What guidelines to put in place for teen getting a phone?

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Forum -> Parenting our children -> Teenagers and Older children

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amother

Fri, May 03 2024, 12:14 am

What guidelines/expectations would you put in place for a 14 yr old girl getting a phone?

we live out of town and everyone else has phones.

amother

Mon, May 06 2024, 9:50 am

anyone?

thinking of implementing that by 11pm phone only in main area of house and stays there for the night.
I can see her playing with it till crazy hours.

mommyisbest

Mon, May 06 2024, 10:07 am

Reach out to TAG

amother

Ghostwhite

Mon, May 06 2024, 10:07 am

Following, I'm in similar situation.

Not everyone has where I live, but it's growing, & my DC has an expectation to be getting one soon. I was hoping could wait until they have driver's license, but the expectation is just going to grow over the years for our kids.

I'm considering a no picture phone too, only calls & texts.

amother

Mon, May 06 2024, 10:15 am

amother Ghostwhite wrote:

where can you get that?

singleagain

Mon, May 06 2024, 10:19 am

May I suggest.. location sharing. And insist on parental controls.. perhaps you have the password to app store/ also check out the digital wellness options... Perhaps other apps might have passwords?

amother

Stoneblue

Mon, May 06 2024, 10:25 am

When my older kids first got phones (a number of years ago) I got them a prepaid plan with 500 minutes and 500 texts. That way they could talk and text but in moderation (inane texting conversations like "What's up?"--"I'm bored"--"what page are you up to in the book?" would have used up the texting quota too fast). I don't know if there are still plans like this available....

amother

Daffodil

Mon, May 06 2024, 10:38 am

Phone stays in the kitchen overnight, not in her room.
Parents can and will occasionally skim through her phone.
Put a filter such as kaspersky safe kids that sends you a report of every site visited, if its a smartphone.

amother

Slategray

Mon, May 06 2024, 10:46 am

I would lock out the phone by 9pm
and make sure it's in your bedroom for charging.
Definitely filters etc, obviously.

amother

Whitesmoke

Mon, May 06 2024, 10:56 am

I can manage everything on my teenager's phone using Family Link. She cannot add any apps without permission. I can see her location anytime I want to. I can theoretically limit her usage of the phone in general or by particular app, although I don't actually do this in practice. We talk a lot about responsible phone usage and give her a certain amount of trust because she has earned it. I do have all the passwords if I need to check anything, but it's been a few years already and we haven't had any issues. The most important rule is that the phone must charge in the kitchen overnight.

amother

Ghostwhite

Mon, May 06 2024, 11:10 am

amother OP wrote:

where can you get that?

I'm actually not sure, I just assumed there was such a thing. A bare bones flip phone, does that not exist?

Def not looking into a smart phone (They understand that that's an option for themselves to decide when they're an adult with their own money. At least for now that's not an expectation).

(Just as a side note, I'm assuming can work on a smartphone but we use this on our computer, a great parental monitoring /control program. We use this in conjunction with the computer being in offline mode, going online is only with a parent:
https://www.qustodio.com/en/pr.....rce=1

Hashem_Yaazor

Mon, May 06 2024, 4:41 pm

11:00 charge in kitchen
I had a plan with no data so pictures didn't go through for my daughter but I just switched her last month to have a drop of data because she couldn't get group text either

amother

Wed, May 08 2024, 11:03 pm

Is it fair to have a condition that parent can occasionally look through texts/pics? There a specific reason for concern.

amother

Carnation

Wed, May 08 2024, 11:21 pm

Our rules for our teens:

The phone is a privilege. We have the right to restrict its use at any time (I.e. take it away).

Phone usage stops at 9 PM. At this time phone is charged in common area. NOT bedrooms.

We have password to every kids phone. They understand that we have potentially have access. No expectation of full privacy.

Only approved Apps on phone and internet filter.

Hashem_Yaazor

Wed, May 08 2024, 11:27 pm

amother OP wrote:

Is it fair to have a condition that parent can occasionally look through texts/pics? There a specific reason for concern.

Absolutely
Though they might delete

amother

Purple

Wed, May 08 2024, 11:49 pm

I have a 14 yr old daughter, and I got her a smartphone this year because everyone has one.

1) Family link is very good for teens who aren't exploring their phone looking for loopholes. (My daughter does not but my 15 yr old son does, and he found a way to get online even though I had blocked all browsers.)

2) I trusted my daughter to use her phone wisely because she's very mature. I didn't put any time limits. It was a mistake! Please institute a time that the phone goes off at night right away because doing it after a few months is not ideal.

3) No data. She does not need to be glued to her phone while walking down the street. It's not even safe.

4) Had I had a choice I would have never agreed to whatsapp. There are other chat apps that don't have status updates, hidden chats from parents, channels, etc.

5) I try to present the phone as a privilege rather than a right. A privilege can be taken away if necessary.
Also that a phone is a tool to do good things with. It is not an amusement park where we get as many fun apps as possible so we can spend the day there. It's a tool. The apps we have reflect what we need the phone for. I don't allow games for my younger teens, full stop.

6) Camera use by teens is so out of hand. The stories I've heard...
My rule is a) no sharing pictures of younger siblings online b) you may only take a picture of someone with that person's permission. No surprise snapping or videoing.

7) I check my teens' phones without going into their personal things. I'm not reading their messages or emails. I do check their pictures and I tell them a day in advance to delete anything they know I wouldn't like.

Hope that helps.

seeker

Thu, May 09 2024, 12:42 am

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

11:00 charge in kitchen
I had a plan with no data so pictures didn't go through for my daughter but I just switched her last month to have a drop of data because she couldn't get group text either

Do you have a no data plan to recommend? Shopping for a new one. I thought I had talk and text only on tracfone but even though I didn't change anything, they started getting pictures. They've gotten a couple of spam texts somehow and I hate the thought that someone could send inappropriate pictures as well.

GLUE

Thu, May 09 2024, 1:05 am

seeker wrote:

I got my daughter this phone it has no camera and can only get limited photo's by a USB cord. We used it with Tello
https://www.amazon.com/Easyfon.....DRDL7

It has a SOS button on top so you might what to disable it.

amother

Chambray

Thu, May 09 2024, 1:13 am

I didn’t read responses yet but I have to chime in -
Dr Becky (good inside) has a podcast on what to do if you have your teen a phone and you see it’s not going great.

I wish it had a list of rules to implement from the beginning but it’s still an important listen.

(Also she mentions taking the phone away at 9 pm every night - not as rule, just that’s the example she gave).

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, May 09 2024, 7:29 am

seeker wrote:

Maybe no data isn't fool proof? I used Tello and I don't think it happened to my daughter in the 8 months she had no data.

I also have a family cell phone that has no texting at all through the TAG filter so it's calls only.

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