Son upset we are saying no

amother

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 3:09 am

imaima wrote:

Sounds like you want to be able to manipulate him better.

It is a better chinuch to be open with him, say no and talk every situation through instead of avoiding any tension.

you're right, can you help me with the dialogue?

he'll hear out my concerns and then tll me not to worry it wont happen.

then what do I say?

I don't trust you?

he'll be so hurt

thats why I've been going with " its not a necessity yet, most boys your age don't have,you'll have when you gt older."

also true, not hurtful.

Mayflower

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 3:26 am

amother OP wrote:

I think you are misunderstanding a few things:

Most of his friends do not have their own phones. Its normal to call, speak to a parent/ sibling and ask for your friend.

He doesn't need a phone to have a social life he has one without it, he wants a phone to feel cooler.
He loves spending time with us. We have fun together, my husband does tons of fun things with him and he enjoys our time together.
He spends way more time with his friends than with us. We just want a certain amount of time with him a day, thats all - maybe 30,40 minutes of just being home.

nothing weird or excessive - he's happy to be with us. He would just foolishly chose a friend if one happened to call even if he made plans with my husband; thats why let's say if he and my husband are going our for a run together, and my son is super excited about, and I see his friend call I'll pick up and say, hi Chaim, ____ is busy now call back later.

Thats what I mean by gatekeeping, thats all.

if I'd give him the phone he's talk to his friend and likely chose him over my husband which is so chaval for him, because he loves their time together.

If he really loves spending time with you so much, he will make the right decision.

Also, if it's just about 30-40 minutes per day, you can very easily make a rule. For example: when your husband comes home, for 1 hour he puts his phone away (and you put your phones away as well) so you can spend time as a family. You'll have to enforce it for about a week and then it'll be a habit. No biggie.

You can also make a rule about not cancelling on plans. So if he's about to go for a walk with your DH and someone calls, he can pick up and say he'll can't meet up right now but will call him back after his walk. The same as what he would if someone came knocking on the door. I have a 14yo and a 12yo and they know that if we made plans together, they can't change them without discussing it with us first. That's just proper manners, nothing to do with a phone.

WhatFor

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 3:37 am

amother OP wrote:

Your son is 12. You didn't mention that he has ADHD or any other developmental issue that puts his developmental skill sets at a lower level, so I'm going to assume that he has at least average competencies of a 12 yo boy.

What you would like him to do here - to put his commitments ahead of a friend who randomly calls- that's a wonderful skill for him to learn. But gaining these skills are like growing muscles: he needs to exercise them to develop them. By choosing to be the person who decides and vets his calls, you're taking these growing opportunities away from him. You want him to be a fully developed, independent adult at the end of the day, but how will he develop this area of prioritizing social obligations if you take that power away?

He's definitely not too young to start training in this area. Wait too long, you won't have any control over him or any ability to train him in this. And by the way, that losing control thing can happen imminently, at any point. Once he decides he doesn't need your input, he could be sneaking phones around, or totally rebelling and openly not listening to a single thing you say. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how early this can start.

Right now, it seems you still have the ability to teach him in this area. Tell him he's getting older and you trust him to use it properly. When he messes up and puts a friend first, that's the time that your DH can "ahem" and tap his watch, and/or have a candid (not yelling) conversation with him about how your DH felt very bad to be sitting there, waiting, staring into the abyss while he spoke to his friend for ten minutes. Your DH (or you, when it happens to you) can say that it was normal for him to not think because nobody told him, but it's socially inappropriate to keep company waiting while on the phone. The conversation can go into how he feels when he's hanging with someone and they suddenly start ignoring him and going on the phone.

More importantly for his skills, how can he address it next time? Will he not pick up? Answer to say he'll call them back? If so, how will he respond when they try to schlep out the conversation? Is it better to send to voicemail and have a standard response about being busy and he'll call them later? All these are things you can discuss with him, and let him decide - this is part of how he learns to take responsibility. You can even do a funny role-play where you call when he's with DH, and put on a silly boy's voice, pretend you're one of his friends, and let him decide what he wants to do. (Let him know in advance, so he'll be prepared.) And before anyone says he's too old for that, at work, we adults do development trainings all the time where we role-play situations when developing certain skills. It's a great way to learn and put things into practice.

On top of learning responsibility, it's also a tremendous opportunity for him to tune into other people's feelings and emotions, like the person sitting in front of him, and develop consideration.

This really is an opportunity for as long as you have the ability to talk to him about this. There are far too many men whose mommies babied them until too late in life, I have no doubt with the best of intentions, and they never learned these skills. No one prefers a friend or DH who doesn't have these skills. Please teach this to him, because you won't always be around to confiscate his phone, so he needs to know how to put it down himself.

Lizzie4

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 4:00 am

If 50% of his class had a phone, I would say def get him one.

What are school rules?

This is why it's a good idea to have a Rov you can consult. Put the decision in the hands of a Rav. Say to your son, I don't want to get you a phone but we will ask Rav ___ and go with his Psak

amother

NeonYellow

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 4:03 am

I think you should be getting advice on this exclusively from your circles within the area you live in. Those of us outside will not be able to properly weigh in on this. Its very different in other places. There is no way I can understand the context. The only parenting part that sticks out to me is you should always tell him his messages from phone calls.

amother

Denim

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 4:05 am

I don't think a 12 year old should be forced to have family time over friend time if it's not their preference. You want him to be naturally happy to come home of his own accord, otherwise... well, eventually he won't, phone or not. What are your rules about him going out with friends in general? Why should they change just because he is being phoned on his phone vs. yours?

I know a few large families where they can't afford a phone for every child so they have a kids phone. The children can receive any phone call they want, whoever goes out takes it with them, but the phone belongs at home otherwise and is for shared use. It's harder with an oldest (am I jumping to conclusions here?) but can also be done if there is one underneath who would make use of it occasionally or receive phone calls from friends. That could potentially be a good compromise. His friends will think of him as having a phone, but without him having total ownership over it.

imaima

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 4:48 am

amother OP wrote:

I mean a case by case dialogue. Like I will give you examples from my life:
Like, imagine he has a phone and a friend invites him over on a random day. You would love for him to hang out with his siblings and have a „family time“ but you are actually busy with your own stuff.
There is no reason here to insist on family time in this case.

Another case: You need to cook for yom tov so you need your son to play with his siblings. He is invited to a friend. This is your chance to explain to him how family life works and that he will benefit from staying at home.

Another case: your dh and you want to takw the family out for a special occasion and there is one day that will work for you. In the morning before that his friends decide to have a bbq. You have to respectfully point iz out to him that it is a special occasion that doesn’t come up every day and since you have allowed almost every interaction with friends prior to that, your son is capable of giving in this one time.

amother

Gold

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 4:54 am

In my world 12 year old don’t have phones until they go to learn in EY at 19-20 yrs old.

Iymnok

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 4:55 am

My son is 12. I prefer when he has a phone on him when he's out and around the neighborhood. He takes DH's kosher phone. Since it's the one listed for DH in the phone book, people call for him and he needs to pass on messages.
Whenever there is a group of boys together in the after school hours, there are always a few phones. So they *can* let their parents know where they are.
Hell most likely get his own when he goes to yeshiva ketana/mechina.

ora_43

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 4:58 am

If only 25%-30% of his class has phones, I think you're OK to keep saying 'no' for a while.

There is no magic way to make him not be upset about it. If the whining is really out of hand you can treat it like any other discipline issue, ie, tell him to cut it out or there will be consequences. But if it's just occasional preteen whining, count yourself lucky and work on tuning it out.

That said I think WhatFor makes an excellent point:

WhatFor wrote:

What you would like him to do here - to put his commitments ahead of a friend who randomly calls- that's a wonderful skill for him to learn. But gaining these skills are like growing muscles: he needs to exercise them to develop them.

The whole family time vs friends time thing needs to transition from something you decide to a dialogue between the two of you sometime in the near future. Because when he's 14-15, these are decisions he'll be making for himself. So he does need a chance to start building the skills to do that.

That doesn't mean you let him decide everything and make all his own mistakes and wake up at age 30 wondering where his relationship with his parents went. You can still have rules - no phones at the dinner table, no phones after (whenever), a minimum of 3 evenings at home, whatever. But do pass on his messages and do let him start being the one to say 'no' to his friends sometimes.

JMHO.

amother

Darkblue

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 4:58 am

amother NeonYellow wrote:

Thinking the same. My 16 year old son doesn't have a phone. Many of his friends do, but a large percentage of the Bochurim come in from out of town, necessitating one. He's a 'day boy' along with a few school friends and sees no need. If he would ask me for one, I'd have no problem.

My 14 yo son on the other hand, I would not allow him to have a phone. None of his friends have one, there's a clear school rule against it. It's never come up.

So yes, better you ask advice from those in your community who know the norms locally.

amother

Forestgreen

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 5:04 am

I live in EY too so it’s a different environment than the USA with kids and kosher phones.

I think if the reason is you’re too tired to set boundaries, then him having a phone isn’t a problem.

We gave my dd this age one this year. She has rules. It doesn’t go into her room. It’s not out at certain times. And we enforce it. She knows that if she doesn’t listen, she’ll lose the phone. If she begs for more hours, we consistently say no. We agreed on X and we expect X. If you show us you can be responsible and listen to our rules, then privileges expand as you get older. She knows how serious we are and responds in kind. As a result, she doesn’t ask for more. She knows we fully trust her.

He’s growing up, we can’t hold onto them forever. It’s not healthy for them and it breads resentment.

I’m not saying get one, I’m saying that he likely feels controlled. Tweens don’t like feeling controlled. You need to address it. How you address it and what privileges you’ll give him, you need to decide.

amother

Honeydew

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 5:51 am

Op, stick to your guns! All of the research supports you. You are the adult, you are the parent. He is 12. I'm pretty sure you know better. Ignore these ridiculous women on here who sound like 12 year olds themselves. Also, check out books by Leonard Sax and Jonathan Haidt for validation. Never seek advice from this site! Unless you want spoiled, entitled children and then you are stunned when they don't magically become wonderful young adults after indulging them and teaching them to value peer pressure all their childhood and adolescence. I said what I said imamother

WhatFor

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 6:58 am

This whole topic got me thinking, because growing up we didn't either have cell phones, certainly not by age 12. But we all had landlines in our house, and we were able to answer them ourselves and pass on messages from a pretty young age. We could also call our friends and they could call us. And while whomever answered was inevitably "vetting" the caller for us, often the person answering was just us, one of the kids answering our friend's call, or passing on the call to a sibling.

Kids who grow up with no phone and no landline really end up missing out on these basic social interactions. If we were discussing a landline, a mother screening and vetting each call or micromanaging a landline for her 12yo would instantly be seen as overbearing. Similar to that poster who once described how her similarly-aged child wasn't permitted to go into the fridge. It's because we associate cell phones with smart phones and smart phones with a million other things that it sounds more normal that a child doesn't have unfettered access to a cell phone. But do these kids still have access to any type of landline phone?

imaima

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 7:02 am

WhatFor wrote:

Great question

Those also were the says when we played outside for hours with whoever was there. Parents couldn’t possibly check every single interaction.

camp123

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 7:58 am

I would get a landline or a phone that's a family phone. Not specifically his, but not yours either.

amother

Emerald

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 8:08 am

He’s young, if you want to say no theres nothing wrong with that. However your reasonings for wanting to say no are slightly bizarre and dont make any sense.

amother

Arcticblue

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 8:16 am

camp123 wrote:

I would get a landline or a phone that's a family phone. Not specifically his, but not yours either.

we also have a family kosher phone so whoever needs at the time takes if so no one is possessive about it and needs to have their cell on them all day and they know it’s not a toy they can play with it’s open to anyone so my kids know that anyone can see a text or get a phone call at anytime

amother

Topaz

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 8:37 am

OP keep saying no. Trust me, I wish I had given my kids phones when they were older. Once you give, you can't exactly take it away. And they do try to wear down the rules. It becomes more a point of contention once the phone exists, more than a phone that doesn't exist.
From a kosher phone they graduate to other not kosher phones, the wifi at home isn't good enough they want data, they get hotspots, if there's a filter, there's always that friend who knows how to break through it...

If he wants to feel cool, maybe you can buy him something else that he wants that isn't a device. Or maybe you can explain to him that phones don't make us cool. Cool people are people who stand strong against peer pressure.

ShishKabob

Mon, Jul 01 2024, 8:40 am

amother NeonYellow wrote:

This
I'm not sure why op is coming here for guidance.
Op, what does your dh say about this?