not count against screen time unless you have the App active and open. So once screen is locked eg walking to school etc. it counts as no time...! Seems like lots didn't know this.

You do NOT have to live in a world with smart phones. You just don't.

The damage is very very clear, it's destroying us, adults as well, especially even. The inability to turn off and get away is destroying our well being. It's not anxious teenagers, it's anxious people, full stop. You can opt out. You should s

Contact his schools DSL's.

This is a huge county lines related red flag.

OP is counting it as screen time though. I suspect she is considering the amount of time her DC has his phone rather than looking at the phone's usage stats.

Why does your child have such restrictions on his phone?
What is he doing while he is not on his phone?
I think the bigger question here is what is he doing when he isn't using his phone or at school and how positive and fulfilling are these things? My son can easily spend all evening chatting to his mates on What's App. Are there reasons why you don't want him to do this? Are there more positive things that he does? Hobbies that he is into? What does his life look like other than his phone time?

OP - your restrictions are for you to decide. I'm not going to comment on whether I think they are under or over restrictive.

It's far more important that you establish the provenance and purpose of the burner phone. You can only do this by taking the phone and demanding that he unlocks it in front of you.

Once its open, you need to check for apps like Telegram as well as snapchat and all the usual messaging and make sure that they are just between him and his known friends. If you see anything that suggests he is involved in selling/transporting anything (which will not be referred to as drugs but might be called product/pizza/frankly anything), you need to assume he is caught up in something illegal and take action based on that.

I would also check browsing history just to be sure he isn't accessing porn or any other sites that might be dangerous or damaging.

I'm not entering a screen time debate my friend. I'm simply suggesting that watching Snapchat wouldn't be my main concern here.
It would be county lines which is a massive immediate problem if this is how and why a 14 year old has a burner phone. Something overlooked on this thread apart from a few mentions up thread, parent how you like/ allow/ restrict as much as you want however a 14 year old with a burner phone indicates something else!

I'm actually quite shocked by the number of people saying OP has been too restrictive!

Surely the move now is to reduce phone time for pre16s as much as possible (eg Australia banning social media accounts for under 16s) ?

Having worked in a boys' senior school, I know a huge amount of phone usage consisted of gaming, porn and watching countless short videos.
We know how damaging all of that is for young minds.
I think OP is doing the right thing by trying to restrict her DS's use.

And that's without thinking about what he's using the burner phone for!

Including the op

Check the phone thoroughly including for potentially hidden apps but it may just be that he’s got it for extra screen time because he feels you’re too strict and won’t negotiate.

I’d say though that on the whole this is the age where you generally start treating them that little bit more like adults and allow them to start learning to regulate themselves. I always say to mine that I trust them implicitly until they give me reason not to. Your situation is more complicated now because you’ve been restrictive and he has gone behind your back so the trust is compromised on both sides.

Teens can make stupid decisions and they need supervision but I don’t go down the route of restricting phone time etc. They have to leave their phones downstairs on charge when they go to bed but aside from that I let them get on with it. They have full and busy real lives so I’m not concerned they will become screen zombies any time soon and I work in a sector where I very much know what to look for and keep a watchful eye. I know their friends, I know where they are and what they’re doing and I’m confident they aren’t vulnerable to certain influences.

Social media full stop is causing the anxiety and huge mental health issues we see everywhere, children, teens, adults.

WE HAVE TO STOP THIS

There is no safe amount of social media

Get off mumsnet then and lead by example?

When my son was that age he said a lot of his friends had burner phones to get around parental restrictions so I wouldn’t necessarily jump to conclusions about county lines.

The OP is using the phrase burner phone. It's not an actual burner phone, it's just one he has that has no restrictions on it.

There is no safe amount of screen time. The child is clearly badly addicted and needs to step away as much as an alcoholic does.

Given it took you less than sixty seconds to respond I know you are not engaging in this properly.

Children are anxious

Adults are anxious

it's all happened in the last 10-15 years

It's the damned phones.

It's not just kids. it's not just social media, it's the small black anxiety mirrors in everyone's pocket.

We restrict phone use.

We stepped back many restrictions when DC turned 16. It is still supposed to be downstairs overnight but I think it goes to bed with them so I've locked it overnight again.

We've also just had the police turn up because they are involved in sextortion on snap.

I am scared.

DC2 is never having snap.

The current evidence is suggesting that the kids growing up now will be the first generation to not be cognitively more advanced than their parents.
Dozens of kids are starting school with huge developmental delays, limited time motor skills. I'm really coming to the conclusion that screens are generally bad.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/feb/16/dr-rangan-chatterjee-interview-screen-time-mental-health-banning-social-media-18-podcaster

V glad our secondary school don't rely on teens on phones for homework etc. (Ireland).
Again I say, we all know how easy it is to waste our time online, with our fully developed brains. Is this really the best we can aim for for our teens?
OP you haven't been restrictive at all. It's mad to me to think that op sets reasonable boundaries, teen complains, teen breaks the limits and posters say ah you were too restrictive 😆 What has happened?