My teenager is on the phone all day. What rules are normal?
A teenager's phone is their friends, their music and their place to disappear, so «all day» is normal and not the problem. The problem starts when sleep, school or face-to-face time lose. Rules that hold are few, made together, and apply to the adults too: no phones at the table, none in the bedroom at night, and one evening a week without.
What's behind it
At eleven to seventeen, the phone is where the social life happens that used to happen on the street. Taking it away is taking away the street. That's why bans backfire and why the teenager who «doesn't care» about the phone being confiscated has just stopped telling you things. What matters is not the hours but what loses to them. Three things are worth protecting, and the research on teenagers is clearest on these: sleep, because a phone in the bedroom costs an hour a night and the next day with it; meals, because that's where a family still talks; and one stretch of real-world time a week. So the rules are about places and times, not about apps: phones charge in the kitchen overnight, from a set hour; no phones at the table, parents included, and yes, that one's the hard part; and one evening a week the whole family is off, with something planned that's better than the phone, which is a low bar on a Tuesday. Make the rules together. A fourteen-year-old who helped write «off at 22:00» keeps it far more often than one who was told. And talk about what's on the phone the way you'd talk about friends: curious, not checking. «What's everyone your age into right now?» opens more than any filter does.
Try this week
- Ask at dinner, parents first: «Which of the three, sleep, meals, one evening a week, would you protect first, and how?» Write down what you agree on.
- Tonight, every phone in the house charges in the kitchen. Yours too. See what the morning is like.
- Try the card «What's everyone your age into right now that we clearly don't get? Explain it slowly.» and don't comment for the first two minutes.
When to get help
Talk to your pediatrician or a counsellor if the phone comes with sleep under six hours most nights, dropped friends and sport, a sudden change in mood or weight, or if you see signs of harassment or content that frightens them. Those are not phone problems; the phone is where they show.
In the app for this
- Free · PlusPractices «7 dinners without phones» and «One evening a week without screens», as a family challenge with a check mark per day.
- Free · PlusA card at dinner instead of a phone: 100 cards by age, three new ones a week for free.
- Free · PlusThe map step «A list for the “I'm bored” moment», so the screen isn't the only answer.
Free is free for good. Plus opens the whole map, all cards, games and practices.
Mila knows these answers, and your kids
The free family check takes five minutes. After that, Mila answers with your children's names and ages in mind, and the map gives you one thing to try this week.
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