14 yr old DS bought Smartphone..How do we Nip it in the Bud?

champion

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 4:19 am

The bud has blossomed long long ago.
Op- your post is all about the symptoms. The fruit hanging from the tree.
You must go now and figure out where the roots are.
You need to figure out what is really going on with this poor neshama.
Freaking out over every new discovery you make will be counter productive. Sadly, there will probably be more.
And pretending all is fine and that we JUST need to get this phone tagged is called brushing the problem under the carpet.

myname1

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 5:44 am

I don't know, if his friends and counselors have phones with texting, why is it so crazy for him to want that, too? Look at the people he is emulating- if being like them is a problem for you, then why are those the guys he's around? He seems to need their support and acceptance right now, so he's gone and figured out a way to get it. Maybe look into what acceptable in his peer group and draw lines based on that. And if that's a problem for you, you've got to change his surroundings (maybe by boarding or something).

FranticFrummie

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 9:16 am

amother wrote:

I have a warm relationship with DS. He told me a lot of things - but not everything. There are things he admits to me but some things not.
My dh has a bit of a rocky relationship with him. He will yell and break his "toys" to teach him a lesson. Then ds would only hate him for it. Obviously that doesn't help much.
As far as paying somebody to help. I absolutely would.

Did nobody else notice this? I think this is your problem right here. You have to fix the parents before you fix the kid. One leads to the other, like dominoes falling.

amother

Ecru

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 9:31 am

amother wrote:

I can tell you what Avi Fishoff would say. Hed say your husband is the problem. And another reason you have to love him and spoil him ten times as much to compensate.

Fishoff might also say that your son has undergone or is undergoing some sort of trauma somewhere (abuse/molestation, or something that is making him feel worthless and helpless). Because Fishoff says most healthy kids with normal lives dont want to cause their parents heartache.

amother

Olive

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 9:31 am

Good Morning.
If I saw my son have a smartphone I would not stop him from owning it. At least he is see through with you. The worst thing to do is attack him and take it away from him.
By letting him be, you will still have his trust in you and children that have trust in parents will trust in their decisions with whatever they decide.

amother

Olive

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 9:36 am

Regarding the relationship between you dh and ds. I would say that he should stay away from your husband.
I also had a bad relationship with my father somehow I always was pressing his buttons and I would always make him tick (he also broke my speakers- he ripped the wires. out of anger)and then I realized it was his issue not mine but the ironic thing was that he was nice to everyone else including my other siblings. I went to therapy and I learn to deal with it. until your son goes to therapy he should just stay away from your husband that's all.

amother

Linen

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 10:15 am

Health is a Virture wrote:

what about helping him get the phone TAGged? He can even be the one to decide what to include and what not to. I mean discuss it with him like a mature adult. In the conversation, make it sound like of course he is a reasonable kid and would never want to go onto sites where there is s-xual tayvos, chat rooms etc

So far his interests are producing music and songs for camp. I saw no indication of anything of s*xual nature. He's still on a child level.
Of course all that could change in one click... shock

I 'm not sure he has a phone in camp. He left an ipod touch at home - gave it to me to hold on. There we found evidence of Netflix and texting.
So far nothing devastating...all childish... but it is a dangerous situation... He is just one click away....
He's better off not having any smartphone or ipod...

amother

Lawngreen

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 10:24 am

Yeah but he's got a phone now, take it away and t becomes forbidden fruit, you're better off working WITH him to keep him safe, don't parent from fear, IME it almost always leads to bad decisions

marina

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 12:18 pm

I got this for my kids:

https://meetcircle.com/

It is a device that connects to your wifi and from an app on your phone, you control every single wifi device in your house separately.

My 11 and 13 year old have phones/ipads and this Circle device:

* turns off the phone completely at bed time
* regulates how much netflix /snapchat/instagram/any app they can have per day. When they reach their limit, that program stops working and I get a text message.
* filters content according to the age limits I set up
* allows me to pause the internet just on that phone and I use this when they are having a tantrum it works phenomenally well.
* allows me to create off times for doing homework and clean up
* allows me to reward them with extra time
* automatically locks onto every device that enters the home, like their friends, and sends me a message about it.

It works well for me.

amother

Slategray

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 3:35 pm

Op, I find your attitude to be panicky for no reason.
I was the daughter of parents similar to you, who did not allow me to have a phone back when some friends did (I would have paid with my own money). So I went behind their back and got a phone they didn't know about. I texted guys and even spent the night with a complete stranger (male) whom I had texted. Thank goodness nothing happened!
I was so naive. Had my parents a) allowed me to use the phone in front of them, without having to hide it b) taught me about safety when texting/emailing (this is well before most of social media; Facebook was just getting popular)
I would have been much better off.

Bottom line- trust your son (unless he gives you a reason not to, but don't search for reasons). Let him have the phone (if finances are an issue, pay for it)- filtered, of course. It'll be better for everyone this way.
There's no way in the world you can prevent him from finding a phone; if you don't allow it, he'll just continue behind your back. Better that it should be out in the open.

MagentaYenta

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 4:33 pm

amother wrote:

Does your son work? Where is he getting the money for this? Don't you need a CC for Netflix?

You can authorize a number of people (3?) to share your Netflix account. Ergo he may not need a CC. But then again if he has enough money to vape and buy a smart phone he could be buying a pay as you go CC.

imasoftov

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 5:38 pm

amother wrote:

But does OP's son want to cause his parents heartache?

amother

Peach

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 10:50 pm

OP- If you live in Lakewood, Regesh hotline was extremely helpful to us. In our case the yeshiva found out before we did. Not pretty.

If your son is into stuff (and I don't mean family movies) he needs to see a competent therapist. There are professionals who are in the field as a calling and professionals who do it for the money. Its very hard to differentiate. Do research before you go to anyone. A bad therapist can ruin your life.

If he is in camp, a tech guy can look at the device more thoroughly than you can and tell you how far he has gone.

We (as in DS included) are very happy with the therapist he is seeing and feel that he is well on the way to recovery.

amother

Linen

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 11:16 pm

Thanks for your feedback.
We live in Brooklyn. We already had a bad experience with a therapist who took tons of money and didn't help one drop. So yes I am wary of charlatans.
As for a tech guy, I did have one look through his ipod. Not worse than I thought. But it's still just one click away...

amother

Pearl

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 12:05 am

Why all the hysteria, OP?

It seems like your son is doing normal, healthy teen things.

And you yourself are on the internet so you can't really think it's all that terrible, can you?

amother

Honeydew

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 1:20 am

amother wrote:

Is your internet filtered? Can you tag his phone? You can speak to him about using internet safely but it doesn't hurt to put these extra precautions in place. It sounds like there is more going on here than the phone... good luck.

gp2.0

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 1:40 am

You don't "nip this in the bud."

You calmly discuss that the internet can be a bad place. You mention your concerns about internet safety. Then you applaud your son for making safe choices on the internet so far, and trust him to do so in the future.

You express disappointment that he couldn't trust you, that he felt he had to do this in secret behind your back. You emphasize that even though you might disagree with his decisions, as long as they are not hurting him or anyone else you will trust in his good judgement.

You commend him for the smarts and patience to save up money to buy the phone.

You shower him with love and affection and trust, and let go of the idea that you can control him. You can't.

Let go of the fear, replace it with acceptance and love, and everything will be ok. Don't judge him on what he might possibly do in the future. Love him for what he's already done - being smart, being proactive, being responsible, being safe, making good choices.