Or: How I Became a Digital Detective in the War Against YouTube.
Let’s be honest—peer pressure around getting phones for kids, tweens, and teens is absolutely intense. If your child already struggles to fit in, not having a device can make them feel even worse. But here’s the cruel irony: giving them a device might just isolate them further by providing yet another way to avoid actual social interaction. It’s like being stuck between a rock and a very expensive, glowing hard place.
Schools really need to step up and ban devices, but that’s complicated too thanks to the gun violence epidemic and parents wanting constant contact with their children. This whole situation was a real struggle for us, not to mention the screen addiction potential and the cost that comes with these little digital devils.
The Apple Watch Experiment: When Cool Factor Matters
When our older son started middle school, we gave him a choice: an old-school flip phone for calls and texts, or an Apple Watch with only calling and texting capabilities. We decided he needed something because he was struggling to fit in, his middle school is in town where kids hang out after school, and—fun fact—pay phones no longer exist (thanks, progress!). Plus, he was getting left out of group chats, which was isolating him even more.
The voice plan felt kind of pointless since all kids do is text anyway, but occasionally he’d actually call me or his mother like it was 1995.
Spoiler alert: The watch didn’t really work out because it didn’t have the same cache as a smartphone. He’d leave it at home when he actually needed it most. The other annoying thing about the Apple Watch is that you have to have it attached to a physical phone for it to work. While it can work without the phone once set up (depending on your provider), we couldn’t just give our son a watch connected to my number because then he’d get all my calls and texts—which would be a disaster for everyone involved. So we had to connect his number to an old phone we had lying around, meaning we paid for both the phone line AND an additional monthly charge for the watch.
Enter the iPhone: Screen Time’s Epic Failure
Eventually, our son said he wanted to switch to an iPhone with nothing on it. The watch was manageable with screen time controls, but the iPhone? That’s where things got interesting.
Dear Apple: Can you PLEASE fix Screen Time? It’s needlessly complex. Look at the apps that have actually figured out how to simplify the iOS experience and take notes.
No matter what settings I tried, my son always seemed to find a way around the time limits. One Saturday, he spent the entire day on a phone that was supposed to be limited to 1.5 hours of use. Every time we told him his time was up and tried to put the device away, it would turn into an argument, then we’d have to confiscate it entirely. This got old really quickly.
The OurPact Lifesaver (For $6/Month)
Desperate for sanity, I searched for alternatives and discovered OurPact. You have to install the app on both the parent’s device and the child’s device (slightly annoying but makes sense), and it became a literal lifesaver for my mental health. It let me basically brick his device when needed, for as long as needed.
This cost $6 per month, which was worth it for my sanity, but it really annoyed me that I had to pay extra for what Screen Time was supposed to do in the first place. Hey Apple, why not just add a “lock phone” option? Super simple solution that most parents would actually use. OurPact has other useful features, but I just needed a simple “shut it down now” mode.
The Great Internet Shutdown Plan
My next brilliant idea was to cut off internet access entirely, since most issues involved YouTube content or Spotify (YouTube was blocked, but kids discovered school proxies to bypass restrictions—took me forever to figure out how to block those in Screen Time, and you probably need a devious mind to think of it right away).
Side note: Apple TV is another device where you can’t easily block YouTube and can’t set up users. Hello, Apple? Parents with kids need to block apps and content easily while still being able to use the device.
I used our Eero router app to block his phone from internet access—it blocks devices on both WiFi and ethernet. I felt super smart and canceled the OurPact account.
This worked… until he discovered my plan had a massive hole: he just started using his unlimited data plan instead of WiFi. What works for a device without data doesn’t work the same for one with data. Back to the drawing board.
The Tello Solution: Almost Perfect
Since the Apple Watch was costing $10/month and he wasn’t using it (I switched it to my number so I could use it when I didn’t want to carry my iPhone), I started looking for carriers without data plans.
Spectrum, my provider after switching from T-Mobile, doesn’t offer plans without data and won’t let you shut it off completely. My search led me to Tello: $5/month for 150 minutes of voice and unlimited text. Perfect! Kids don’t talk to each other anyway, and I figured he could iMessage when on WiFi.
Plot twist: It wasn’t perfect.
Setting up Tello was easy, but group chats and rich texting wouldn’t work. After calling Tello, I learned you need a data plan to activate WiFi calling and rich texting. So I added the minimum 1GB of data for an additional $1/month. I figured he’d burn through it quickly, so it wouldn’t be an issue for long.
The Final Boss: Proxy Loopholes
Unfortunately, there was still one loophole I hadn’t realized: those pesky proxies meant he could still access YouTube and other blocked content. I basically had to keep the iPhone permanently blocked from WiFi, which didn’t work for chatting with friends—and he already had trouble making friends, so he’d get left out of conversations.
At least I was saving money with Tello! Then I finally figured out how to block the proxies and was annoyed I hadn’t thought of this sooner. After trying to block apps and sites in every way imaginable—removing Safari, blocking youtube.com, blocking proxy sites (there are tons, so blocking them all might be impossible)—I discovered the nuclear option.
The other Screen Time issue: You have to turn things back on to allow certain functions, then you’d forget to turn them off again, and kids abuse those holes faster than you can say “screen time.”
The Final Solution
My ultimate solution was to block ALL websites except specifically allowed ones, combined with the ability to block the iPhone from internet access entirely. The only site I granted access to was roblox.com so he could access a private server we allowed, which I could then limit in Screen Time.
Problem basically solved for $6/month phone plan, plus the Eero app and the clunky, frustrating Screen Time.
Going through this entire ordeal actually saved me time when setting up our younger son’s iPhone as he starts middle school this fall. Sometimes the hard-won experience is the best teacher.
Pro Tip
Another great resource I found for affordable used devices in good condition is Back Market (which I believe Verizon owns). Because if you’re going to fight the digital battle, you might as well not go bankrupt doing it.
Have you fought similar battles with your tweens and their devices? What solutions worked (or spectacularly failed) for your family? The comment section is a judgment-free zone for fellow digital warriors.
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