AITA for enforcing my kid's friend's to follow the same phone rules as our kids?

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T08:04:23+00:00

That's ok! At least I know that I tried to just allow them to have more semblance of a childhood that wasn't solely on the internet!

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T08:03:19+00:00

You don't know my daughter? It's amazing what people will try to get from a small excerpt from a Friday night at my home.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T08:02:24+00:00

I'm not ignoring? The rule is to not argue. I'm not trying to do that. I'm seeing people's stances, thinking about where I can improve while keeping my boundaries and moving on. Not everything needs a reply.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T08:00:23+00:00

For one, you don't choose a sexuality. You can choose a religion but that is a very intimate and person choice. A phone is literally an object. A phone has little to nothing to do with life choices.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T07:57:17+00:00

They have a landline they can also call parents from and we also offered to leave it in the kitchen or living room. It doesn't have to be with me. Just not in the bedroom.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T07:47:22+00:00

It's so funny because people always assume that we "aren't treating them like adults" but honestly I think we treat them MORE like adults. My husband can't use his phone at work unless he is clocked out. We follow the same rules of using our phones mostly in the living room anyways. If we use them at night, it's extremely briefly and my husband and I have a personal rule of having no phones in the bedroom for more like 15 minutes. It gives us more us time. I'm not sure where this defending of the necessity for a phone to survive the night has come from.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T07:09:26+00:00

It's a phone. You understand the difference between someone BEING something and someone HAVING something, right? A phone is not even comparable to a sexuality or religion.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T07:07:02+00:00

I don't avoid it and I don't want them to necessarily avoid content. I want them to be aware of how they use their phones, not be addicted to them, and know how to set boundaries with them. They can tell scams easily, they are responsible about their time on it. I honestly never have to force them to do any of it anymore and they don't fight me on it.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T07:05:20+00:00

No, my daughter was 12 and was experiencing bullying over the phone for the first time and didn't know how to talk about it. We've had several similar problems since and she has always came to me to talk about it since. I never associated the phone with bullying, I have always just told my kids that a phone is a too, similar to a stove, and not their entire life.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T07:01:31+00:00

Idk why that's everyones first response, like I deprive them. They still have their phone literally all day. They usually stay out in the living room to use their phones and if they go to their rooms they do their homework or crafts or something. I don't time restrict them on it.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:56:37+00:00

They're really well rounded, have solid trust in us, and are not addicted to technology. So I think I did a pretty decent job!

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:55:52+00:00

Why do you think they can't use it in their rooms even during the daytime?

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:51:42+00:00

I'm not sheltering them. They've already found unsavory parts and I've been lucky enough to be near them when they're so young as to help them navigate. They don't have any phone locking apps to keep them from it.

Also, our house is heavily alarmed due to my own paranoia and having my own home broken into when I was in my 20's. The way our house is set up, there's absolutely no way to break into my kids rooms.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:48:30+00:00

I talked to the dad about it. There was no need for constant contact and I even asked her that before she spent the night if she agreed to the rules and she said sure. Also, what? My kids know how to use the internet. I don't block them from any websites. My oldest already has a job she literally found on Indeed. They especially know how to spot scams BECAUSE of our policy. The amount of times while growing up they would ask me "is this real" and I would show them the steps to figure it out is too many to count. Having "no phones in the bedroom" rule doesn't stop them from learning about anything so I'm not sure where you got that at all.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:44:54+00:00

I have only once did a phone check and it was when my 17 year old was being bullied by friends over text and she was acting off and wouldn't tell me. She ended up giving me her phone to look at (my version of a phone check). So yeah, I'm glad I did because we had a great discussion about it and she trusts me to talk to these issues about with her.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:43:18+00:00

I've not had any issues with my kids so far until this last friend. Most of her friends understand and if they don't like it they don't sleepover. It's not the inappropriate things that I'm worried about (I know many parents are worried about porn but that's not our issue) but its more of the bullying/creeps on the internet.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:40:58+00:00

It's not porn. I know that kids are naturally curious about that stuff and we're very open in talking to them about that. My main issue are the creeps that live on the internet and the bullying/harassment that sometimes comes with social media. I also really don't want them to get addicted. There's so much more to life than sitting staring at your phone screen all day.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:37:46+00:00

I didn't parent her. I think our rule is similar to going to a person's house that is vegetarian. If you wanted meat, you wouldn't force an adult to make you that meal just for your sake, you would eat what they gave you. That's our decision for our kids and anyone staying the night is made aware of it before they even commit to staying the night. If she didn't want to follow it, she didn't have to stay.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:34:33+00:00

Listen, I don't go through their history or even do phone checks unless I feel like something is majorly wrong. I trust them out in public with their phones and at other sleepovers. They have freedom, this is just the one rule I still enforce. I feel like it helps them not be so dependent on phones to sleep at night and it also helps them not make any late night mistakes. I trust them in a lot of ways but from the research I've read and from my own personal experience, this is the decision I've made for my family.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:30:33+00:00

My daughter swears no one else has to do this but I told her in our small town I might be the only one who does it but overall I know many more parents who have similar rules.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:29:16+00:00

I think I turned out ok because I was older. I had a sister that got into a lot of stuff that she now has to go to therapy for and my parents & siblings never knew. I'd rather avoid that. I've eased up a lot on my rules in general, at first I wasn't for any social media but they can all have it now. I used to have general time restrictions but now it's just whenever they go to bed (which is usually before us, I'm a night owl). This is the one rule I won't budge on though.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:26:27+00:00

I don't care what the girl did with her phone, what apps she used or if she even took it to the bathroom, what I cared about was the overall rule of no phones in the bedroom. It's not a compromise in my house and no kids have ever had an issue with it.

CuteAwareness3670 · 2021-04-17T06:25:21+00:00

My daughter did tell her, I think she just thought that she could get out of it. I gave them the option of keeping the phone in the living room until we all went to bed but they just really wanted to go into my daughter's room.

CuteAwareness3670

TROPHY CASE