Hi @Moloko We introduced a 9:30pm phone curfew for my now 17 year old about 9 months ago. This applies on all school nights, as we had a big problem where she could be on the phone all night, which made it near impossible to get her up for school the next day. At first she hated it and protested strongly about the curfew - even when she wasn't actually on her phone it gave her comfort sleeping with it right next to her. She would fall asleep holding the phone. We introduced the curfew because she had a lot of distress in her life at the time, and it was necessary to give her heart and her head a break from all the drama. She also needs to sleep! My daughter functions better on a minimum 8 hours sleep (tired daughter = grumpy daughter)
If you plan on taking the phone for any length of time, it might be an idea to have something else to replace it with. When we took the phone at night, we replaced it with reading or doing puzzle word books so she wasn't left staring at the ceiling - which was a great distraction. At first we started charging the phone in the kitchen, but she would get up to get it. Now the phone comes with me at night and I charge it in my bedroom. We use to also take the phone for 1 hour in the morning, afternoon and dinner time on weekends, to force her to get up and eat! Although we don't do this anymore.
Your daughters friends will still be there in the morning, and if anything happens overnight that she misses out on she can easily catch up on the next day, or it is more likely that it is not critical that she needs to know what is going on every minute of the day.
I understand that our kids communicate and develop friendships via their phones - which is really important, however I agree with @AeroGirl in regards to not letting the phone control them. If your daughter was talking to friends at school, she probably wouldn't allow someone to interrupt her every minute, but we allow our phones to do just this... My daughter can be having a conversation with someone, then start another conversation with someone else, while in a group chat and getting snapchats, instagram notifications and face book messages all at the same time. I feel it is so important to give kids brains a break from all the noise and stimulation.
It is not an easy thing to introduce phone boundaries, especially if your daughter is reluctant to give it up, let us know how you go ?
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