There really aren't other options than a phone for doing phone stuff. And people do make parenting posts about shoes and the moral compromise involved. This is a very non-parent post.
Quimps
joined 2 years ago
I understand and share all your concerns. I am dealing with a kid of a similar age, and it is frustrating to know what's out there. That's why "his" phone is his "mom's" phone that he's "borrowing". It's logged on to her stuff. Sure he can (And does) sometimes get around that, but ultimately he is responsible to her for all he does on the phone, which has limited what he does on it quite a lot.
And ultimately we can't really do a lot of other stuff that we can enforce when he's at his father's place, or just enforce at all really. Ultimately he has to have a phone and that phone needs the internet, so we can only create an environment of responsibility for what he does with the phone.
But he basically can't exist without a phone. He gets his homework on an app ffs.
The kid has a phone. He walks around town and he might need to call his mother, sometimes I take him out to do stuff in nature and he might need to call me if he gets lost, if he's at a friends house or at his dad's he needs to be able to call us, and both his school and the social services he is expected to interact with expects him to have a phone. It's of course a dilemma given how messed up social media is, but it is simply unrealistic for him not to have a phone.
Are you willing to serve as testimony the next time I have the conflict?