IEDs!!!!

This kind of reminds me of a Darth Evad post from years ago, where he said his neighbour would ask him tech questions, and when Evad didn't know the answer would suggest "go ask the stars wars nerds".

Sorry, I don't know about cell phones.

IUDs

Uh, no. There are only two possible results to this. Either she will assert her independence, because she has too much self respect to let you be such a douche, and vanish; or she doesn't have any self respect, and she'll turn into a useless and simpering idiot who ends up marrying some abusive douche because he reminds her of her step daddy.

No amount of harshness can teach someone to be good. Ever. You can change her outward behavior, but inside, she will be worse than ever.

Face it, Brian : We already know your wife is a ****ed up *****. Remember that story you told us about her telling your son there were monsters in the hall? Your step daughter is a little **** because her mother taught her to be one.

Who exactly is paying her bills? As far as I know, you need a credit card to sign up for a plan, to prove you're 18 or older. At the very least, you can get pay as you go, which in your case would eliminate the problem unless you were giving money to her to pay for it. I'd like to know where these phone bills are being sent (they HAVE to exist), how she is even signing up for plans/phones/etc in the first place with the companies. I know her boyfriend and friends bought her one but that's not a clear explanation of where the bills are sent, and who pays them, or how they even got them in the first place. I doubt her boyfriend or friends do pay for the bills, especially @ 15'ish.

I'd make her get a job and pay for the phone herself, if she wants one she has to pay for it. That way you're not being a dick totally by telling her she "can't do that", but you're also enlisting the responsibility and consequences upon her if she chooses to use it and subsequently can't pay the bills. Let her ruin her credit, she'll get it back at her later in life when she needs to sign for something and they look it up. Just ler her have the phone, but don't pay a damn cent and don't give your CC info to her. Simple.

Your options are severely limited. If she wants to be a little *****, you're going to have to be a big *******. She'll get over it, she'll have to.

Brian says the friends are buying her prepaid phones.

I don't see the problem here. Operating a cell phone is some horrible evil...?

Good, let her boyfriend pay the new cellphone bill. You guys wont have to worry about it anymore.

When the bill is $1000 it is

You're paying her bill and she's 15?

well this is an easy dilemma to solve

To be fair I don't think a 15 year old needs a mobile phone.

And free, that's why he took the original phone away.

step 1. make sure she sees you as a parent rather than just her mother's boyfriend/husband.

If step 1 isn't complete, nothing else will work.

step 2. make sure she understands why you don't want her having a phone. chances are she knows and understands why her original phone was taken away (ie because you were being forced to pay unreasonably large phone bills). But she probably sees that problem being solved by her using pre-pay phones or those given to her by friends.

i.e. her opinion could well be "you don't have to pay the biil anymore, so why should you care?". Clearly there's more to it than that, her excessive late-night calls are exhausting her and negatively affecting her health and performance at school. But is she aware that this is your reason for wanting her to stop using the phone so much?

Yeah, if you're the "mom's husband, but not my dad", then pretty much anything you do will be confrontational and be interpreted as bitter/anger-type of action. Mom will have you back you 100%, or even take the lead on this.

Tough love works for some.

Bottom line: She's 15 and living under your roof. She follows your rules. Period. Which means you'll have to enforce them, giving her as much dignity as can be allowed, but still enforce the rule. When she's 18, if she doesn't like your rules, then she can move out and destroy her life on her own without taking you guys down with her.

But yeah, since she's 15, you the parent are responsible for her behavior.

My daughter is 7, so I'm not there yet.

Good luck, my friend.

Whoa, dude. That's a bit much to say to anyone.

From what I hear, there are 2 real problems. 1. Her not respecting your rules and 2. her poor performance in school because she's devoting too much time to her social life.

I can't say much for 1, not being a parent (and there's really only so much one can do to make a 15 year old girl respect rules) but as for #2, if her school performance is the biggest problem and you have the time to do this, sit with her as she does her homework. She can't leave the house or do anything fun until she's done. If she storms up to her room, follow her in there and tell her (when she tells you to get out of her room) that you'll leave as soon as her homework is done. Hell, call her teachers to find out her homework if you have to. She'll hate you for it, but it'll work. And then set actual goals - she can earn back certain privileges if she reaches them, and if she sinks back under them, the privileges get taken away again.

[edit - wow, I've been rolling my eyes at people offering parenting advice and there I go. I don't know anything about cell phones, so I'm of no help for the problem you were actually asking for help with. I haven't decided whether to leave it up or delete the post yet :P]

Go ahead and delete it.

And every bit of it is true.

Isn't the cell phone issue just a symptom of the broader problem?

Because you know these people SO WELL.

From detailed info on nipple slips in Star Wars movies to parenting advice, Massassi has it all covered.

Often in the same thread.

It seems so.

He doesn't really want to detect cell phone usage, he wants her to not run up thousand dollar phone bills and to get enough sleep at night. As long as it isn't a financial burden and it doesn't affect her school performance and mood, he doesn't (or shouldn't) care whether she's using a phone at a given time.

I don't have any experience in the care and feeding of teenagers, but I guess I'll join in stating what my intuition tells me with the limited knowledge I have of the situation. It seems to me that taking the phone away outright was the wrong response. Maybe for a set time it would be good (that was a really big phone bill), but I think it would be better if she could be made to pay the cost of her bill, at least above a certain amount. However, if her only source of income is allowance, this is trickier, and I don't know if you can backtrack to this point now that you've passed it. Also, you could say the underlying problem isn't the time and money, it's her lack of respect for you. There's no way to confront that directly, though, so you're better off chasing the money.


TL;DR: Becoming a financial drain on the family is the perfect opportunity for a harsh lesson in financial planning rather than an expansion of domestic spying powers

Hey thanks, spambot, I forgot how hilariously tinfoil brian was.