How to Handle Cell Phone Use With a 14-Year-Old Foster Child - Weekend Wisdom

Question: I just became a foster parent of a 14-year-old girl. She came with a cell phone paid for by her prior foster family. I told them I wanted to take over payments. I also want to sit down with her periodically and spontaneously and ask her to show me what she’s been doing on her phone while I show her what I do on my phone. I hope she will realize she can tell me anything and that I won’t hide things from her. Is this a good idea? How should I approach it? Do you think it will build trust, or will she resent it?

Resources:

• Managing Technology & Screens (Resource page)
• Welcoming an Older Child to Your Home (Resource page)
• Raising Foster Children (Resource page)

Transcript

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- Welcome to Weekend Wisdom by Creating a Family. This podcast is our short form podcast that we drop every Sunday. It's usually about five or so minutes,
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So today we have a question about how to handle cell phones with a 14 year old foster child. Here's the question. I just became a foster parent of a 14 year old girl.
She came with a cell phone being paid for by her prior foster family. I told them I wanted to take over payments. I also want to sit down with her periodically and spontaneously and ask her to show me what she has been doing on her phone while I show her what I do on my phone.
I'm hoping that she will realize that she can tell me anything and that I won't hide things from her. Is this a good idea? How should I approach it? Do you think it will build trust or do you think she will resent it?
This is a tough question, really for two reasons. One, knowing how to handle cell phones with early teens is hard period. And two, knowing how to handle cell phones with a new foster child is doubly hard for a couple of reasons.
One, you don't know the child very well. Okay, that's a problem. You also don't know the rules that others have set in the past. And their rules may be significantly more lenient than your rules or vice versa,
but it's always easier to lighten up on rules than to tighten up and become more restrictive. So you're at a disadvantage. Regardless, I don't think that your approach of simply showing her how you use your phone and asking her to show you what she's doing is a good approach.
And I don't think that your concern or resentment should be foremost in your mind. Yes, we do care that our children foster otherwise are resentful, that is important.
But your primary goal with phones is to protect her and to help her become better consumers of the internet in general and phone usage in specific.
Phones are important and they're helpful to teens and they're also problematic for teens. And our job as a parent is to thread that needle. And I'm not going to tell you that it is easy because it's not.
And as a new parent, as soon as you could start researching what reasonable rules are to have about cell phones. And really, I go back to saying in the internet in general,
that is your first priority. You need to know what is reasonable to expect and what are some reasonable rules to set up. And then you need to decide what feels right to you and then you need to sit down with your new foster daughter and tell her what you've been researching and why it's important that there needs to be family rules surrounding cell phone usage.
And at this point also be getting her input as well. I think the number one place to begin is that a phone is a privilege, not a right.
She is 14 and she does not have the right to having a phone. There needs to be rules and parameters set around the usage for a 14 -year -old.
Some parameters to consider would be when should a cell phone be put away. Example, many families have the rule that during meals, cell phones are put away and that includes parents as well.
Another common rule is nighttime usage. Many families have a rule that all electronic devices are out of the bedroom at night and the one way to do this is to have a central charging place and this again needs to apply to the adults in the house as well or that's my opinion I think it should apply to all adults and all electronics are at the central charging place and not in the room and I will tell you from
experience that it's a rule that has to be checked up on and has to be inspected because it is not unusual for teens to want to keep the phones in their room at night and that opens up number one problems associated with sleep and number two,
a lot of activity that you wouldn't want her to not be involved in could be happening at those hours. Another common thing that parents do is install parental controls.
There are many apps or software that you can get to do this. They can do things like block specific websites or types of websites. They can record her activities. They can put place and time limits on her usage.
You would have the ability, depending on which software you use and how you set it up, to view her browsing history and her texts and her communications. The PC Magazine's Editor Choice Award for the software that they recommend is Norton's Family.
I don't have any personal experience, so I'm not necessarily endorsing it, but that's something to consider. But even using parental controls, you shouldn't just rely on the controls. You really do have to stay active with your child and what she is doing line.
Assuming that these restrictions are new to your new foster daughter, you're going to need to approach this with sensitivity. This is the needle that I'm talking about threading and it's not an easy one.
I would start by talking with her caseworker about any rules that the agency may have had. They may have rules about cell phone usage and also what rules have existed in her past homes.
I would also be asking about any potential problems she has had with cell phone usage. So I think that's an important thing to listen to as well. And some of the problems that you might inappropriate texting,
sexting is a real issue that shocks a lot of parents, but it is very common. So that would be questions you would ask bullying, either being the recipient of or the instigator of the bully.
I would also share with her some of the research you've done about the potential harm that can happen to teens with unregulated cell phone usage and treat this as safety education in general.
Not as a reason why you can't do what you want, but that bad things happen and they happen to teens. And for example, whatever you put on the internet or send to someone on their phone is forever.
So a good rule of thumb is if you don't want the whole school to see what you send or post, don't do it. Just because you send it to one person does not mean that it stays with just that one person.
I wish you the best of luck. This doesn't have to be a big horrible conversation. You need to kind of view it as an educational opportunity and a way to get to know your new daughter better. But don't be afraid of it and don't be coming in as really wanting to be her friend and not make her mad.
I think your goal should be that I am the foster parent here and I need to protect her and I also need to set her up for success later in life by teaching her good skills on phone and internet usage.
Good luck with that and before you leave I want y 'all to know that we have free courses available to you on our website through the support of jockey being family foundation and you can check them out at bit .ly /JBFsupport.
And thank you for listening to this week's Week in Wisdom. If you liked it, please tell a friend to subscribe to thecreatingafamily .org podcast. And I will see you next week.