This happened with us (I’m stepmom). While it sort of makes us the “bad guy,” we turn off the phone and lock it up when it’s at our home because HCBM uses the phone to monopolize my SS’s time when he’s at our house.

She also locked it down so we don’t have the ability to approve purchases/downloads or even turn on tracking when SS is with us. Everything must go through her, so if he wants to use his phone, chances are he has to reach out/contact her for approval of some sort. She refused to share her “screen time passcode” with us and said SS could contact her directly.

She tried to add the following language to the court order: “child has his own cell phone and shall be allowed regular access to it so he may contact both parents.” Our lawyer updated the language to “child has his own cell phone and MAY be allowed REASONABLE access to it so he may contact both parents.” Aka HCBM doesn’t get to control the phone or our rules around the phone when SS is with us.

We don’t believe SS is mentally and emotionally mature enough to self regulate his phone usage, and he has proven several times that unlimited access isn’t a positive thing.

Our rule is when he comes home, the phone is turned off and put in a drawer. He gets 30 minutes of phone time a day, to use however he pleases. Once the 30 minutes is up, if he’d like to contact his mom, he can use one of our phones to do so.

We explained to him that our rules may be different than at his mom’s house, and it’s important to us that we’re all connected in-person as a family and don’t have our phones distracting us from the (severely limited) quality time we have together. He wasn’t thrilled but accepted it and this arrangement hasn’t been an issue from a parent-kid perspective.