Dont let a 9yr old decide whats best. She leaves it at her Dads or you lock it up until she goes home.
Having a phone at 9 is insane. Who cares what anyone thinks but YOU.
Your ex should not be making decisions like that without a conversation with you. Nor should you be put in a position of “bad cop” to your daughter. Nor should your daughter be taught to keep things from you, thereby taking sides.
She can have it when chores are done, and not during bedtimes. The messages will stay there unless it’s snap chat. Then she has 24 hours
Your house your rules. If you don’t want her to have it in your house then take it.
I’m concerned that she’s had it for a year & a half but it’s never been mentioned to you by her father or her. That sounds sketchy to me. I could be wrong, but it seems like he knew you’d be against the phone. So he gets her hooked on it before you know it exists. He knew she’d throw a fit when you attempted to take it & you’d probably give in. He could be using that phone to track you. Id forbid it in the house for that reason alone. Unfortunately you’d have to check her belongings & pockets when she comes home. If I’m right he’ll guide her to hide it so you can’t take it. You can get her a phone or tablet so she can play on it & contact her father. Use it as a reward. For instance if she completes her chores or goes so long without whining she can have 30 minutes. Put parental controls on it & keep it at home. That way she has a device at your house that you control & she doesnt feel deprived as much. If you notice she has no interest in earning time for the device you know she’s sneaking his device into your home.
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So your ex gave your daughter a cellphone when she was 7 years old and never had a conversation with you?! Unfortunately you are correct that your daughter will see you as the villain (at least for now) but sadly, you will need to be because her dad went behind your back. Safe to assume that since she’s had a cellphone for almost 2 years without your knowledge, he likely told her not to tell you which is also going to work against you. I feel terrible for you because this is a horrible position your ex put you in.
What I would suggest is to have a conversation with your ex first. Try not to be confrontational (THAT would be very difficult for me) because you NEED to get through to him that you NEED to be on the same page, ESPECIALLY as your daughter gets older. Talk to him about running these types of decisions between the two of you first because it’s in YOUR DAUGHTER’S BEST INTERESTS that you are on the same page with important decisions like this. Ask him to put himself in your shoes and how he would feel if you did something like that and then told his daughter to hide it from him. The two of you need to discuss boundaries with respect to the phone and you both need to reinforce them (i.e. phone is turned over to the parent at a certain time of day/night, knowing passcodes, checking activity, etc).
Ideally, both of you should sit down and discuss the phone rules with your daughter together so she knows she can’t play one parent against the other. But I don’t know what kind of relationship you and your ex have or if he’s willing to do that.
If he’s not willing to work with you on this, or if he decides to not enforce the rules, you still need to. Try to be gentle but firm that these are rules to protect her and your job is to protect her first and foremost. Don’t badmouth dad to her because it’s just going to reinforce anything he may have said about not telling you about the phone (and I don’t think it’s fair to the kid to badmouth the other parent). You can say that you wish that she had told you but don’t say it like an accusation. She’s at a vulnerable age and you WANT her to be able to feel she can tell you anything without judgement.
You’re not going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle by taking the phone away but rules are necessary. When you take it away at night, remind her that she will get it back in the morning. Try to reinforce with her that there’s no message that she’s going to get when she’s sleeping that can’t wait until morning.
Go through her phone. Make sure she isn’t doing anything inappropriate
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Her father sucks for letting her have it, and allowing her to lie to you about it. That’s a conversation you and her father should have had before the phone ever happened.
At 9???
Your kid is addicted AND secret keeping.
Her father is fostering triangulation trying to curry favour with the kid with permissiveness that is harm to child to be the hero in competition with mother to be 'cool dad '.
Be the villian.
Take the phone. Your house your rules.
Both parents need to grow up, get on the same page for kids well being.
This has less to do with the kid than lack of co parenting and age appropriate limit setting with child that both agree are in best interest of child…not for themselves in a continual good cop bad cop game with each other.
I think we overlooked a very important point. She has been lying to her mother
Did her dad know that ? Was her lying condoned by him or sakes forbid suggested by him ? This child is going to have more problems than a cell phone.
As a auntie my brother and I wanted to get my niece one because often we can’t talk to her and my brother get so sick of having to go through her mother to get to her. But I reached out to her mother and had to respect her wishes. It’s still very hard I believe it would be so easy for us to contact her on her own phone. I had to convince my brother not to sneak her a phone because you don’t want her hiding things from her mother. My children have phones but it does take monitoring, rules and strict boundaries. I just always think if they’re somewhere they always have a safe way to contact me. I see both sides
Dad bought the phone, it’s his. Give it back to him. Tell them the phone isn’t allowed at your house.
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Tell dad to leave it there when she come to your house. That’s not good, she’s only 9 years old and she hid it from you. Dad is not a good person/parent. Put your foot down. She’ll hate you for it but it’ll be for her own good.
Ugggg my sons dad did this crap! He knew I didn’t want him to have a phone yet. I was waiting until at least 12 or 13. He’s 10 now. It’s just the disrespect that really got under my skin. I thought everyone was on the same page, but sneaky will forever be sneaky. My son knew once he got better with taking care of his iPad that the phone conversation would get brought back up. He went to see his dad and his dad let him know he bought him a brand new freaking iPhone. My son and I ended up having a conversation about the phone, him and I are on the same page with our rules with having a cell phone. Because he’s only 10 there will be times I will ask him to go through it with me sitting next to him. I don’t need to read anything, just keeping an eye on apps and who has his number.
It’s her security the her parents have robbed her of
Your useing the same tech you stole from your daughter to ask strangers parenting advice, does she have free reign on your phone to txt her sibling, grandma dad exc? If she’s had it for 2 years and you haven’t noticed, either you are the most unobservent person in the world or she’s not useing it for unlimited screen time but to stay in touch with her family, if the rolls where reversed and you bought her a phone so she could stay in contact with you and dad took it away would you be OK with that?