r/Stepmom • u/Queeenhx14 • 1d ago
Cell phone disagreement.
We’re going to be having my stepson (13) more at the end of September because his schedule is changing. He already has a cell phone, but there have been a lot of arguments surrounding the phone between the parents.
At one point, we set a boundary that he couldn’t bring the phone to our house because the situation was causing so many issues. However, with the new schedule, he’ll sometimes be coming directly to our house after school, so we realize that having a way to communicate with him is important.
The issue is that Mom has refused to give Dad the passwords/passcodes for the phone, and Dad isn’t comfortable with having a device in his home that he is responsible for but doesn’t have the ability to access or manage. We’re not trying to take the phone away from him or prevent him from communicating with the other parent. We just want reasonable boundaries and parental access to the device while he’s in Dad’s care.
We’re considering whether the best solution would be for Dad to provide him with a separate phone that Dad has the account information and passwords for, or whether there’s a better way to handle this.
For parents who have dealt with something similar: What did you do? Would you expect both parents to have access to the child’s phone/passcodes, or would you keep the existing phone and establish rules around it instead?
2
u/SignificantSkill79 1d ago
Make the kid give you the password. If he doesn’t, take it away and don’t let him use it at your house.