Regulating social tweens phone time

[Anonymous]

To be clear, she doesn’t have a phone but she does have access to an iPad at home. Given no boundaries she would be on FaceTime calls with friends during all of her free time. (About 6 different friends from school) She has a sport and another activity and schoolwork so her availability varies but suffice it to say I am unsure about how much restriction here is best. How do you handle this with your child?

[Anonymous]

If everything was done that needed to be done, I had no issues with my daughter spending her free time on the phone with friends at that age. And yes, phone with friends is now FaceTime. She had good grades and was on a club sport so she got a lot of physical activity. I had a certain time she had to be off for the night and didn’t let her sleep with electronics in her room in the tween years.

I remember being in middle school and being on the phone for hours with friends. It’s the same thing.

[Anonymous]

^ I’ll add that they were LOUD. So I knew she was actually on FT talking and not just online in her room.

[Anonymous]

I don’t really count FaceTime calls as screen time for my kids. I let them do that whenever they want as long as homework is done if we don’t have anything else to do. They even do their homework or study on FaceTime a lot. My kid has her sports practice 3 times a week and that takes up most of her afternoons so it’s nice for her to be able to socialize with kids from school.