Phone over usage

[JKMoma]

My teenager is becoming a total phone addict. Is there a way to control that? Temporarily shut off his phone or service? He is not ready to part with it come what may and I am a single parent. Thanks

[dust2dust]

@Chalupa_Batman- I like the flip phone idea. But the hipster/privacy freak/anti-tracking folks are going back to flip phones. And then @Meow is right about the text add-on offers that the kid could just say yes to.

[Chalupa_Batman]

Tend to disagree on that.

Change to a flip phone.

Do not give son password for account so purchases can't be made. Kids are smart so don't autosave password on your browser. 

Have fun surfing the internet at McDonald's on a flip phone. You'd be the coolest kid there. LOL.

[Meow]

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@Chalupa_Batman wrote:

Change their plan to the 100 minutes $15 plan with only 100mb of data. This will teach him to pay attention to the time he uses. He doesn't like that, take the phone away. You are the parent, not his friend. 

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It will not help if they have WiFi at home. Even though they could block his MAC on WiFi.

And free WiFi is everywhere. So it is a matter of going to Walmart or McDon, etc. and spend all time on the phone.

Lowering plan to $15 would not stop him to purchase add-ons all the time and run mobile bill sky high...

[hTideGnow]

haha @Chalupa_Batman 

not sure you are good parent, you thought giving them 100Mb but they have more than double to use.. LoL

[Chalupa_Batman]

See, this is what I get for my first day of not drinking coffee! 😋

[hTideGnow]

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@Chalupa_Batman wrote:

Change their plan to the 100 minutes $15 plan with only 100mb of data. This will teach him to pay attention to the time he uses. He doesn't like that, take the phone away. You are the parent, not his friend. 

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HI @Chalupa_Batman 

$15 plan has 250Mb data  🙂

[Chalupa_Batman]

Change their plan to the 100 minutes $15 plan with only 100mb of data. This will teach him to pay attention to the time he uses. He doesn't like that, take the phone away. You are the parent, not his friend. 

EDIT: Go out and purchase a flip phone. Place the SIM card in the flip phone and take away the smartphone. 

[JKMoma]

How plz

[Gwanzi]

You can set a parental model of your kid’s phone, it will relax your life but stress your kid.

[dust2dust]

Be the parent. Not his friend. Is he paying for it from his own earnings?
Isn't there a parental controls system on the phone? I played with that once upon a time and it was a bear to get back to normal. I just wanted to back out of it but it was not easy.

[JKMoma]

Been educating but he's a headstrong defiant teenager who knows everything lol

[kb_mv]

@JKMoma A friend of mine has an app on their kid's phones that control when they are allowed to access the internet and messaging apps. Not sure what it is but if google "program to control kids phone time" a number of possibilities pop up.

[hTideGnow]

HI @JKMoma 

it is something you need to educate your kid

not sure if your teenager is a very smart one, if he has an Android, you can try to change the  APN to something wrong so he cannot get data.  Or you can download some app to lock the settings menu.  Withat that, you can then disable data and lock the settings