The Questions I’m Asking and How I’m Parenting Differently Now My Son Has a Phone

Why I believe “what’s your source?” is the most important question I’m asking my son right now and how I’m navigating parenting differently now my son has a phone…

I was asked to talk on the radio again last week – this time on the Nicky Campbell Breakfast show on BBC Radio 5 Live. They’d seen I’d spoken about Andrew Tate previously, sharing my views of what tween/teens are accessing online, so asked me to come on and talk in another similar discussion, they were having with others parents.

It was a much shorter chat this time, as the live show evolved rapidly off into different directions, which led to them inviting in other speakers and callers, but it was good to talk about such an important topic again. There was so much more I wanted to share though – especially as the initial talk and questions from the producer before the show, prompted me to stop and really consider how much rapid change there has been for us recently.

The amount our son is seeing and hearing online now he has his own phone, as well as how he interacts with his friends digitally has certainly led to our parenting style shifting to mirror that.

Now, I am the first to admit, that I have no idea if we are doing it right, or even how long our approach will be the right one as our son gets older BUT as hearing how other parents approach matters helps me so much, especially ones as huge and (very much of our time as this one) I thought I would share today how we have dealt with my son having his first mobile phone: What our rules are around what he can access and most importantly what we talk to him about, now he has his own private window into the online world.

He is 11 years old and it does feel moving into year six, is the age where he and most of his friends now have their own phone numbers. He’s walking to school independently and even gone into town and the park a couple of times with his friends, so this feels in our opinion a good age for him to have a phone. Especially as its getting him used to the responsibility of having to think about whether it’s charged etc. before leaving primary school.

Learning to Navigate What App Group Chats as an 11 Year Old

The first shift we have noticed from him having one, is how he interacts with his friends now. What’s App chats and groups are where he now spends a lot of his time on his phone these days – which in all honesty has brought with it as well as a lot of fun, some headaches and dramas already.

Now, my initial reaction is that maybe they are all a bit too young to be in this environment, as its certainly brought with it a lot of silly arguments and disagreements – so when my son found some of the drama difficult, my first thought was he should come out of them all, but I quickly changed my mind. One he didn’t want to – FOMO is big when you are 11! and two, once I’d really considered it, I’d say learning how to navigate these groups is now a skill I feel that unfortunately our children need to learn quite young – as like it or loathe it, this is how pre teens and teen’s communicate today, so I believe helping them to navigate this and arming them with the tools on how to behave in them appropriately, is important.

To help with this, there are a few things we do. One reminding our son about our open phone rule, meaning he needs to remember anything he writes in these groups could be seen by us his parents and also encouraging him, if someone has annoyed him, to take a break before replying. I also regularly remind him that the delete button isn’t necessarily a get out jail free card, as it takes less than a second to take a screen grab! Unfortunately screen grabs seem to be quite common, sharing things between them, so this is something else he’s become aware of young – that if there’s something private he doesn’t want others to know, its probably wiser to have a chat rather than share it in a message on his phone.

Essentially we are encouraging him to be in the mindset that if its not something he’d be comfortable with his friends mums reading it, he should think twice about sending it!

Our Family Open Phone Rule Now our Preteen has a Phone

Just quickly moving onto the open phone rule – this is major rule in our home about mobile phones. That although he has got a phone and contract as a Christmas present and although it is his – he very much has a phone on the proviso that we can look at and see what’s he’s been looking at and read the conversations he’s in. Now I’d be interested to hear what other parents think about this, as in all honesty the issue of privacy has never come up with our son. He’s never raised it as an issue and has certainly never voiced that he feels his conversations should be private and is always happy for us to have a look.

I recognise this could be very different with other children and I wonder how this will change as he gets older, but for us starting out that this way, its been very straight forward. I also think this has helped with him navigating these What’s App groups too. Sometimes something will happen or be said in them that he’s not comfortable about and he will bring it up with me and ask advice on either how to respond, or more often to let off steam when he’s annoyed with the way someone in there is speaking to another one of his friends. But him knowing that I have may have read some of the conversations already, has also led to him bringing up things that have been said or links that have shared, that he I don’t think he would of otherwise. This is because sometimes there will be things said or links shared that he doesn’t really want to bring up because he’s embarrassed about the content. Yet because he knows I might have already seen it, he can then talk about it, without having to get embarrassed explaining it fully, or watching on as I watch or look at something for the first time. This is not to suggest I read everything on his phone, its madness the hundreds of messages that seem to come through in these Whats App groups, so its instead more a case of dipping in every now and then, but it gives me a flavour at least, of the types of things being talked about.

This brings me onto the next thing we do, which is that we are pretty lax about the type of things I see on his phone when it comes to what I think of as mildly inappropriate, stuff like swearing. Now clearly no 11 year old should, but the fact he knows I’m not going to get really cross or outraged when I see his friends have sworn or sent something a little bit inappropriate, means he’s far more relaxed about what I see. Or if that there is some content that has swearing in it, that he doesn’t feel comfortable with, or wants to ask advice on, he knows he’s not going to straight away get in trouble, or worry that I’d contact other parents about it.

Now there are boundaries clearly and there’s also been lots of videos that he has had shared with him by other children that I haven’t been happy with and have prompted conversations between us about his understanding of what they are and in some case why they are wrong, but again it’s never prompted me to get overly involved. Again I’d love to know what others think about this, because in my mind if I’m seeing what my sons consuming and talking to him about it, that covers it in my eyes as I assume other parents are doing similar.

Talking About the News With My 11 Year Old

Its also led me to consider the shift we’ve made too, how we have more open discussions about what’s going on in the wider world with him, because he has so much more access to news online content these days. Through so many different avenues too – online, social media and interactions with his friends. It’s a definite shift, him growing up and the balance starting to tilt into that inevitable move online and also engaging with his friends so much more, meaning us as his family are no longer the major influence on the information he gets and the opinions he hears.

This leads onto the worrying outside influence I was asked to talk about, on both BBC Radio Suffolk and BBC Five Live this month – Andrew Tate and the impact he’s having on boys. I should start off first by saying this isn’t a worry that I actually have personally with my own son. Rather I was approached to talk on both of these shows as a blogger who speaks about parenting preteens, to then share my opinions of how I feel about the influence he’s having, but it is something I do also feel very strongly about as a parent too.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know too much about this concerning rise of toxic masculinity online, until reading an article at Christmas about Andrew Tate – after he’d been arrested. I so was shocked to read that it mentioned boys as young as 10 or 11 were watching his content and being influenced by the toxic masculinity he was championing. I would never have thought my son would know who he was, I know the sort of videos he likes and a lot of the You Tubers and influencers that he follows – so I was surprised when I asked him, that he did know who he is.

Now he only knew him as someone he’d been sent a video of showing his super cars, but still it was enough to show me that I need to ensure I’m always keeping that dialogue open of what he sees and hears. For me that’s really important, keeping the conversation going, so for me another part of that is trying to keep up to date as much as I can with popular culture. In some respects this is easier for me than some as I work in marketing anyway and therefore spend a lot of time on social media anyway, but knowing the names that come up over and over or what the big Tik Tok crazes are, means I hope to have an early insight. Although with Andrew Tate I was pretty late hearing about him, so its also shown me, that I shouldn’t assume to know what my children are into or what’s aimed at their age range too.

The Questions We Ask

What’s your source? is a question I find myself asking my son a lot now he has a phone. He’s always been very inquisitive by nature anyway, but now with his love of football especially, he loves keeping up to date with all the latest news online. In part this comes from news sites, but he also gets a lot of his information from social media. Meaning when he’s telling me something he’s heard, or telling me some football news – we often ask this question, so he has learnt to not just take everything at face value. Its taken a while for him to get his head round questioning whether something is factually correct before sharing it, but he gets it now. Hopefully this will then extend to bigger issues and news that sees online now too, beyond football rumours.

Its not all doom and gloom though, as I think in the main its getting involved with the silliness, that’s actually the most important.

So watching some Tik Toks with my son that’s making him laugh, listening to him telling me about the latest You Tubers, or helping him hunt down bottles of Prime and understanding why its so important to him, is giving me the best understanding of it all.

I would love to hear in the comments how you feel about parenting kids and teens with phones and what they see online. It’s certainly one of the conversations that comes up a lot for me right now, when chatting with other parents.