My mid-teenage kid is on school holidays and is surfing on his phone until 5am and it HAS to stop.
As I work shiftwork, I am in bed asleep at 730pm so taking his phone off him that early is not valid.
He circuvents everythign by uninstalling the HA app, and uses cellular data (so i cant turn off the wifi) and surfs tiktok and insta in the dark while lying in bed.
He does not wear a smartwatch.
What are some of the best srtategies of determining if he is asleep or not apart from having a massive argument with him
HA can’t really help with the situation you described.
My advice: have a calm and rational discussion with them. Look for advice on parenting forums if you have to.
I would say it’s probably not that bad as I used to occasionally stay up reading to 5am on school nights. I and I turned out ok, eventually. However tik… tok? (said in Dr Grande voice) will rot their brain.
Don’t most phones come with parental controls these days?
agreed. with the ability to circumvent and use data, it will be difficult to manage via HA or other router controls.
I know what you are going through. I have a 22 and 20 year old, and had my share of trials with managing devices through their teens.
What worked for me - I set a boundary for when phones are to be turned off. 11pm. If there is phone activity after that time, the phone gets locked up at 8pm, and they get it back in the morning.
I convinced them I can access everything, including data activity through the Cell provider reports. I dont recall ever having to lock up the phones. But to reverse a habit, you would probably have to check you can confirm activity through your cell reports, and then follow up on it from time to time.
I also reminded the kids that a cell phone is a privilige, and can be revoked if the rules arent followed.
I have had all the conversations with him about this many many times and unfortunately the bad habits creep back in (especially during school holidays when he can sleep in the next morning)
He is quite precious about it and while we can have a calm conversation about it - it still ends up becoming a problem.
are there NO mmwave sensors that can do sleep tracking??? The do positional pretty well from what I have heard.
Ah parenting, and creative teenagers that can bypass any bans you impose. Sometimes you have to secretly grin at how shifty they can be at getting around your bans. They are SMART, part of your flesh and blood!
Under 16? Move to Australia - they are banning TikTok for under 16s from 10th December 2025. It’s the law!!!
Self control is hard. Some get it early, some take a lifetime. Remind them politely that every decision they make has consequences, from embatassing yawning in public, poor school results, to microsleeps that can be fatal if in control of machinery such as a bike, skateboard, scooter or car. If they can make an informed decision to change their habits, you have won.
Electronic countermeasures fail. You are going to have to get their co-operation to calibrate any sleep sensors. They will go to great lengths to get Internet access, even bribing neighbours to set-up an access point just for them. They will resent your attempts at control at an important time they are defining their own individuality, and don’t want your interference.
A comforting thought. They grow up and have their own teenagers as revenge! Remember how much of a terror you were at their age?
Time blocks in the router that will block any traffic from the mac address of the phone.
Local Wifi/gsm jammer in the adjecent room on a timer. But that will harm your own connectivity too.
Talk and have a check in the morning on the phone for app usage last night. Is tok tic increased then lockup the phone for that day because it was a breach of trust.
Also that will give you an indication however as I know from experience my smartwatch is unable to detect if I’m sleeping or shitposting ont his forum ;).
I think either parental control app or changing son’s phone subscription to the one with, say, only 1GB of cellar data monthly.
But, on the other hand… if it’s holidays… the problem would be if he was doing that during school.
But seriously, there is no technical fix for your problem - and trying to impose one will just make it worse.
You might try signing up to TikTok yourself, so you have something in common to talk about. Otherwise, grit your teeth. این نیز بگذرد - this too shall pass.
Coming from IT. There is just a point where technology cannot address bad behavior and the only way you can address this problem is to get the behavior to change. Ultimately, you have to hold people accountable for their actions. You got to get this done, now, before they go out on their own. In the public sector, if an employee has a behavioral problem they cannot fix, they end up being told to leave. I know you cannot do that with children but you have to find some other way for the child to adhere to your rules.
You could just tell him not to turn WiFi off, and it is trivial to detect when the phone drops off WiFi. You can automate from that so that you are aware when he does it, and/or have it alert him. E.g. announce on a smart speaker in his room “turn your WiFi back on or else…”
But first think long and hard about what “bad” behaviour actually is.
Teenagers are going through a lot. Quite apart from the hormonal stuff, it’s the time when they start to separate from their families and find themselves alone in the world. That’s major existential stuff.
Parents have got to come to terms with it too. It doesn’t help if they insist on what appear to be arbitrary rules (however sensible they are). It’s a time to build bridges, not barriers.
