I have a 14 year old boy who has a phone. He has a pretty large imessage group of about 20 kids from his school named 'dumbasses united' (which is pretty freaking funny IMO) he also has another smaller imessage group with his close friends. He isn't interested in social media like tiktok or instagram and in fact is pretty anti-social media platform beyond imessage. He does have a discord with some kids from school to play games with however.
I don't bother him too much about it as long as his grades are good and responsibilities around the house are met. Every so often i'll scroll through his phone but haven't found anything you wouldn't expect from a typical 8th grader. I don't come down on him for language or crude jokes or anything like that, i'm looking for actual danger and not 14 year olds being 14. He knows I have the pin to his phone and he could change it to make it a bigger issue between us but he never has and in return i won't confront him unless i feel like it's a very serious issue.
I don't bother him too much about it as long as his grades are good and responsibilities around the house are met. Every so often i'll scroll through his phone but haven't found anything you wouldn't expect from a typical 8th grader. I don't come down on him for language or crude jokes or anything like that, i'm looking for actual danger and not 14 year olds being 14. He knows I have the pin to his phone and he could change it to make it a bigger issue between us but he never has and in return i won't confront him unless i feel like it's a very serious issue.