Reply to Parental controls on teen’s phone

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[quote=Anonymous]This is OP. Thanks so much everyone for chiming in.

DS rejected ‘dumb phone’ offer I made a while ago (a few weeks after his smartphone was taken away). But it is interesting to note that when I searched for a dumb phone without any Internet connection and which would be suitable for older kids/teens (essentially, not bark phone), there was no such device! All basic, non-smart phones that I found came with an Internet connectivity integrated, which means my child would be able to find a Wi-Fi and go to discord, Snapchat, Roblox, etc.

Then, I found att parental controls app, which appears to be a little bit more of a higher level than what comes with Apple software. With a little bit of a discussion here and some more thinking, [b] I will continue keeping an offer on the table that a phone with parental controls can be earned. [/b] We started countdown to the end of Q3 to assess the readiness for the phone. DS seems to be excited about countdown idea as it looks now but keeps begging for no controls.

Yes, I do have my hands full because my marriage is falling apart due to stress from endless arguments, and I already accepted it. 
But that’s all right and I don’t want to derail this thread.

We try to keep DS busy. Examples of after school activities include swimming, math with online tutor (under parent prompts he needs it), and some scouting work; rarely studying/home work. We used to have a study coach for a number of weeks and that stopped with winter holidays. I’m not quite sure if I should restart it as DS keeps complaining that it’s useless.

DS is now also suddenly interested in going to the gym for workouts and weight room. Again, he must’ve seen something on TikTok, however, it took me a lot of talking to persuade him to overcome his fear and go to that weight for the first time with me. I had to keep telling to: Nobody cares how you look - you’re not skinny or short (how main worries); You’re just fine; Everyone just cares about their workout. —It’s always a talk therapy but it’s probably time number 101 or something like that that he agreed to (overcome his social anxiety about the gym and) come out with me; and it’s so strange because I get compliments that he is handsome, so he has nothing to be shy about. But he is a teen of course and the world is probably weird in his eyes and he’s just trying to fit in as if he was always there as a pro. And of course once in the weight room, he was fine and asked me to just stay away from him because he didn’t want to be seen with his mom.

He also likes to play with our dog or he watches TV or starts scrolling through YouTube or finds a way to play on tv, especially if I’m still at work.

He likes to cook (mostly grilling thanks to scouting getaways) or help us cook things he likes (but it took us a while to get them engaged in this).

And so all of his socialization with friends primarily takes place at school or swim or during scouts troop events, and outings.  Initially, it was tough for him without the phone, but given gravity of rules violation, he didn’t even argue when we took it away.

I think I addressed at least most of the comments above. Sorry this is so long because I just dictate… and it flows.
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