re: O-T Parents of Teens: do you check your kids’ phones?

I have a 15-year-old daughter as well. Really sweet, well-behaved kid, earns the highest academic honors, volunteers, strong athlete, student leader, etc., etc. Honestly never given us a minute of serious trouble.

We still check her phone. There’s no regular schedule for it; the deal is that if something’s going on or even if we just randomly ask for it, she hands it over. So far she’s never hesitated or acted pissy about it, although once she felt the need to apologize for some of her friends using garden-variety profanity in texts. Ghost apps, explicit stuff, contact with strangers — anything that’s potentially life-altering — those are automatic dealbreakers. She knows Mom and Dad don’t play.

We’ve never found anything, but that’s no reason to get complacent. For one thing, she’s only 15, and every kid that age is bound to make a dumb decision at some point. Besides that, apps and interfaces are changing so quickly that it’s hard for the average person to recognize all the potential pitfalls and consequences of what they’re doing online, and there are all manner of predators willing to exploit that ignorance. IMO, there’s no excuse for leaving young teenagers to fend for themselves in an environment where even grown adults often struggle to protect themselves and their private lives. Kids, even “good” ones, are sitting ducks.

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We’ve never found anything

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Bolded the important word

I have a 20 month old daughter. I can only wonder what the hell kind of technology she will have access to 15 years from now. Educate them early, have a strong relationship with them and monitor and discipline appropriately is all you can do. I’m glad she will have an older brother the grade ahead of her who is going to be about 6’4 260 to help manage the goons who will be propositioning her

yes I do

I told him when I bought the phone for him that at any time or day, I can and will look through your phone.
I tell him to give his phone, look through it and then give it back.
I also question him when he has deleted text messages/ browsing history/ etc

I mean you should be able to check the phone no questions asked but don't kid yourself when it comes to what you find or don't find.

Your daughter is very tech savvy and there are countless ways for teens to stay one step ahead of their watchers.

And when you start checking, she will just get better at hiding if she has something to hide.

But everyone slips up so you should still check.

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Whew, good thing you highlighted that. Otherwise I might have completely forgotten that I wrote the second half of that sentence (i.e., “...but we don’t use that as an excuse to get complacent.”). It’s too bad you missed bolding the bit about how we scour for ghost apps and the like, and didn’t think to remind me that she’s not on a separate cellular account that doesn’t allow us to monitor her downloads or set parental controls. I didn’t specifically write that last part out, though, so I can understand how you would naturally assume that our 15-year-old manages and pays for her own utilities.

But no worries; I’m old and clearly not so good at all this online stuff either. Like I still can’t even figure out if a person on a message board truncates a quote to falsely create a flaw in an argument while adding absolutely nothing constructive to the debate, is that pure assholery or just a bush-league troll attempt?

Thank goodness I have highlighting helpers and a 15-year-old daughter to clear these things up for me!

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You wrote all of this to sound smart, and your 15 year old daughter is still sending nudes to the boy in the next trailer down behind your back.

www.qustodio.com Best Parental Control Software out there....

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My kids are 25 and 22.

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I should have checked their phones a lot more.

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MBclass83

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Dad?

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They are too young to learn this real world lesson.

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sounds like they've learned it quite well