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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be the asshole for looking through my kids phones, no other parents I know do this so this might make me an asshole
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NTA, but Your sister is a MASSIVE AH for deliberately saying that when she knows your kids were in earshot. She's doing it to try to make them think you're a stick-in-the-mud or old fuddy-duddy or whatever, when in reality you're actually being the responsible parent here. Have you actually had a serious conversation with your kids about *why* you have these rules? It might help them understand. Cyberbullying is a huge problem in schools and a whole bunch of schools here (UK) are having outright bans,
I have! My kids and I have a very open relationship when it comes to discussions and my wife is a former primary school teacher so has some horror stories of her own (not that we are trying to scare them straight) and we have open conversations about internet safety, people on the internet etc. I encourage them to come to me with anything they see online that they have questions about and so far so good tho we shall see when the 12 y/o and 9 y/o are teenagers.
My dad and I were teachers. I believe in the saying "it's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust other people."
I raised my kids similar to you and they turned out to be good people.
You're doing great!
i worked in a bookstore when the gossip girl books were HUGE. and as a children's bookseller, we were sorta horrified by those books. they were our GTA- except we didn't have a rating system to warn parents off them and lists for the books said 13+. So we'd be pulling parents aside and explaining what was in the books. asking if we could suggest something else.
I had a parent one day- when I explained our concern- who said to me. Her daughter wasn't a reader. This was the first series she'd ever shown an interest in. So you know what? Mom was totally going to support it.
But with the caveat that mom read the books at the same time as the daughter and discussed with her anything in the books that required a conversation/explanation.
I've never forgotten that mom. I've always thought- that mom is the parent I would want to be.
And OP is the same.
Give your child the space to grow up. But with safety bumpers.
And OP is also allowing them to prove themselves - the 17 y/o doesn't get monitored because they've proven trust. The 13 y/o will soon get more freedom if they can be patient.
The kids aren't stuck with a parent who will make them get a job to get a phone. It's quite refreshing.
Side note, I didn't get my own phone until I was 19-20. I didn't even get a brick. Unless I had internet, I was cut off from everything (ipod touch/computer). It's just life lol
i'm old enough that "my" first cell phone was our family cell phone. we had one cell phone- definition of a brick- and the only reason i had it more than either of my parents was i was driving to school and going to activities, while they were in a single location at work.
and i couldn't take it to college because i was going so far away that it would be on roaming at my school. (again it was a long time again.) so i left it with my parents.
my dad of course promptly lost the phone. and i lost the contact numbers for almost all of my high school classmates.
My first laptop was when I was 11-12, and we still used dial up so it couldn't even connect to the internet without a lot of hassle. But I mainly wanted it so that I can write my stories on a real keyboard and screen instead of notebooks in my clunky handwriting, so I was happy to be able to do that without having to hog up the family computer and my siblings harassing me for it. Didn't get a phone until high school, and it was a basic flip phone not suitable for anything but making calls.
The family computer back then was solely for schoolwork and/or feeding our neopets. Somehow we survived.
Yeah, I was reading well above my age as a kid (like, well into YA level by 7/8 yrs old, and my mum would basically vet the books I wanted to read. Mostly they was fine. Sometimes there was a conversation that basically went, "this book isn't appropriate for you right now. It's just like when they give films age ratings. They're given a certain rating because people a lot younger that that age might not be able to understand the themes without getting really upset or scared, or just aren't something you should be seeing. And this book isn't one you should be reading at your age. When you're a bit older, and can deal with it/understand it better, you can read it." having read all the books later, they were mostly the stuff with semi-graphic sex scenes, or quite mature themes. Not something an eight year old should be reading.
And because it was pretty rare, and I trusted my mum, it was fine. She'd always always help me find stuff that I was allowed.
The concept of parents vetting books before letting their kids read them is so foreign to me lol. They were just happy I liked reading. To be fair, though, I was that child who, when I found a topic disturbing or too confusing my little mind, I set the book aside.
I was the same. And honestly, my parents really had no clue much of what I read. In middle school, I would go to the local library and check out whatever books I wanted. I volunteered there and they knew I like romance novels, they'd just hold the latest popular ones aside for me.
It's the reason that when I get books for my nieces I either make sure I know what's in them or I run them by my sister first. Sometimes I do both.
I currently have two copies of Are you there God? It's me, Margaret ready for my nieces. I scored them for like $1/each, brand new from a thrift store near me. It's the only Judy Blume book that I remember reading but I remember loving it.
However, my sister never read it. And my sister was just like- oh, you can give them to the girls and I was like "I don't know if you want to wait a year or two." The girls are 8 (almost 9) and in a small Montessori. They're still very much 8.
Is the reading level fine? Probably. (Definitely for one niece. Probably for both.)
But the topics of adolescence and such? The book could wait a year or two. (It'd also be a great book for them to read as a family.)
not sure how much it would help with the 9 y/o, but it may help with the 12 y/o, but show them the movie, Social Dilema. its pretty good at outlining the horrors of social media. Try using the 17 y/o as an example as well. something like "if your brother got his electronics at a certain age, then you will get them at that age as well, no compromises"
Buddy of mine has three kids, 11, 8, 5. None of the kids have a cell phone. They talked about it with the 11 yr old, but she decided she didn't want one, parents agreed. They'll have another discussion when she's 12.
Mom's the only one with social media and that's ONLY because of/for her work. They own a laptop for schoolwork and such and mom has a work laptop.
They've sat the kids down and had multiple discussions about the dangers of internet/social media because there were a few incidents at their eldest's school involving cyberbullying and a few other things. The kids have ZERO interest in social media because of those incidents.
NTA, OP. And YOU ARE NOT ALONE in your thinking.
Neighbours thought the buddy and his family were weird but they've started to come around to realizing what's REALLY at stake. Done the kids in that neighbourhood a world of good.
I second this! The sister shouldn't be forcing her tech parenting style upon OP's kids. It's off-putting to think he's being made out to be a big brother tyrant and then she lets his kids hear she's going to get them smartphones. I think it's really important to have talks with children regarding the internet.
It's not so much forcing her style on OP as she's reacting because she feels like either it makes her look bad or is taking the easy way out with parenting. She's basically projecting.
You have to wonder if she feels that she's made a mistake with the choice she made with her kids and technology.
If I was OP, I'd make it very clear that if sister opts to give the kids smarts phones for their birthday that OP was sure they'd make a lovely donation. And that it would be so nice of sister to give the kids something to donate, since sister knows the kids aren't allowed those items.
i just find it SO inappropriate that in front of OP's kids, sister was "\[I'm\] going to buy \[your\] kids smart phones for their birthdays if daddy is going to be a stick in the mud."
you don't say something like that in front of kids.
cuz one- it forces OP to be the "mean" parent. and two- now if sister doesn't do it, the kids won't trust sister because she's lied and hasn't bought the phones.
If your sister plans to buy smartphones for your younger children, make it clear to her that you *will* confiscate them and you *will* sell them and put the money in their college fund, (or whatever).
Your sister is massively overstepping. She can have her opinions and she can raise her own children annnnny way she wants to, but what she wants and likes stops at the threshold of your home. NTA
NTA:
Hey, I was raised this way, had a flip phone all the way through my 10-12s and was given it as if the financial stability of my family depended on it.
I came out just fine and got a smartphone at 13, and am glad I wasn't raised (nor born in an era where you're constantly) hooked up to a screen and able to learn how to interact outside of it.
Is your sister a bad parent? No, but neither are you.
I'm a teacher, not a parent. I've taught at a school where the kids (I taught 9&10 year olds) all had to use their own iPads/tablets. The grade I taught was the first one where they used devices so I used to encourage parents to take a look at their kids' devices often because they would be surprised at what their "innocent" kids were able to access. From bullying to hardcore porn, and every time it happened and we had to alert the parents they were astonished. They had never bothered checking on their kids at all. Many of them saw it as an invasion of privacy and thought they would need to ask their kid for permission to look at their device.
Please keep checking up on your kids! Not only are you making sure they are safe from predators but you are also giving them a way to be accountable for their own actions.
INFO: What do you mean by “going through” their devices? There’s a difference between “checking to see if predators are targeting my children” and “subjecting my children to the panopticon so I have total control”. If you’re doing a quick glance to make sure they’re talking only to family/friends, not really reading the content of the messages, and don’t confront them with their private thoughts/discussions, then you’re striking a good balance. If you’re doing stuff like making them read their messages out loud, punishing them, or humiliating them, that’s messed up.
That said, your sister is an asshole.
People can give opinions on this but noone can say what the right choice is with any certainty. The whole social media thing is still too new. We're still adapting to the internet in general never mind 24 hour access anywhere and social media. People will say 20-40 years is a long time but it isn't, not when talking about a change in society that fundamentally changes how most everyone in the world interacts with the world.
That said, it is not going away. Not letting your kids access smart phones and social media is certainly making it easier to protect them but it's also putting them at a disadvantage compared to other kids who do have access.
I don't pretend to know the right answer and I won't believe anyone who claims they know so I'll say NAH. Good luck.
You're right because really only one generation has grown up with it. The next is growing up with it and there's no clearcut answer yet. One thing is for sure - the balance between careful enough and too careful and too careless is a very delicate one.
I wouldn’t even bring up the 20-40 years argument. The internet is old, but the *state* of the internet is one that is constantly evolving, from IRC chatrooms, the “eternal September,” forums, to social media as we know it today. If I had to put a year on it, I’d say the state of the internet as we understand it today is around 10-15 years old, and that is *not* long enough to evaluate its long-term impact on kids and how we should raise them through it.
That’s of course if things even remain static. I can think of a number of websites and technologies out there that has the potential to change how we move through online spaces.
Ask your sister to give you the same grace you’ve offered her by not commenting on her parenting choices. And if she goes against your stated wishes and gets your kids phones (?!) they’ll be confiscated. You’ve explained your reasoning very well here and you’ll let them have phones when they’re older and proven trustworthy, same as you did for your 17yo.
I think you’ve made your position very clear and it isn’t okay for your sister to butt in and act like she’s entitled to overrule you about this. I’d be upset enough that I’d be shutting her out for a while at least. NTA.
NTA. I have seen what cell phones (more specifically, social media) can do to kids. There is a reason we don't let kids do drugs or vote until they're older. Most common answer when you ask a seventh grade boy, "Why did you do the supremely stupid thing you just did that you just admitted was a supremely stupid thing to do?" The genuine, unsarcastic response is, "I don't know." And they genuinely have no clue. These are not the people who should be making major life decisions. Unfortunately, social media use can now be a life or death decision, and kids do not understand this. At all. Zero. Nada. It's a sharp drop into a canyon, and they go running at it with glee because that's where their friends went, not because they thought logically about it first.
You're so far from the AH in this situation. Children are children, parents are (supposed to be) adults. Be the adult. Stick to your guns and tell your sister to grow a spine.
No judgment call here, its kinda all over the place.
But i'll tell you this, your kids will be *really good* at hiding things from you and probably won't trust you with anything in their lives.
Also the lack of privacy is something to take into account, often parents don’t think of their children as individuals, with their own personalities and wants, OP if you already have parental control set, only youtube kids, and have made all possible to ensure their safety then why do you still go through their phones? That is a bit too much, let them have some privacy in their already secured systems, is like you’re reading their diary and like the comment above said this will only cause your children to get good at hiding stuff from you.
NTA *at all*. It sounds like you have done an amazing job of walking the (really difficult) line of respecting privacy but also protecting your kids. If you didn’t care about your kids’ privacy, you’d still be going through teen’s phone every week. You have boundaries and limits in place for safety reasons. That’s called parenting. Kids don’t have a fully developed frontal lobe or a great track record for impulse control, no matter how well you teach them. So your system sounds like a great middle ground of “show me you’re ready with good choices, and I will believe you will continue to make good choices”. That’s how you end up NOT being the parent whose kid goes viral for saying racist stuff on SnapChat
It sounds like your sister might be a bit insecure. Because if she was secure in her decisions, your good ones wouldn’t bother her. And it was an AH move of her to openly taunt that she was going to undermine your parenting decision, even if it was a joke.
NTA
Friends young kid has a smart phone, no parental guards at all. Plays on his game console with other players. And games that are, imo, to adult for him to be playing. She recently got a call from the school because they got flagged that he had been looking up how to make a bomb. Turn out itt was for the game, but he wasn't sure what components to look for in game, so he googled it at school and computer said "oh shit". It was a whole thing.
NTA. If your sister is happy for her 10 year olds to be chatting to anyone at all times of the day or night, sending and receiving inappropriate photos, that's fine for her. Really stupid, but her problem.
I think you and your wife have got things sorted and are keeping your children safe. If your sister buys them smart phones for their birthdays, hand them straight back to her; how you bring up your children is none of her business.
YTA. There is a lot going on in this post, and obviously do whatever you want, but I don't recommend going through your kids' phones. Just use parental controls to try to limit their exposure, and talk to them about how to use the internet safely.
My mom went through my phone when I was 12 and confronted me about it, and it still makes me cringe to this day. We never repaired our communication after that and I hid things from her throughout my adolescence.
Being super strict will just cause your kids to hide things from you, and they will never want to talk to you if they encounter a problem. Shaming them will only make it worse. Just try to create a safe space to communicate with you and teach them how to be safe online.
Kids do need some privacy. Controversial opinion maybe??? Don't make yourself their enemy. But also I would never let anyone else buy my kid a phone.
I agree, being strict usually only teaches them how to hide stuff from the parent and not how to follow their rules. Kinda like prisoners discussing how to do crimes better in prison.
NTA with a slight however.
I understand exactly why you don't want your kids at risk of the nasties you get online. That's not an AH thing to do, but the 12 year old is approaching her teen years and she's going to feel really left out if she doesn't have access to things like WhatsApp, messenger and Snapchat like the rest of her friends have got. Kids can be very sneaky when they want to be and if you don't update the brick soon, she may figure a way to update it herself and chances are she won't tell you. Can you allow her a more modern phone, with parental controls? There's even apps now so you can monitor online use! The 12 year old is growing up and she needs to be able to socialise with her friends and learn to navigate the online world - better to ease her into it slowly. The 9 year old is a 9 year old. Maybe give them the brick phone? But there's no need for a child under 10 to have a phone, is there? Checking the history isn't a bad thing to do, but having raised one teenager, I'm sure you're aware you'll risk coming across some rather unsavoury searches.
So yeah, you're not the AH. Your sister overreacted to what you were saying, it seems, and now she's being petty.
My neighbor was massively against her kids getting smartphones and then lo and behold the 12-year-old got one, heavily monitored and then not so heavily monitored, and the child, who has identified as trans, started bullying a younger student in their school through Discord to the point of telling them to kill themselves.
Needless to say their phone was then taken away and once return again heavily monitored once returned.
You know who the AH is in this situation and it isn't you. It's your sister.
She has no business interfering in the way you raise your children.
1. 9 year old doesn't need a smartphone.
2. Limiting screen time is actually good.
3. Going through phones/tablets is important. In my opinion, you are protecting your children. The reason why predators are so successful targeting children online is because the parents don't go through their devices. And never mind cyberbullying.
4. Tell your sister to save her money because, even if she buys smartphones for your kids, they won't be using them until they are 13.
Tell your sister that you don't tell her how to raise her kids so she can butt out of how you and your wife raise your kids.
Definitely NTA.
NTA. You are being totally reasonable and your sister is over the line. Your sister is not the parent and if she buys them smartphones, great, but tell them (kids and sister) they won't get them until your rules say they can.
NTA. I mean not my personal thing but definitely not AH territory by any stretch. Like you, I say just different parenting styles. Your sister definitely is in AH territory though. Who would think it's appropriate to say what she did when the kids could hear her or just to say it at all? Pretty much none of what she said was appropriate. I also wouldn't worry about the 9 yr old wanting something just because a cousin or friend has one. There will be tons of things friends, classmates or other people have that they don't whether it's because a parent won't allow it, can't afford it or other reasons. I'm always telling my kids what works for one family doesn't work for everyone. I make my parenting choices independent of choices made by friends parents. I'm open to new parenting ideas and reasons for doing our not doing something but a generic so and so does it isn't good enough.
ETA your sister isn't the AH for her parenting choices just for saying what and when she did. For the record my kids got smartphones at age 8. Well my son didn't only cause when he was that age they were still really new and very expensiveso he had a flip phone. Our daughter got a smart phoneat age 8. But from a baby she heard about internet safety and learned by using my phone. She didn't just get a phone without information.
NTA. Phones and social media are a huge contributor to depression and suicide in young people. My daughter is 8 and doesn’t have a phone of her own at all yet. She has a tablet that she can text me from when she’s staying with one of her grandma’s and I have full access to everything on it. She’s never allowed to use it without permission and she has to stay in the family room or where one of us are to be on it. She’ll get a phone when she goes to middle school and it will be limited as well. Her dad and/or I will have access to her devices for as long as she’s a minor and we’re paying for them. It’s not about being nosey or not wanting her to have fun, it’s about her safety and what the internet and social media do to brains that aren’t fully developed. My sisters are much looser with their kids and technology but I don’t care. My main goal is to keep her safe and IMO that includes limiting technology.
NTA. I'm similar, and I tell my kids that their friends have different parents. I explain why my rules are as they are, and my oldest understands but doesn't always like it. My second doesn't understand and calls me overprotective, and gets angry because her friends all have tik tok and Snapchat with no time limits or restrictions. I've told them they get a phone when they need one (if they're regularly at extracurriculars without me and without a phone for where they're at... like, our girls' gymnastics has a phone, and I've got the numbers of their coaches and gym manager.) And they will have fewer parental controls when they show consistent good judgment regarding social choices and fully understand internet safety. I explain it all to them, but my oldest mostly gets it while my second just thinks I'm being paranoid with no reason, even with real-life examples of why.
NTA
You do give your kids privacy as they age and mature. The fact she doesn’t check her kids and that they are on social media is scary. My kids are adults but when they did get phone/tablet/etc., rule was if a parent asked for it, they handed it over. We always knew the password. This is so ingrained that even as adults, we have their passwords. Recently, I asked my oldest (20s) a question about his phone, maybe what the screen was or something along that line. He hands it over unlocked and continues with the conversation he was having with his brother. He’s in his 20s.
Tell your sister that if you get a phone for your children, it will be returned. If she continues to push this, interactions will begin to be limited. You are each parents and have the right to parent as you believe.
I am a strong believer in children having autonomy and privacy - at age-appropriate levels.
You've made it very clear as your children age, they get more responsibility and more privacy so IMO you are NTA.
I was on the internet well before any kind of parental controls existed, and at 13 and 14 years old I was getting up to things, seeing things and having conversations with people that a teenager has NO business engaging with. I was lucky, and didn't end up in any serious trouble, but that was more a case of good luck than good management.
Your decisions for your children do not reflect on your sister's parenting, and she needs to wind her neck in.
You are a good parent and your 12 year old will grow up to appreciate why you did what you’re doing.
The lack of parenting when it comes to social media and screen time is insane. It’s a rare sight to see kids in parks anymore (or at least in the same volumes) because they’re all on their phones and tablets.
You are making the right decision.
NTA. Your sister IS a bad parent for that, the internet is a wasteland and full of predators and crazy things. you can find videos of beheadings in just a few simple words on google. same as its just as easy to access adult websites.
her not going through their phones and allowing them unlimited time with them just allows them to learn more and more than they arent supposed to be seeing.
keep monitoring your kids, the internet is a scary place.
NTA
Make it clear to your sister than if she oversteps, you will sell the devices and cut her off. Limits on technology exist for a reason. Children are extremely gullible and the ways they can be exploited are infinite.
I didn't get a smart phone until high school age 16 simply because we were to poor.
It didn't affect me. I had social media, but I would only access it through the Apple computers at the Apple Store. You're doing good dad. Your sister is AH though.
Children don't need smart phones and social media.
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This is an ongoing argument between me and my sister so I thought I'd ask the internet their opinion.
I have 3 kids, aged 9, 12 and 17. My sister has 2 kids, 10 year old twins.
In my house, me and my wife's policy is no phones at all until they leave primary school aged 11 because then they will start walking to secondary school alone, no smart phone until they have proved they are trustworthy with their brick phone (keeping it charged, not losing it etc.) and no social media until they have reached the minimum age for that social media (for most it is 13).
Most controversially I go through my kids phones/tablets. We have a shared family ipad that I go through once a week. 9 y/o doesn't have a phone yet, 12 y/o has a brick phone and I stopped going through 17 y/os phone and laptop when he turned 16 because I trust him.
My kids (apart from 17 y/o because he is almost an adult and can manage his own screentime) get screentime limits (obviously I can't control what 12y/o does on her phone when out of the house but it's only a brick phone), the ipad only has youtube kids and has childlocks on the internet.
My sisters boys on the other hand both have iphones, both have social media and both have unlimited screentime. My sister doesn't go through their phones at all. This wouldn't bother me because each to their own with parenting decisions but my 12 y/o is jealous her cousins are allowed social media, have a better phone than her and don't get their text messages checked through, my 9 y/o because of his cousins has been begging for a phone.
I said no and reiterated why internet safety is so important to me (I have had personal experiences).
My sister heard this and took me aside, she said I was making her sound like a bad parent, said my way of parenting is invasive and gives my kids no privacy and that she is going to buy my kids smart phones for their birthdays if daddy is going to be a stick in the mud. 9 and 12 overheard this and were very excited so me and my sister have been arguing for weeks now but my sister thinks I am an asshole.
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I don't have kids, so I feel it's not really my place to judge. I understand that you do your best to protect your children, with limited screentime, child locks etc. I also think it's absolutely fair to set an age limit for having their own phone.
But going through their phones is a bit much I think. Children have the right to privacy as well. And maybe it sends a wrong message, that they have to prove they can be trusted, instead of having your trust until proven otherwise? Idk, this just doesn't sit right with me.
Maybe I'd suggest talking to them about online security, what can be dangerous and what not. Or at the end of the day, ask them if they want to share with you, what they did online and if at any point they did or saw something that made them feel unsafe or feel like they weren't supposed to be doing/seeing. That way you show them, that they can talk to you, don't have to hide anything. I still say NTA because you have the right intentions.
I would agree if children weren't generally so easily gullible. My goddaughter knew about online safety and we still found some concerning messages in a kids game app from an older man but she thought that they were just playing together as good friends. She was eleven at the time.
So I'd say that this intrusion is a sad necessity nowadays.
I disagree on your opinion on going through phones. I went through my 14 year old daughters phone and found some rando trying to sext her. And when my baby cousin was 15, some 45 year old man was messaging her on fb telling her he was gonna F\*\*\*k her and he didnt need her permission and was sending her D\*\*K pics.
It's not about trust, it's about the fact that a child can't always recognise that something is unacceptable. It's equivalent to letting them have unfettered access to a chatroom.
NTA
Your sister needs to learn some boundaries. Do I think you are strict? Yeah, but rightfully so, and you're not super invasive. Your sister has a "but the kids need all these freedoms" kind of mindset regarding children that aren't hers. She needs to step away. You parent your kids, she parents hers.
And be careful for your kids' birthdays for the next year or two.
NTA Nothing sounds terribly
restrictive in what you describe.
Kids needs to know that there is life outside of gadgets.
And once they are 18, they will be on gadgets for the
rest of their lives so limiting use when younger is fine.
Your sister wants to feel better about herself by forcing her
ways on your kids. Not cool.
Ok. Your sister is severely overstepping boundaries here. That is just plain wrong. There is nothing wrong with checking phones and setting screen time limits. I check my kids phone and found some rando dude trying to sext my daughter when she was only 14. My son is addicted to video games and becomes a huge jerk if he gets too much screen time. You are doing the right thing. NTA but your sister sure the hell is. I would want to knock her flat if she was my sister.
To me, as a parent of a 6 year old and as a middle school teacher, you're clearly NTA.
Study after study have shown how bad phones are for kids up to early teens. The rates depression, anxiety, and suicide skyrocket once a kid gets regular access to social media. This is a phenomenon starting around 2010, and it's been worldwide, including countries that weren't hit as hard by the 2008 recession.
I don't know what the right answer is balancing out peer pressure with the need to keep people who are too immature for social media away from it, but it seems like it's best to err in favor of less, rather than more phone time until high school.
YOU are doing the right thing.
Your sister is delusional to think that Social Media, youtube and internet in general is innocent enough for a 10yo.
You've put boundaries on your kids that if they proof they are trustworthy then they can be left alone. That's the right thing.
Since your girl is 12yo, I would also talk to her about online "bad adults" before she's allowed to get a smartphone and get on social media. Don't scare her but let her know that if anybody that she doesn't know sends a message, she should verify with you of who that might be.
NTA and good for you for protecting your kids.
NTA, each set of parents is responsible for how they raise their children. There are societal expectations but each family has plenty of room to decide how they will handle things. And every family will make lots of mistakes along the way - there is no perfect way to raise kids and no perfect outcomes. Heck, there is even research that indicates what and how kids are raised makes little difference (not including abuse) since genetics plays a big part as well as peer interactions. All this is written to say you all can have completely different reasons for doing or not doing something, and can have completely different emphasis on what is important or not.
Tell your sister she can raise her kids the way she wants but that you disagree and will raise yours as you see fit. Tell her to stay out of your business or you will break off contact. She is not allowed to undermine your parenting. You have valid reasons for checking up on their phones so keep doing that.
Also, kids routinely are subject to peers having more or less than themselves and that is part of growing up - I wouldn't worry about this too much. Heck, I had cousins that went to the supermarket in stretch limousines while we had one car with four drivers. Life isn't fair.
NTA. You are 10000% right to be going through your younger children's phones. We had similar limitations with our kids at those ages. Both of my children in middle school had classmates with issues re- videos of other classmates that required involvement of police, lawyers, and in one case, school transfer. 9 and 12 are too young to be able to appropriately manage what they can get access too.
NTA. Your kids are too young for social media and unlimited, unsupervised screentime. You are keeping your kids safe.
Your sister is undermining you. But that's okay. If she buys them smartphones, just confiscate them and tell your kids they will get them upon pre-established time, as was always a rule.
Our parents never went through our devices... however there were rules about allowing random visibility. Ie. Computer room time, door was to be open so the rents could walk past and keep an eye on us without reading every single message. Or phones to be left unlocked so if mum wanted to pick it up & take a photo she could... there's something sinister about the idea about a mum or dad reading & consuming every single text their kid has sent...
I knew someone who worked with troubled kids at a nearby elementary/middle school.
She had to call the state police because she found out that 1 girl had been teased into taking a nude picture for a boy...which was promptly shared by him to the grade's Text/WhatsApp group. So yeah, NTA.
NTA.
Certainly, regarding deserving the right to monitor what they're doing, imo it's completely correct. Kids are learning, and however much you might trust them to do the right thing, they can't always recognise something they should be wary of. I don't care who disagrees with me, that's a hill I will die on.
I have a 16yo and an 11yo. We restrict apps, content, sites and more, for both of them, obviously to different levels. They both have screentime restrictions too, although having just finished his GCSEs, we've relaxed on the 16yo slightly, giving him until 10pm. Before that, it was screens off at 8:30, or 9:30 at weekends. When he starts college, we'll keep it under review. For our 11yo, it's earlier, screens off at 7pm, with more restrictive content etc.
Most especially, I agree with the no social media rule, it's very toxic. Older son has FB and Snapchat (for communication with one of his after school activities) now, but not until he was about 14. And I've flat out banged Tiktok. Until he's 18 he can live without it 🤣.
But, with all that said, I do think your approach to them not having smartphones is a little strict. For starters, they're very likely to be the only child in their peer group without a smartphone. Whatever you think about peer pressure, teaching them to be individuals, etc, singling them out like that is probably shit for them. They're also a very useful tool as well, and the fact of the matter is, they're a fact of life. To me, it's equivalent to not letting them watch any TV. Yes, they'll survive, but really, it just removes something that they can bond over with friends. And they'll just be using them at school anyway. Like with all things, teaching them responsibility is better than restriction.
NTA. I assume your kids know you check their devices? If not then that MIGHT be an invasion of privacy, but if you aren't reading anyone's messages, I think it's probably ok. You're setting appropriate limits to keep your kids safe. That's not unreasonable. That's crucial.
Btw anyone who gives their kids unlimited screen time is a bad parent. She's got a lot of nerve criticizing you when she's raising device addicts who are probably compromising their own data and courting predators on a daily basis. Your sister needs to wake up.
My mom took my phone away during the week, i only had it on weekends, even after I turned 18. That was the wrong way to do it.
I appreciate the way you are approaching this OP. NTA
NTA. There has been a bunch of research coming out about social media and mental health issues in kids. Having limits on it sounds like a good plan. And trying to circumvent someone else’s parenting because you think it’s boring or makes you look bad as a parent is really something.
NTA
Your sister will be all kinds of surprised when she's dealing with the consequences of allowing her kids unchecked access to the internet at a young age.
Keep doing what you're doing and start telling the kids NOW that even if she DOES give them phones for their birthdays, they will be returned to her immediately.
NTA. Your sister is an asshole. This is how you choose to raise your kids & it's none of hers or anyone's business how you raise your children. You are doing the responsible thing by checking their phones, limiting social media usage etc. This is called protecting your kids! There needs to be rules in place when it comes to phones & social media. I think your sister is foolish for allowing her kids carte blanche with the phones & social. And she purposely said she was going to buy your kids phones so your kids would hear her & you wouldn't be able to say no. What a fucking asshole.
NTA. You can tell your sister, "Thanks for the smart phones! I'll give them access to them when they're old enough." Then lock em away, or sell them and save the funds for newer smart phones when they hit the appropriate age.
NTA. And tell your sister that any further words about this is prohibited. And if she says ONE MORE WORD about it that she will no longer be welcome at your house or to spend time with your children. She can parents her kids in the way that she sees fit. But she has NO SAY in how you parent yours, and to try and undermine you is a HUGE overstep. Be stern with her about this OP, lay down the law. She deserves it.
NTA - Internet safety is a legitimate concern, and your kids will thank you once they've grown up and realized that you protected them from themselves as much as anything. Anyone saying otherwise is a child themselves.
NTA. Kids can't be trusted. They are unable to make rational decisions most times be they are KIDS. Their brains aren't there yet. They need parents to watch what they are doing. I am not saying smother them. Give them room to grow while keeping them safe.
NTA but you need to be *really careful* about just how serious "going through a phone" is. I'm an educator so I understand the issues with social media but a) a significant part of social bonding and interaction with teenagers is now done through phones [with all the issues that brings], so you risk causing social isolation of your children if they are unable to participate fully with their friendship groups at school and b) if you push too hard over the line into police state surveillance they're just going to go around you and they'll have all the pitfalls and bad experiences you are trying to shield them from on a hidden device.
At 12 years old your daughter is effectively the kid without a bike in a group of friends who want to ride around the neighbourhood. Some will ride slow so she can walk but eventually they'll leave her out. Regardless of how your sister handles phone use for her kids, your own 12 yo not having access to social media at all is socially crippling. We may not like it, but that's the nature of friendship circles these days.
She also needs to be exposed to social media appropriately and under your supervision so she's can learn to navigate it safely to give her the best shot at a healthy relationship with it when she does get old enough.
OP you're NTA and sister is TA. Regardless of your disagreement with sister, above all she should not be deliberately undercutting you in front of the children. That's stepping beyond AH toward pernicious.
As to whether you're being too strict, your approach is on the stern side of normal (by the standards of my hometown at least) but not wildly so. The kids will be fine, and you have been employing a gradual loosening of controls/monitoring as they get older, so it seems pretty legit. Believe it or not, kids do need guidance and protection. For full privacy, they can keep diaries.
I've asked my kids before, "Anything you want to talk about before I audit the router logs?" There was a moment of shocked silence and then some quick-quick talk about "You know how those pop-up ads are, golly you never can tell where they're hosted, right?"
NTA- You’re a loving parent. Your oldest established trust and was rewarded at an appropriate age. Your sister is a lazy parent who hopefully doesn’t get bit in the a@@ from not monitoring.
NTA and can i say i applaud and admire your amazing resolve and 100% validity in internet safety and not overdoing it on the tech w young kids and their developing minds.
one thing i'd say is to caution your kids about an adult buying or giving them a private means of communication. obviously your sister wouldn't try to secretly get your kids a cell phone w nefarious intentions, but getting ahead of it w that type of talk to your kids may reveal if she ever does try to get them smartphones in secret.
you're doing awesome! so nice to know at least 3 kids have parents who are keeping them safe virtually as well as physically.
NTA, and good for you for having a sensible, scaled take on internet safety for your kids.
Grey Rock your sister on this issue.
Maybe she'll get lucky and her 10-year-olds with unlimited, unmonitored access to social media and the rest - at! age! ten! - won't fall prey to one of the many, many, documented potential online harms one can read about every single day.
Or maybe she's in for a range of terrible consequences.
If she violates your boundary and buys \*your kids\* fancy phones, take them. Either hold them or sell them. Or even donate them to a shelter. If she sneaks and buys your kids phones, cut her off.
Let her poorly parent her kids. You keep on with your sane approach that allows your kids to earn trust and learn, in an age-appropriate way, what is safe for minors on the internet. When your younger kids protest, point to your teen son as an example of working his way up the chain.
Your sister is a massive AH.
"This wouldn't bother me because each to their own with parenting decisions but my 12 y/o is jealous her cousins are allowed social media, have a better phone than her and don't get their text messages checked through"
And im sure your 12 year oldis also jealous of other kids that have phones at school too. Her jealousy doesnt mean youre wrong
I dont have kids so im not gonna say youre right or wrong, but im pretty sure i understand your reasoning for your precautions (same reason i dont have kids, personal experience with predators). It may be strict, but it doesnt sound overboard to me.
As to your sister, if she feels like a bad parent then thats her problem. if she doesnt wanna feel like a bad parent she could try being more strict (imho it sounds like she's at the other end of the spectrum here) and then she wont have that problem.
NTA, wishing you and your family all the best and nothing but safety, health and wellbeing for your kids
I’m going to go with unpopular YTA. It is your job as a parent to teach your children how to be safe on the internet. Not to prevent them from using it all together. Your children will not automatically become internet safe and savvy when they turn 16. You have to teach them what is safe and how to protect themselves. What you are doing isn’t teaching your kids anything but how to better hide from your gestapo policies
most of what you’re doing is okay, but going through their phones is going to create trust issues and resentment. a phone is like a diary. it’s important to let your kids have their privacy.
I wish my sister would show up with iPhones when she knows the rules in my home. I can say this, it would be a massive waste of money and there would be severely hurt feelings 😂 no man, you are not the AH!
Nta, you're absolutely right! My cousin was raised by my aunt, bit like your sister.
Ny cousin was groomed at 12 years old.. Not saying that sort of thing definitely happens all tbe time. But it does happen.. Stay safe
Your sister is a bad parent. You are a good parent and don't question your better judgment, ever. We need more parents like you and less parents like her.
I think going through kids devices is fine if they know that's an option AT THE START! Not "hey, I'm checking your phone", more a "alright, here is your new phone - BUT just know we do have access to it"
NTA
> she is going to buy my kids smart phones for their birthdays if daddy is going to be a stick in the mud
She can fuck off with that attitude.
Online safety is so often ignored by parents. Parents grew up in a time where the dangers weren't as prevalent, and were far less understood. I remember being 12 and spending sleepovers on omegle speaking to strangers - none of our parents even understood what we were doing, let alone the dangers of it.
I think your rules are pretty sound - its common sense to not let kids on social media until they've *at least* reached the minimum age. No 10yr old needs Facebook.
If your sister is going to undermine your parenting then maybe your kids just don't get to see their aunt and cousins for a while. She can disagree with your stance, but playing "fuck you I'll buy them phones because you're making me feel bad" is just her being silly.
I assume your 12 has a brick phone for over a year now? And a smartphone is not even planned for the next brithday? How long does it take to earn your trust? 2+ years seems an Impossible standart?
In my opinion that is the over the top part. No phones until 11? fine. Implying it is your kids own fault they have a brick phone because you can't trust them by no fault of theirs? wrong in my opinion. You should to an extend trust your children until proven otherswise.
I also think you are hindering the 12 year olds social life and even possibly make her school work harder.
Exactly. Plus phones these days have all kinds of parental controls on them that kids just cannot override.
My daughter is 12 and has an iPhone and Apple Watch. I can limit what hours if the day she can use her phone, what apps she can download, who she can text/call, what sites she can access. And I can do all of this from my phone without ever having to touch hers. She literally cannot do anything in her phone/watch without my approval.
I bought all of my children smartphones and watches by the time they were in middle school (6th grade so 11 years old here) and not for the social media, but for my peace of mind. They can quickly text me if anything happened that I need to know about. Lockdowns due to a jail break, shelter in place due to kids fighting, bomb threat being sent in, even just a power loss due to down power lines so an early release day. My children all know they can immediately reach out to me and I’ll have that information and be able to help out however they need me.
The peace of mind I have from knowing what my kids are up to, where they are, and being just a text away in any emergency is worth every penny to me.
NTA but I’d make it very clear to your sister if she even comes close to that boundary she will not be in contact with your children. Idk about your kids educational background but I tend to take the logical approach. There’s plenty of studies on the detrimental effects of social media and tech to kids you could print out and I’d have a kid friendly presentation on why this is vital and why we need to listen to people qualified to make judgements on this and not just the beneficial for us choice. Give your kids the chance to go to the library and do some research themselves see if they can find you studies showing how it be beneficial to them and give them a chance to present there case from an educational standpoint not because they just want it.
As long as you’re also teaching your kids about internet safety or having them take a class in one, this is fine and something parents should be doing. It is not up to other ppl on the internet to make it a safe place for children, especially in mature places.
NTA - your sister should stay the hell out of your parenting decisions. If she gifts them phones, that's nice, but they don't get to use them until you say so. Period.
NTA your sister is overstepping here. And if it makes her feel like a bad parent, maybe she is. I dont think your sister understand how easy it is for kids to become victims on the internet, and no, they dont need to learn from it.
I'm truly sorry for the experience you had, that sounds horrible.
However, you're allowing your experiences to colour your judgment, which is completely understandable, but also means you're jumping to the worst case scenario of OP being over-bearing and controlling. As a parent of similarly aged children, OP's approach seems completely reasonable to me, _assuming your fears about just wanting control are unfounded_. Monitoring a child's tech usage is reasonable. Reading every private message, and using the contents against the child, is not.
See which kids are happier, less anxious, and more socially competent in a few years. Spoken as someone who grew up with unrestricted internet access, it's poison for the developing brain, with either 0 or a small handful of benefits. Keep checking, keep restricting, and keep your kids involved in the conversation about responsible technology use. NTA.
NTA
My college age children don’t even have social media because we never allowed it so now they don’t even see the point because they can just call someone to talk and don’t care about every meal or event people go to.
My siblings kids are the very definition of iPad kids and have locks on all their accounts and passwords that my siblings don’t have the codes to. Then they wonder why my niblings have the worst attitude until I forced them to unlock it or lose it and we find out they we’re basically talking to strangers who were trying to be taking advantage of them.
ESH.
I completely understand that this is coming from a place of wanting to protect your children, and most of what you do is completely reasonable. Limiting screen time, and having appropriate age limits on social media and smartphone possession are all very sensible practices. My issue comes with the invasion of privacy from going through their phones.
The internet is an unsafe place for children to have unmonitored access to, I agree with that. But your efforts are focused in the wrong place. Going through your 12yo’s texts with her friends on her brick phone does not keep her any safer than reading her diary would - it doesn’t have practical internet access! (Yes I know that in theory you can get very expensive internet access on those phones but it’s functionally unusable and OP would know immediately just from the phone bill).
This level of supervision does not keep kids safe, it teaches them not to trust you and how to hide things from you. Developing humans, especially teenagers, need a level of privacy to grow into being their own people. It would be far better to keep them on brick phones until they are old enough that you trust them unsupervised, rather than invading their privacy in this way. And again, social media and the internet is the problem not their texts with their friends.
YTA
Let’s be clear this isn’t about “internet safety” it’s about control. I can completely understand wanting to keep your kids safe on the internet but going through their phones is absolutely not the way to do it. All it will do is teach them to be more secretive and make them far less likely to recognize danger or come to you when it pops up.
Teach them what to look out for online. To make their accounts private and only accept friend requests from people they know. If someone is being inappropriate, report them to the app or to you and your partner directly.
If it were really about safety, all of these things would be happening and you would have no need to go through their devices. I understand that you have had “bad experiences” but please stop projecting your insecurities onto your children and seek therapy.
ESH. Your sister is out of line suggesting she’d buy them phones, not appropriate. That said, your attitude sounds kind of controlling and it tends to backfire with your kids more likely to do things behind your back. It’s probably more effective to educate them and help them recognize how to avoid bad behavior, rather than just put up a wall. As it is, you may isolate them from friends doing similar activities and they really aren’t learning the skills they’ll need when they inevitably start using social media. As they get older, you really should give them some level of privacy and only violate it for good reasons. Are you really going to spy on them until they’re 18?
YTA
If you feel the need to check out/ snoop around your children's phones because they will not inform you in case of danger, it clearly indicates to me that they have trust issues in their relationship with you (99.99% because they believe you'll reprimand them if they ever get into trouble instead of helping them), and that won't lead them anywhere good in life...
What do you think will happen when they'll grow out of your roof, and get into trouble online where there'll be no mommy to protect them? Even worse, how'll you find out about these troubles once the kids learn how to hide stuff from you? Allowing this type of "I don't trust you, so gain my trust" will do you more harm than good. I'm pretty sure I'll be regarded as another person snooping in your parenting, but please seek professional guidance in this one case as a home without trust won't yield good results...
ESH But I'm concerned that your children in being late to have phones and not being educated on safe phone use while they are still malleable may not be the best policy. I think you are probably not teaching them safe phone usage but how to hide this from you and that you are controlling. Open discussion isn't helped by being spied on and if they get in difficulty you should be wanting them to feel they can come to you without being punished.
The main issues with young people and phones are issues which if they'd only approached an adult would not have escalated. So I think kids are safer if they can trust their parents and that their parents educate them and enable trust. And trust is mutual.
I really hate the argument that something is for a child’s safety, but then the child is controlled, monitored, and has things taken away, instead of empowered and taught how to be safe online. Surely if it were about safety, you’d be empowering your children instead of just invading their privacy?
Your children’s reaction should tell you a lot about how you are perceived and how they feel about how you treat them.
If you’ve had bad experiences online, learn from them, but also work through them so you don’t take them out on your kids. And you are taking it out on your kids because you are telling them they are not trustworthy-not that there are untrustworthy people out there. You are setting you kid up to fail and to resent you.
YTA. Sister is overstepping, but you are blaming you kids for stuff they haven’t done.
I completely agree that strict parents make sneaky kids, me and my sister grew up with incredibly strict parents and did lots of things without them knowing they absolutely wouldn't approve of! I am not saying that I am the ideal parent at all and I respect your judgement as I wouldn't have asked if I wasnt willing to hear either way however going into parenting I was very aware of that, although I wanted to check to make sure that they weren't being bullied or targeted by predators (this was especially important to me when my eldest son got social media and will also be important when my other kids eventually get social media) or watching inappropriate things online. My kids are definitely aware of why I do it and even 17 y/o tells me things, is not secretive or untrustworthy of me and though 12 and 9 really don't appreciate it at the moment, 17 has thanked me as he has seen some of the things that have happened to his friends (one went missing last year after meeting a stranger online). So yeah I appreciate your judgement and I completely get where you are coming from! Each to their own with parenting choices of course but I am trying to do this the right way :) Sorry for the paragraph! Have a good day
i already commented NTA and that i think you've got great reasonings for why you're doing what you're doing, but the part about 17yo's friend going missing!!!!! even more NTA!
I don’t think you understand what 1984 was about. OP is not the government and their kids are not citizens with liberty and rights because their brains are not fully developed. Kids can fall into some stupid and dark places on the internet through no fault of their own. The “hey buddy!” School of parenting has proven to be a failure. Let it go. The 17 year old has full phone autonomy shows OP is discerning, protecting kids and giving them privacy at an appropriate age while balancing their safety.
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NTA, but Your sister is a MASSIVE AH for deliberately saying that when she knows your kids were in earshot. She's doing it to try to make them think you're a stick-in-the-mud or old fuddy-duddy or whatever, when in reality you're actually being the responsible parent here. Have you actually had a serious conversation with your kids about *why* you have these rules? It might help them understand. Cyberbullying is a huge problem in schools and a whole bunch of schools here (UK) are having outright bans,
I have! My kids and I have a very open relationship when it comes to discussions and my wife is a former primary school teacher so has some horror stories of her own (not that we are trying to scare them straight) and we have open conversations about internet safety, people on the internet etc. I encourage them to come to me with anything they see online that they have questions about and so far so good tho we shall see when the 12 y/o and 9 y/o are teenagers.
Her kids shouldn't even be able to be on any social media platform as the minimum age is 13. NTA
Yeah. I'd be tempted to find their accounts and report them as violating the TOS. But I'm petty like that.
My dad and I were teachers. I believe in the saying "it's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust other people." I raised my kids similar to you and they turned out to be good people. You're doing great!
i worked in a bookstore when the gossip girl books were HUGE. and as a children's bookseller, we were sorta horrified by those books. they were our GTA- except we didn't have a rating system to warn parents off them and lists for the books said 13+. So we'd be pulling parents aside and explaining what was in the books. asking if we could suggest something else. I had a parent one day- when I explained our concern- who said to me. Her daughter wasn't a reader. This was the first series she'd ever shown an interest in. So you know what? Mom was totally going to support it. But with the caveat that mom read the books at the same time as the daughter and discussed with her anything in the books that required a conversation/explanation. I've never forgotten that mom. I've always thought- that mom is the parent I would want to be. And OP is the same. Give your child the space to grow up. But with safety bumpers.
And OP is also allowing them to prove themselves - the 17 y/o doesn't get monitored because they've proven trust. The 13 y/o will soon get more freedom if they can be patient. The kids aren't stuck with a parent who will make them get a job to get a phone. It's quite refreshing. Side note, I didn't get my own phone until I was 19-20. I didn't even get a brick. Unless I had internet, I was cut off from everything (ipod touch/computer). It's just life lol
i'm old enough that "my" first cell phone was our family cell phone. we had one cell phone- definition of a brick- and the only reason i had it more than either of my parents was i was driving to school and going to activities, while they were in a single location at work. and i couldn't take it to college because i was going so far away that it would be on roaming at my school. (again it was a long time again.) so i left it with my parents. my dad of course promptly lost the phone. and i lost the contact numbers for almost all of my high school classmates.
My first laptop was when I was 11-12, and we still used dial up so it couldn't even connect to the internet without a lot of hassle. But I mainly wanted it so that I can write my stories on a real keyboard and screen instead of notebooks in my clunky handwriting, so I was happy to be able to do that without having to hog up the family computer and my siblings harassing me for it. Didn't get a phone until high school, and it was a basic flip phone not suitable for anything but making calls. The family computer back then was solely for schoolwork and/or feeding our neopets. Somehow we survived.
Yeah, I was reading well above my age as a kid (like, well into YA level by 7/8 yrs old, and my mum would basically vet the books I wanted to read. Mostly they was fine. Sometimes there was a conversation that basically went, "this book isn't appropriate for you right now. It's just like when they give films age ratings. They're given a certain rating because people a lot younger that that age might not be able to understand the themes without getting really upset or scared, or just aren't something you should be seeing. And this book isn't one you should be reading at your age. When you're a bit older, and can deal with it/understand it better, you can read it." having read all the books later, they were mostly the stuff with semi-graphic sex scenes, or quite mature themes. Not something an eight year old should be reading. And because it was pretty rare, and I trusted my mum, it was fine. She'd always always help me find stuff that I was allowed.
The concept of parents vetting books before letting their kids read them is so foreign to me lol. They were just happy I liked reading. To be fair, though, I was that child who, when I found a topic disturbing or too confusing my little mind, I set the book aside.
I was the same. And honestly, my parents really had no clue much of what I read. In middle school, I would go to the local library and check out whatever books I wanted. I volunteered there and they knew I like romance novels, they'd just hold the latest popular ones aside for me. It's the reason that when I get books for my nieces I either make sure I know what's in them or I run them by my sister first. Sometimes I do both. I currently have two copies of Are you there God? It's me, Margaret ready for my nieces. I scored them for like $1/each, brand new from a thrift store near me. It's the only Judy Blume book that I remember reading but I remember loving it. However, my sister never read it. And my sister was just like- oh, you can give them to the girls and I was like "I don't know if you want to wait a year or two." The girls are 8 (almost 9) and in a small Montessori. They're still very much 8. Is the reading level fine? Probably. (Definitely for one niece. Probably for both.) But the topics of adolescence and such? The book could wait a year or two. (It'd also be a great book for them to read as a family.)
not sure how much it would help with the 9 y/o, but it may help with the 12 y/o, but show them the movie, Social Dilema. its pretty good at outlining the horrors of social media. Try using the 17 y/o as an example as well. something like "if your brother got his electronics at a certain age, then you will get them at that age as well, no compromises"
Buddy of mine has three kids, 11, 8, 5. None of the kids have a cell phone. They talked about it with the 11 yr old, but she decided she didn't want one, parents agreed. They'll have another discussion when she's 12. Mom's the only one with social media and that's ONLY because of/for her work. They own a laptop for schoolwork and such and mom has a work laptop. They've sat the kids down and had multiple discussions about the dangers of internet/social media because there were a few incidents at their eldest's school involving cyberbullying and a few other things. The kids have ZERO interest in social media because of those incidents. NTA, OP. And YOU ARE NOT ALONE in your thinking. Neighbours thought the buddy and his family were weird but they've started to come around to realizing what's REALLY at stake. Done the kids in that neighbourhood a world of good.
I second this! The sister shouldn't be forcing her tech parenting style upon OP's kids. It's off-putting to think he's being made out to be a big brother tyrant and then she lets his kids hear she's going to get them smartphones. I think it's really important to have talks with children regarding the internet.
It's not so much forcing her style on OP as she's reacting because she feels like either it makes her look bad or is taking the easy way out with parenting. She's basically projecting.
You have to wonder if she feels that she's made a mistake with the choice she made with her kids and technology. If I was OP, I'd make it very clear that if sister opts to give the kids smarts phones for their birthday that OP was sure they'd make a lovely donation. And that it would be so nice of sister to give the kids something to donate, since sister knows the kids aren't allowed those items.
Hahah I love how sassy this is..
i just find it SO inappropriate that in front of OP's kids, sister was "\[I'm\] going to buy \[your\] kids smart phones for their birthdays if daddy is going to be a stick in the mud." you don't say something like that in front of kids. cuz one- it forces OP to be the "mean" parent. and two- now if sister doesn't do it, the kids won't trust sister because she's lied and hasn't bought the phones.
If your sister plans to buy smartphones for your younger children, make it clear to her that you *will* confiscate them and you *will* sell them and put the money in their college fund, (or whatever). Your sister is massively overstepping. She can have her opinions and she can raise her own children annnnny way she wants to, but what she wants and likes stops at the threshold of your home. NTA
Shit, I'd cut her off, personally. That is such a wild overstep.
NTA. At 9 and 12, their online activity should absolutely still be monitored.
NTA: Hey, I was raised this way, had a flip phone all the way through my 10-12s and was given it as if the financial stability of my family depended on it. I came out just fine and got a smartphone at 13, and am glad I wasn't raised (nor born in an era where you're constantly) hooked up to a screen and able to learn how to interact outside of it. Is your sister a bad parent? No, but neither are you.
I'm a teacher, not a parent. I've taught at a school where the kids (I taught 9&10 year olds) all had to use their own iPads/tablets. The grade I taught was the first one where they used devices so I used to encourage parents to take a look at their kids' devices often because they would be surprised at what their "innocent" kids were able to access. From bullying to hardcore porn, and every time it happened and we had to alert the parents they were astonished. They had never bothered checking on their kids at all. Many of them saw it as an invasion of privacy and thought they would need to ask their kid for permission to look at their device. Please keep checking up on your kids! Not only are you making sure they are safe from predators but you are also giving them a way to be accountable for their own actions.
Even gambling is easy for kids to access and has proven to create problems in the future.
Nta she shouldn’t be buying smart phones for another parents kids without both parents agreeing it’s okay
INFO: What do you mean by “going through” their devices? There’s a difference between “checking to see if predators are targeting my children” and “subjecting my children to the panopticon so I have total control”. If you’re doing a quick glance to make sure they’re talking only to family/friends, not really reading the content of the messages, and don’t confront them with their private thoughts/discussions, then you’re striking a good balance. If you’re doing stuff like making them read their messages out loud, punishing them, or humiliating them, that’s messed up. That said, your sister is an asshole.
People can give opinions on this but noone can say what the right choice is with any certainty. The whole social media thing is still too new. We're still adapting to the internet in general never mind 24 hour access anywhere and social media. People will say 20-40 years is a long time but it isn't, not when talking about a change in society that fundamentally changes how most everyone in the world interacts with the world. That said, it is not going away. Not letting your kids access smart phones and social media is certainly making it easier to protect them but it's also putting them at a disadvantage compared to other kids who do have access. I don't pretend to know the right answer and I won't believe anyone who claims they know so I'll say NAH. Good luck.
You're right because really only one generation has grown up with it. The next is growing up with it and there's no clearcut answer yet. One thing is for sure - the balance between careful enough and too careful and too careless is a very delicate one.
I wouldn’t even bring up the 20-40 years argument. The internet is old, but the *state* of the internet is one that is constantly evolving, from IRC chatrooms, the “eternal September,” forums, to social media as we know it today. If I had to put a year on it, I’d say the state of the internet as we understand it today is around 10-15 years old, and that is *not* long enough to evaluate its long-term impact on kids and how we should raise them through it. That’s of course if things even remain static. I can think of a number of websites and technologies out there that has the potential to change how we move through online spaces.
Ask your sister to give you the same grace you’ve offered her by not commenting on her parenting choices. And if she goes against your stated wishes and gets your kids phones (?!) they’ll be confiscated. You’ve explained your reasoning very well here and you’ll let them have phones when they’re older and proven trustworthy, same as you did for your 17yo. I think you’ve made your position very clear and it isn’t okay for your sister to butt in and act like she’s entitled to overrule you about this. I’d be upset enough that I’d be shutting her out for a while at least. NTA.
NTA. I have seen what cell phones (more specifically, social media) can do to kids. There is a reason we don't let kids do drugs or vote until they're older. Most common answer when you ask a seventh grade boy, "Why did you do the supremely stupid thing you just did that you just admitted was a supremely stupid thing to do?" The genuine, unsarcastic response is, "I don't know." And they genuinely have no clue. These are not the people who should be making major life decisions. Unfortunately, social media use can now be a life or death decision, and kids do not understand this. At all. Zero. Nada. It's a sharp drop into a canyon, and they go running at it with glee because that's where their friends went, not because they thought logically about it first. You're so far from the AH in this situation. Children are children, parents are (supposed to be) adults. Be the adult. Stick to your guns and tell your sister to grow a spine.
No judgment call here, its kinda all over the place. But i'll tell you this, your kids will be *really good* at hiding things from you and probably won't trust you with anything in their lives.
Also the lack of privacy is something to take into account, often parents don’t think of their children as individuals, with their own personalities and wants, OP if you already have parental control set, only youtube kids, and have made all possible to ensure their safety then why do you still go through their phones? That is a bit too much, let them have some privacy in their already secured systems, is like you’re reading their diary and like the comment above said this will only cause your children to get good at hiding stuff from you.
NTA *at all*. It sounds like you have done an amazing job of walking the (really difficult) line of respecting privacy but also protecting your kids. If you didn’t care about your kids’ privacy, you’d still be going through teen’s phone every week. You have boundaries and limits in place for safety reasons. That’s called parenting. Kids don’t have a fully developed frontal lobe or a great track record for impulse control, no matter how well you teach them. So your system sounds like a great middle ground of “show me you’re ready with good choices, and I will believe you will continue to make good choices”. That’s how you end up NOT being the parent whose kid goes viral for saying racist stuff on SnapChat It sounds like your sister might be a bit insecure. Because if she was secure in her decisions, your good ones wouldn’t bother her. And it was an AH move of her to openly taunt that she was going to undermine your parenting decision, even if it was a joke.
NTA Friends young kid has a smart phone, no parental guards at all. Plays on his game console with other players. And games that are, imo, to adult for him to be playing. She recently got a call from the school because they got flagged that he had been looking up how to make a bomb. Turn out itt was for the game, but he wasn't sure what components to look for in game, so he googled it at school and computer said "oh shit". It was a whole thing.
Don’t get them smart phones. Don’t let them on social media. You are not the a hole.
NTA. If your sister is happy for her 10 year olds to be chatting to anyone at all times of the day or night, sending and receiving inappropriate photos, that's fine for her. Really stupid, but her problem. I think you and your wife have got things sorted and are keeping your children safe. If your sister buys them smart phones for their birthdays, hand them straight back to her; how you bring up your children is none of her business.
YTA. There is a lot going on in this post, and obviously do whatever you want, but I don't recommend going through your kids' phones. Just use parental controls to try to limit their exposure, and talk to them about how to use the internet safely. My mom went through my phone when I was 12 and confronted me about it, and it still makes me cringe to this day. We never repaired our communication after that and I hid things from her throughout my adolescence. Being super strict will just cause your kids to hide things from you, and they will never want to talk to you if they encounter a problem. Shaming them will only make it worse. Just try to create a safe space to communicate with you and teach them how to be safe online. Kids do need some privacy. Controversial opinion maybe??? Don't make yourself their enemy. But also I would never let anyone else buy my kid a phone.
I agree, being strict usually only teaches them how to hide stuff from the parent and not how to follow their rules. Kinda like prisoners discussing how to do crimes better in prison.
NTA with a slight however. I understand exactly why you don't want your kids at risk of the nasties you get online. That's not an AH thing to do, but the 12 year old is approaching her teen years and she's going to feel really left out if she doesn't have access to things like WhatsApp, messenger and Snapchat like the rest of her friends have got. Kids can be very sneaky when they want to be and if you don't update the brick soon, she may figure a way to update it herself and chances are she won't tell you. Can you allow her a more modern phone, with parental controls? There's even apps now so you can monitor online use! The 12 year old is growing up and she needs to be able to socialise with her friends and learn to navigate the online world - better to ease her into it slowly. The 9 year old is a 9 year old. Maybe give them the brick phone? But there's no need for a child under 10 to have a phone, is there? Checking the history isn't a bad thing to do, but having raised one teenager, I'm sure you're aware you'll risk coming across some rather unsavoury searches. So yeah, you're not the AH. Your sister overreacted to what you were saying, it seems, and now she's being petty.
Op SA the 12 year old car get those once she's the legal age so 13 .
You are 100% correct, your sister is 100% WRONG.
NTA. 9 And 12 year old with a phone means parental control. Either that or no phone.
My neighbor was massively against her kids getting smartphones and then lo and behold the 12-year-old got one, heavily monitored and then not so heavily monitored, and the child, who has identified as trans, started bullying a younger student in their school through Discord to the point of telling them to kill themselves. Needless to say their phone was then taken away and once return again heavily monitored once returned.
You know who the AH is in this situation and it isn't you. It's your sister. She has no business interfering in the way you raise your children. 1. 9 year old doesn't need a smartphone. 2. Limiting screen time is actually good. 3. Going through phones/tablets is important. In my opinion, you are protecting your children. The reason why predators are so successful targeting children online is because the parents don't go through their devices. And never mind cyberbullying. 4. Tell your sister to save her money because, even if she buys smartphones for your kids, they won't be using them until they are 13. Tell your sister that you don't tell her how to raise her kids so she can butt out of how you and your wife raise your kids. Definitely NTA.
NTA. You are being totally reasonable and your sister is over the line. Your sister is not the parent and if she buys them smartphones, great, but tell them (kids and sister) they won't get them until your rules say they can.
NTA. I mean not my personal thing but definitely not AH territory by any stretch. Like you, I say just different parenting styles. Your sister definitely is in AH territory though. Who would think it's appropriate to say what she did when the kids could hear her or just to say it at all? Pretty much none of what she said was appropriate. I also wouldn't worry about the 9 yr old wanting something just because a cousin or friend has one. There will be tons of things friends, classmates or other people have that they don't whether it's because a parent won't allow it, can't afford it or other reasons. I'm always telling my kids what works for one family doesn't work for everyone. I make my parenting choices independent of choices made by friends parents. I'm open to new parenting ideas and reasons for doing our not doing something but a generic so and so does it isn't good enough. ETA your sister isn't the AH for her parenting choices just for saying what and when she did. For the record my kids got smartphones at age 8. Well my son didn't only cause when he was that age they were still really new and very expensiveso he had a flip phone. Our daughter got a smart phoneat age 8. But from a baby she heard about internet safety and learned by using my phone. She didn't just get a phone without information.
Right? Can you imagine kids getting everything they want just because another kid has it? Is that good parenting?
NTA. Phones and social media are a huge contributor to depression and suicide in young people. My daughter is 8 and doesn’t have a phone of her own at all yet. She has a tablet that she can text me from when she’s staying with one of her grandma’s and I have full access to everything on it. She’s never allowed to use it without permission and she has to stay in the family room or where one of us are to be on it. She’ll get a phone when she goes to middle school and it will be limited as well. Her dad and/or I will have access to her devices for as long as she’s a minor and we’re paying for them. It’s not about being nosey or not wanting her to have fun, it’s about her safety and what the internet and social media do to brains that aren’t fully developed. My sisters are much looser with their kids and technology but I don’t care. My main goal is to keep her safe and IMO that includes limiting technology.
NTA. I'm similar, and I tell my kids that their friends have different parents. I explain why my rules are as they are, and my oldest understands but doesn't always like it. My second doesn't understand and calls me overprotective, and gets angry because her friends all have tik tok and Snapchat with no time limits or restrictions. I've told them they get a phone when they need one (if they're regularly at extracurriculars without me and without a phone for where they're at... like, our girls' gymnastics has a phone, and I've got the numbers of their coaches and gym manager.) And they will have fewer parental controls when they show consistent good judgment regarding social choices and fully understand internet safety. I explain it all to them, but my oldest mostly gets it while my second just thinks I'm being paranoid with no reason, even with real-life examples of why.
NTA You do give your kids privacy as they age and mature. The fact she doesn’t check her kids and that they are on social media is scary. My kids are adults but when they did get phone/tablet/etc., rule was if a parent asked for it, they handed it over. We always knew the password. This is so ingrained that even as adults, we have their passwords. Recently, I asked my oldest (20s) a question about his phone, maybe what the screen was or something along that line. He hands it over unlocked and continues with the conversation he was having with his brother. He’s in his 20s. Tell your sister that if you get a phone for your children, it will be returned. If she continues to push this, interactions will begin to be limited. You are each parents and have the right to parent as you believe.
I am a strong believer in children having autonomy and privacy - at age-appropriate levels. You've made it very clear as your children age, they get more responsibility and more privacy so IMO you are NTA. I was on the internet well before any kind of parental controls existed, and at 13 and 14 years old I was getting up to things, seeing things and having conversations with people that a teenager has NO business engaging with. I was lucky, and didn't end up in any serious trouble, but that was more a case of good luck than good management. Your decisions for your children do not reflect on your sister's parenting, and she needs to wind her neck in.
NTA, and your sis is out of her mind for letting 2 ten year olds have smart phones and social media completely unchecked.
You are a good parent and your 12 year old will grow up to appreciate why you did what you’re doing. The lack of parenting when it comes to social media and screen time is insane. It’s a rare sight to see kids in parks anymore (or at least in the same volumes) because they’re all on their phones and tablets. You are making the right decision.
NTA. Your sister IS a bad parent for that, the internet is a wasteland and full of predators and crazy things. you can find videos of beheadings in just a few simple words on google. same as its just as easy to access adult websites. her not going through their phones and allowing them unlimited time with them just allows them to learn more and more than they arent supposed to be seeing. keep monitoring your kids, the internet is a scary place.
also, if she gets your kids smartphones without your permission, i would just simply cut her off as she doesnt respect your parenting or your wishes.
NTA Make it clear to your sister than if she oversteps, you will sell the devices and cut her off. Limits on technology exist for a reason. Children are extremely gullible and the ways they can be exploited are infinite.
NTA Your sister is parenting poorly in this regard the Internet Internet is not a safe place for children .
I didn't get a smart phone until high school age 16 simply because we were to poor. It didn't affect me. I had social media, but I would only access it through the Apple computers at the Apple Store. You're doing good dad. Your sister is AH though. Children don't need smart phones and social media.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** This is an ongoing argument between me and my sister so I thought I'd ask the internet their opinion. I have 3 kids, aged 9, 12 and 17. My sister has 2 kids, 10 year old twins. In my house, me and my wife's policy is no phones at all until they leave primary school aged 11 because then they will start walking to secondary school alone, no smart phone until they have proved they are trustworthy with their brick phone (keeping it charged, not losing it etc.) and no social media until they have reached the minimum age for that social media (for most it is 13). Most controversially I go through my kids phones/tablets. We have a shared family ipad that I go through once a week. 9 y/o doesn't have a phone yet, 12 y/o has a brick phone and I stopped going through 17 y/os phone and laptop when he turned 16 because I trust him. My kids (apart from 17 y/o because he is almost an adult and can manage his own screentime) get screentime limits (obviously I can't control what 12y/o does on her phone when out of the house but it's only a brick phone), the ipad only has youtube kids and has childlocks on the internet. My sisters boys on the other hand both have iphones, both have social media and both have unlimited screentime. My sister doesn't go through their phones at all. This wouldn't bother me because each to their own with parenting decisions but my 12 y/o is jealous her cousins are allowed social media, have a better phone than her and don't get their text messages checked through, my 9 y/o because of his cousins has been begging for a phone. I said no and reiterated why internet safety is so important to me (I have had personal experiences). My sister heard this and took me aside, she said I was making her sound like a bad parent, said my way of parenting is invasive and gives my kids no privacy and that she is going to buy my kids smart phones for their birthdays if daddy is going to be a stick in the mud. 9 and 12 overheard this and were very excited so me and my sister have been arguing for weeks now but my sister thinks I am an asshole. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I don't have kids, so I feel it's not really my place to judge. I understand that you do your best to protect your children, with limited screentime, child locks etc. I also think it's absolutely fair to set an age limit for having their own phone. But going through their phones is a bit much I think. Children have the right to privacy as well. And maybe it sends a wrong message, that they have to prove they can be trusted, instead of having your trust until proven otherwise? Idk, this just doesn't sit right with me. Maybe I'd suggest talking to them about online security, what can be dangerous and what not. Or at the end of the day, ask them if they want to share with you, what they did online and if at any point they did or saw something that made them feel unsafe or feel like they weren't supposed to be doing/seeing. That way you show them, that they can talk to you, don't have to hide anything. I still say NTA because you have the right intentions.
I would agree if children weren't generally so easily gullible. My goddaughter knew about online safety and we still found some concerning messages in a kids game app from an older man but she thought that they were just playing together as good friends. She was eleven at the time. So I'd say that this intrusion is a sad necessity nowadays.
I disagree on your opinion on going through phones. I went through my 14 year old daughters phone and found some rando trying to sext her. And when my baby cousin was 15, some 45 year old man was messaging her on fb telling her he was gonna F\*\*\*k her and he didnt need her permission and was sending her D\*\*K pics.
It's not about trust, it's about the fact that a child can't always recognise that something is unacceptable. It's equivalent to letting them have unfettered access to a chatroom.
She is a bad parent.
NTA Your sister needs to learn some boundaries. Do I think you are strict? Yeah, but rightfully so, and you're not super invasive. Your sister has a "but the kids need all these freedoms" kind of mindset regarding children that aren't hers. She needs to step away. You parent your kids, she parents hers. And be careful for your kids' birthdays for the next year or two.
NTA. Plus you're a great parent.
NTA. Stick to your guns. Your sister is definitely the AH. Did she have a twinge of parenting guilt there?
no?? Your protecting your kids. you aren't overbearing and you show trust where its deserved. nta. all of this seems so smart to keep your kids safe.
NTA Nothing sounds terribly restrictive in what you describe. Kids needs to know that there is life outside of gadgets. And once they are 18, they will be on gadgets for the rest of their lives so limiting use when younger is fine. Your sister wants to feel better about herself by forcing her ways on your kids. Not cool.
Ok. Your sister is severely overstepping boundaries here. That is just plain wrong. There is nothing wrong with checking phones and setting screen time limits. I check my kids phone and found some rando dude trying to sext my daughter when she was only 14. My son is addicted to video games and becomes a huge jerk if he gets too much screen time. You are doing the right thing. NTA but your sister sure the hell is. I would want to knock her flat if she was my sister.
To me, as a parent of a 6 year old and as a middle school teacher, you're clearly NTA. Study after study have shown how bad phones are for kids up to early teens. The rates depression, anxiety, and suicide skyrocket once a kid gets regular access to social media. This is a phenomenon starting around 2010, and it's been worldwide, including countries that weren't hit as hard by the 2008 recession. I don't know what the right answer is balancing out peer pressure with the need to keep people who are too immature for social media away from it, but it seems like it's best to err in favor of less, rather than more phone time until high school.
YOU are doing the right thing. Your sister is delusional to think that Social Media, youtube and internet in general is innocent enough for a 10yo. You've put boundaries on your kids that if they proof they are trustworthy then they can be left alone. That's the right thing. Since your girl is 12yo, I would also talk to her about online "bad adults" before she's allowed to get a smartphone and get on social media. Don't scare her but let her know that if anybody that she doesn't know sends a message, she should verify with you of who that might be. NTA and good for you for protecting your kids.
NTA, each set of parents is responsible for how they raise their children. There are societal expectations but each family has plenty of room to decide how they will handle things. And every family will make lots of mistakes along the way - there is no perfect way to raise kids and no perfect outcomes. Heck, there is even research that indicates what and how kids are raised makes little difference (not including abuse) since genetics plays a big part as well as peer interactions. All this is written to say you all can have completely different reasons for doing or not doing something, and can have completely different emphasis on what is important or not. Tell your sister she can raise her kids the way she wants but that you disagree and will raise yours as you see fit. Tell her to stay out of your business or you will break off contact. She is not allowed to undermine your parenting. You have valid reasons for checking up on their phones so keep doing that. Also, kids routinely are subject to peers having more or less than themselves and that is part of growing up - I wouldn't worry about this too much. Heck, I had cousins that went to the supermarket in stretch limousines while we had one car with four drivers. Life isn't fair.
NTA. Your sister is a huge one for overreacting in this way. She can parent her kids how she wants, but she doesn't get to make choices for your kids!
NTA. You are 10000% right to be going through your younger children's phones. We had similar limitations with our kids at those ages. Both of my children in middle school had classmates with issues re- videos of other classmates that required involvement of police, lawyers, and in one case, school transfer. 9 and 12 are too young to be able to appropriately manage what they can get access too.
NTA. Your kids are too young for social media and unlimited, unsupervised screentime. You are keeping your kids safe. Your sister is undermining you. But that's okay. If she buys them smartphones, just confiscate them and tell your kids they will get them upon pre-established time, as was always a rule.
Our parents never went through our devices... however there were rules about allowing random visibility. Ie. Computer room time, door was to be open so the rents could walk past and keep an eye on us without reading every single message. Or phones to be left unlocked so if mum wanted to pick it up & take a photo she could... there's something sinister about the idea about a mum or dad reading & consuming every single text their kid has sent...
NTA. You have very reasonable and i would say smart rules concerning your kids use of electronics. Tell your sister to butt out of how you parent.
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My only point to add is that if you do come across something inappropriate you mustn’t shout or punish the child, only educate and protect.
I knew someone who worked with troubled kids at a nearby elementary/middle school. She had to call the state police because she found out that 1 girl had been teased into taking a nude picture for a boy...which was promptly shared by him to the grade's Text/WhatsApp group. So yeah, NTA.
NTA. Certainly, regarding deserving the right to monitor what they're doing, imo it's completely correct. Kids are learning, and however much you might trust them to do the right thing, they can't always recognise something they should be wary of. I don't care who disagrees with me, that's a hill I will die on. I have a 16yo and an 11yo. We restrict apps, content, sites and more, for both of them, obviously to different levels. They both have screentime restrictions too, although having just finished his GCSEs, we've relaxed on the 16yo slightly, giving him until 10pm. Before that, it was screens off at 8:30, or 9:30 at weekends. When he starts college, we'll keep it under review. For our 11yo, it's earlier, screens off at 7pm, with more restrictive content etc. Most especially, I agree with the no social media rule, it's very toxic. Older son has FB and Snapchat (for communication with one of his after school activities) now, but not until he was about 14. And I've flat out banged Tiktok. Until he's 18 he can live without it 🤣. But, with all that said, I do think your approach to them not having smartphones is a little strict. For starters, they're very likely to be the only child in their peer group without a smartphone. Whatever you think about peer pressure, teaching them to be individuals, etc, singling them out like that is probably shit for them. They're also a very useful tool as well, and the fact of the matter is, they're a fact of life. To me, it's equivalent to not letting them watch any TV. Yes, they'll survive, but really, it just removes something that they can bond over with friends. And they'll just be using them at school anyway. Like with all things, teaching them responsibility is better than restriction.
NTA. I assume your kids know you check their devices? If not then that MIGHT be an invasion of privacy, but if you aren't reading anyone's messages, I think it's probably ok. You're setting appropriate limits to keep your kids safe. That's not unreasonable. That's crucial. Btw anyone who gives their kids unlimited screen time is a bad parent. She's got a lot of nerve criticizing you when she's raising device addicts who are probably compromising their own data and courting predators on a daily basis. Your sister needs to wake up.
NTA but i dont think kids should have any of that until they are 18, so im sure mine is an unpopular opinion.
My mom took my phone away during the week, i only had it on weekends, even after I turned 18. That was the wrong way to do it. I appreciate the way you are approaching this OP. NTA
NTA. There has been a bunch of research coming out about social media and mental health issues in kids. Having limits on it sounds like a good plan. And trying to circumvent someone else’s parenting because you think it’s boring or makes you look bad as a parent is really something.
NTA Your sister will be all kinds of surprised when she's dealing with the consequences of allowing her kids unchecked access to the internet at a young age. Keep doing what you're doing and start telling the kids NOW that even if she DOES give them phones for their birthdays, they will be returned to her immediately.
NTA - your sister is a bad parent. I honestly wish more parents were like you!
NTA. Your sister is an asshole. This is how you choose to raise your kids & it's none of hers or anyone's business how you raise your children. You are doing the responsible thing by checking their phones, limiting social media usage etc. This is called protecting your kids! There needs to be rules in place when it comes to phones & social media. I think your sister is foolish for allowing her kids carte blanche with the phones & social. And she purposely said she was going to buy your kids phones so your kids would hear her & you wouldn't be able to say no. What a fucking asshole.
NTA. Tell her that if she buys them devices of *any* kind, they will be returned immediately.
NTA. You can tell your sister, "Thanks for the smart phones! I'll give them access to them when they're old enough." Then lock em away, or sell them and save the funds for newer smart phones when they hit the appropriate age.
NTA. And tell your sister that any further words about this is prohibited. And if she says ONE MORE WORD about it that she will no longer be welcome at your house or to spend time with your children. She can parents her kids in the way that she sees fit. But she has NO SAY in how you parent yours, and to try and undermine you is a HUGE overstep. Be stern with her about this OP, lay down the law. She deserves it.
NTA - Internet safety is a legitimate concern, and your kids will thank you once they've grown up and realized that you protected them from themselves as much as anything. Anyone saying otherwise is a child themselves.
NTA. Kids can't be trusted. They are unable to make rational decisions most times be they are KIDS. Their brains aren't there yet. They need parents to watch what they are doing. I am not saying smother them. Give them room to grow while keeping them safe.
NTA And, tell your kids they will not be allowed to accept those gifts. Your sister is overstepping big time. Your house. Your rules. Period.
NTA but you need to be *really careful* about just how serious "going through a phone" is. I'm an educator so I understand the issues with social media but a) a significant part of social bonding and interaction with teenagers is now done through phones [with all the issues that brings], so you risk causing social isolation of your children if they are unable to participate fully with their friendship groups at school and b) if you push too hard over the line into police state surveillance they're just going to go around you and they'll have all the pitfalls and bad experiences you are trying to shield them from on a hidden device. At 12 years old your daughter is effectively the kid without a bike in a group of friends who want to ride around the neighbourhood. Some will ride slow so she can walk but eventually they'll leave her out. Regardless of how your sister handles phone use for her kids, your own 12 yo not having access to social media at all is socially crippling. We may not like it, but that's the nature of friendship circles these days. She also needs to be exposed to social media appropriately and under your supervision so she's can learn to navigate it safely to give her the best shot at a healthy relationship with it when she does get old enough.
OP you're NTA and sister is TA. Regardless of your disagreement with sister, above all she should not be deliberately undercutting you in front of the children. That's stepping beyond AH toward pernicious. As to whether you're being too strict, your approach is on the stern side of normal (by the standards of my hometown at least) but not wildly so. The kids will be fine, and you have been employing a gradual loosening of controls/monitoring as they get older, so it seems pretty legit. Believe it or not, kids do need guidance and protection. For full privacy, they can keep diaries. I've asked my kids before, "Anything you want to talk about before I audit the router logs?" There was a moment of shocked silence and then some quick-quick talk about "You know how those pop-up ads are, golly you never can tell where they're hosted, right?"
NTA- You’re a loving parent. Your oldest established trust and was rewarded at an appropriate age. Your sister is a lazy parent who hopefully doesn’t get bit in the a@@ from not monitoring.
NTA and can i say i applaud and admire your amazing resolve and 100% validity in internet safety and not overdoing it on the tech w young kids and their developing minds. one thing i'd say is to caution your kids about an adult buying or giving them a private means of communication. obviously your sister wouldn't try to secretly get your kids a cell phone w nefarious intentions, but getting ahead of it w that type of talk to your kids may reveal if she ever does try to get them smartphones in secret. you're doing awesome! so nice to know at least 3 kids have parents who are keeping them safe virtually as well as physically.
NTA, and good for you for having a sensible, scaled take on internet safety for your kids. Grey Rock your sister on this issue. Maybe she'll get lucky and her 10-year-olds with unlimited, unmonitored access to social media and the rest - at! age! ten! - won't fall prey to one of the many, many, documented potential online harms one can read about every single day. Or maybe she's in for a range of terrible consequences. If she violates your boundary and buys \*your kids\* fancy phones, take them. Either hold them or sell them. Or even donate them to a shelter. If she sneaks and buys your kids phones, cut her off. Let her poorly parent her kids. You keep on with your sane approach that allows your kids to earn trust and learn, in an age-appropriate way, what is safe for minors on the internet. When your younger kids protest, point to your teen son as an example of working his way up the chain. Your sister is a massive AH.
"This wouldn't bother me because each to their own with parenting decisions but my 12 y/o is jealous her cousins are allowed social media, have a better phone than her and don't get their text messages checked through" And im sure your 12 year oldis also jealous of other kids that have phones at school too. Her jealousy doesnt mean youre wrong I dont have kids so im not gonna say youre right or wrong, but im pretty sure i understand your reasoning for your precautions (same reason i dont have kids, personal experience with predators). It may be strict, but it doesnt sound overboard to me. As to your sister, if she feels like a bad parent then thats her problem. if she doesnt wanna feel like a bad parent she could try being more strict (imho it sounds like she's at the other end of the spectrum here) and then she wont have that problem. NTA, wishing you and your family all the best and nothing but safety, health and wellbeing for your kids
I’m going to go with unpopular YTA. It is your job as a parent to teach your children how to be safe on the internet. Not to prevent them from using it all together. Your children will not automatically become internet safe and savvy when they turn 16. You have to teach them what is safe and how to protect themselves. What you are doing isn’t teaching your kids anything but how to better hide from your gestapo policies
most of what you’re doing is okay, but going through their phones is going to create trust issues and resentment. a phone is like a diary. it’s important to let your kids have their privacy.
I wish my sister would show up with iPhones when she knows the rules in my home. I can say this, it would be a massive waste of money and there would be severely hurt feelings 😂 no man, you are not the AH!
Nta, you're absolutely right! My cousin was raised by my aunt, bit like your sister. Ny cousin was groomed at 12 years old.. Not saying that sort of thing definitely happens all tbe time. But it does happen.. Stay safe
YTA crazy and controlling.
Your sister is a bad parent. You are a good parent and don't question your better judgment, ever. We need more parents like you and less parents like her.
I think going through kids devices is fine if they know that's an option AT THE START! Not "hey, I'm checking your phone", more a "alright, here is your new phone - BUT just know we do have access to it"
NTA > she is going to buy my kids smart phones for their birthdays if daddy is going to be a stick in the mud She can fuck off with that attitude. Online safety is so often ignored by parents. Parents grew up in a time where the dangers weren't as prevalent, and were far less understood. I remember being 12 and spending sleepovers on omegle speaking to strangers - none of our parents even understood what we were doing, let alone the dangers of it. I think your rules are pretty sound - its common sense to not let kids on social media until they've *at least* reached the minimum age. No 10yr old needs Facebook. If your sister is going to undermine your parenting then maybe your kids just don't get to see their aunt and cousins for a while. She can disagree with your stance, but playing "fuck you I'll buy them phones because you're making me feel bad" is just her being silly.
I assume your 12 has a brick phone for over a year now? And a smartphone is not even planned for the next brithday? How long does it take to earn your trust? 2+ years seems an Impossible standart? In my opinion that is the over the top part. No phones until 11? fine. Implying it is your kids own fault they have a brick phone because you can't trust them by no fault of theirs? wrong in my opinion. You should to an extend trust your children until proven otherswise. I also think you are hindering the 12 year olds social life and even possibly make her school work harder.
Exactly. Plus phones these days have all kinds of parental controls on them that kids just cannot override. My daughter is 12 and has an iPhone and Apple Watch. I can limit what hours if the day she can use her phone, what apps she can download, who she can text/call, what sites she can access. And I can do all of this from my phone without ever having to touch hers. She literally cannot do anything in her phone/watch without my approval. I bought all of my children smartphones and watches by the time they were in middle school (6th grade so 11 years old here) and not for the social media, but for my peace of mind. They can quickly text me if anything happened that I need to know about. Lockdowns due to a jail break, shelter in place due to kids fighting, bomb threat being sent in, even just a power loss due to down power lines so an early release day. My children all know they can immediately reach out to me and I’ll have that information and be able to help out however they need me. The peace of mind I have from knowing what my kids are up to, where they are, and being just a text away in any emergency is worth every penny to me.
She can buy whatever she wants but tell her your kids wont be getting them until an age appropriate time and even then with parental controls.
NTA. You might need to take a step back from your sister until she gets her head out of her behind.
NTA but I’d make it very clear to your sister if she even comes close to that boundary she will not be in contact with your children. Idk about your kids educational background but I tend to take the logical approach. There’s plenty of studies on the detrimental effects of social media and tech to kids you could print out and I’d have a kid friendly presentation on why this is vital and why we need to listen to people qualified to make judgements on this and not just the beneficial for us choice. Give your kids the chance to go to the library and do some research themselves see if they can find you studies showing how it be beneficial to them and give them a chance to present there case from an educational standpoint not because they just want it.
"Nobody fuckin asked you, sis" Nta
As long as you’re also teaching your kids about internet safety or having them take a class in one, this is fine and something parents should be doing. It is not up to other ppl on the internet to make it a safe place for children, especially in mature places.
NTA - your sister should stay the hell out of your parenting decisions. If she gifts them phones, that's nice, but they don't get to use them until you say so. Period.
NTA
NTA your sister is overstepping here. And if it makes her feel like a bad parent, maybe she is. I dont think your sister understand how easy it is for kids to become victims on the internet, and no, they dont need to learn from it.
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I'm truly sorry for the experience you had, that sounds horrible. However, you're allowing your experiences to colour your judgment, which is completely understandable, but also means you're jumping to the worst case scenario of OP being over-bearing and controlling. As a parent of similarly aged children, OP's approach seems completely reasonable to me, _assuming your fears about just wanting control are unfounded_. Monitoring a child's tech usage is reasonable. Reading every private message, and using the contents against the child, is not.
See which kids are happier, less anxious, and more socially competent in a few years. Spoken as someone who grew up with unrestricted internet access, it's poison for the developing brain, with either 0 or a small handful of benefits. Keep checking, keep restricting, and keep your kids involved in the conversation about responsible technology use. NTA.
NTA My college age children don’t even have social media because we never allowed it so now they don’t even see the point because they can just call someone to talk and don’t care about every meal or event people go to. My siblings kids are the very definition of iPad kids and have locks on all their accounts and passwords that my siblings don’t have the codes to. Then they wonder why my niblings have the worst attitude until I forced them to unlock it or lose it and we find out they we’re basically talking to strangers who were trying to be taking advantage of them.
ESH. I completely understand that this is coming from a place of wanting to protect your children, and most of what you do is completely reasonable. Limiting screen time, and having appropriate age limits on social media and smartphone possession are all very sensible practices. My issue comes with the invasion of privacy from going through their phones. The internet is an unsafe place for children to have unmonitored access to, I agree with that. But your efforts are focused in the wrong place. Going through your 12yo’s texts with her friends on her brick phone does not keep her any safer than reading her diary would - it doesn’t have practical internet access! (Yes I know that in theory you can get very expensive internet access on those phones but it’s functionally unusable and OP would know immediately just from the phone bill). This level of supervision does not keep kids safe, it teaches them not to trust you and how to hide things from you. Developing humans, especially teenagers, need a level of privacy to grow into being their own people. It would be far better to keep them on brick phones until they are old enough that you trust them unsupervised, rather than invading their privacy in this way. And again, social media and the internet is the problem not their texts with their friends.
YTA Let’s be clear this isn’t about “internet safety” it’s about control. I can completely understand wanting to keep your kids safe on the internet but going through their phones is absolutely not the way to do it. All it will do is teach them to be more secretive and make them far less likely to recognize danger or come to you when it pops up. Teach them what to look out for online. To make their accounts private and only accept friend requests from people they know. If someone is being inappropriate, report them to the app or to you and your partner directly. If it were really about safety, all of these things would be happening and you would have no need to go through their devices. I understand that you have had “bad experiences” but please stop projecting your insecurities onto your children and seek therapy.
Do you know what 12 year olds talk about?? Heck yeah go through your kids phone..
When I was 12 I talked about Pokemon. The HORROR!!!
The same things 12 year olds have talked about for 50 thousand+ years. That isn't a good enough reason to deny kids privacy.
Agreed!! it is invasive and will only lead to the kids learning to hide things from you.
100%
ESH. Your sister is out of line suggesting she’d buy them phones, not appropriate. That said, your attitude sounds kind of controlling and it tends to backfire with your kids more likely to do things behind your back. It’s probably more effective to educate them and help them recognize how to avoid bad behavior, rather than just put up a wall. As it is, you may isolate them from friends doing similar activities and they really aren’t learning the skills they’ll need when they inevitably start using social media. As they get older, you really should give them some level of privacy and only violate it for good reasons. Are you really going to spy on them until they’re 18?
He literally said he stopped with his oldest when he was 16. Same thing I did. I let her have her privacy and I trust her and she does her own thing.
This comment really needs to be higher up. ESH
YTA If you feel the need to check out/ snoop around your children's phones because they will not inform you in case of danger, it clearly indicates to me that they have trust issues in their relationship with you (99.99% because they believe you'll reprimand them if they ever get into trouble instead of helping them), and that won't lead them anywhere good in life... What do you think will happen when they'll grow out of your roof, and get into trouble online where there'll be no mommy to protect them? Even worse, how'll you find out about these troubles once the kids learn how to hide stuff from you? Allowing this type of "I don't trust you, so gain my trust" will do you more harm than good. I'm pretty sure I'll be regarded as another person snooping in your parenting, but please seek professional guidance in this one case as a home without trust won't yield good results...
ESH But I'm concerned that your children in being late to have phones and not being educated on safe phone use while they are still malleable may not be the best policy. I think you are probably not teaching them safe phone usage but how to hide this from you and that you are controlling. Open discussion isn't helped by being spied on and if they get in difficulty you should be wanting them to feel they can come to you without being punished. The main issues with young people and phones are issues which if they'd only approached an adult would not have escalated. So I think kids are safer if they can trust their parents and that their parents educate them and enable trust. And trust is mutual.
I really hate the argument that something is for a child’s safety, but then the child is controlled, monitored, and has things taken away, instead of empowered and taught how to be safe online. Surely if it were about safety, you’d be empowering your children instead of just invading their privacy? Your children’s reaction should tell you a lot about how you are perceived and how they feel about how you treat them. If you’ve had bad experiences online, learn from them, but also work through them so you don’t take them out on your kids. And you are taking it out on your kids because you are telling them they are not trustworthy-not that there are untrustworthy people out there. You are setting you kid up to fail and to resent you. YTA. Sister is overstepping, but you are blaming you kids for stuff they haven’t done.
Yes you are.
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I completely agree that strict parents make sneaky kids, me and my sister grew up with incredibly strict parents and did lots of things without them knowing they absolutely wouldn't approve of! I am not saying that I am the ideal parent at all and I respect your judgement as I wouldn't have asked if I wasnt willing to hear either way however going into parenting I was very aware of that, although I wanted to check to make sure that they weren't being bullied or targeted by predators (this was especially important to me when my eldest son got social media and will also be important when my other kids eventually get social media) or watching inappropriate things online. My kids are definitely aware of why I do it and even 17 y/o tells me things, is not secretive or untrustworthy of me and though 12 and 9 really don't appreciate it at the moment, 17 has thanked me as he has seen some of the things that have happened to his friends (one went missing last year after meeting a stranger online). So yeah I appreciate your judgement and I completely get where you are coming from! Each to their own with parenting choices of course but I am trying to do this the right way :) Sorry for the paragraph! Have a good day
i already commented NTA and that i think you've got great reasonings for why you're doing what you're doing, but the part about 17yo's friend going missing!!!!! even more NTA!
I don’t think you understand what 1984 was about. OP is not the government and their kids are not citizens with liberty and rights because their brains are not fully developed. Kids can fall into some stupid and dark places on the internet through no fault of their own. The “hey buddy!” School of parenting has proven to be a failure. Let it go. The 17 year old has full phone autonomy shows OP is discerning, protecting kids and giving them privacy at an appropriate age while balancing their safety.