Four Alternatives to Taking the Phone Away from Teens

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Have you ever tried taking away your teen’s cellphone as a punishment? Many parents have used this technique to improve their teen’s behavior, but chances are it didn’t do much. We believe that this is because a lot of parents take away phone access as a ‘blanket punishment’ that can be applied to any circumstance, which doesn’t effectively teach their teen the error of their ways.

If you want to find a more fitting consequence when your teen acts out, try these four strategies.

1.  Incorporate Natural Consequences

Our first tip is to come up with ‘natural consequences’ instead of a ‘blanket punishment.’ The difference is that natural consequences are directly related to your teen’s offense. Here’s an example, if your teen refuses to show up to family dinner on time, they have to feed themselves that night instead of having access to the leftovers. Or, if you catch your teen smoking cigarettes after school, you might take away their freedom to hang out after school and must come home right away instead.

The point is that your teen will see a relationship between their errors and the consequences, so they will be more likely to change their ways. If they simply lose their phones for every mistake they make, they will get used to losing their phones instead of thinking about how to change their actions.

2.  Activate Parental Controls

We also advise that you let your teen keep their phone, but you install parental software instead of taking it away. We recommend using software that can deactivate certain apps, put limits on screen time, or track your teen’s data so they can still use their phones for daily necessities such as communicating with parents, but lose the recreational aspect of the phone. This way, you can keep the restrictions installed indefinitely until your teen makes the choice to improve their behavior.

It puts the ball in your teen’s court, so they will feel more independent about their choice to improve, which is both effective for teens and appreciated by teens.

3.    Explain How Your Teen Misbehaved

When we asked teens what worked best to encourage them change their behavior, they overwhelming responded with “having a conversation to explain what went wrong".

When you take the phone away without a thorough conversation about your teen’s missteps, they miss a learning opportunity. They focus on when they will get their phone back instead of focusing on why their behavior was unsuitable.

Being able to sit down with your teen and calmly explain what behavior you find is inappropriate makes your teen feel like an adult instead of a child, so they will be more likely to respond with maturity. This is a great tactic if your teen shows a pattern of defiance. Plus, if your teen might recognize the error of their ways so they can make a correction, instead of merely waiting for the punishment to end without reflecting on their mistake.

4.  Have Your Teen Make Amends

Another great alternative to taking the phone away is to have your teenager amend their bad behavior.

Much like using natural consequences, this helps your teen form a connection between their actions and discipline. If your teen acted out and it affected someone else, come up with a plan for restitution.

For example, if your teen hurt someone’s feelings (including the parents), you could ask your teen to do something nice for them and offer a written apology. If your teen broke or borrowed something that wasn’t theirs, we suggest that you have your teen personally replace it. If your teen broke an explicit rule, you might ask your teen what their plan is to make up for it to regain trust and freedom, since they knew they were breaking a pre-established rule.

Overall: It’s Not About the Phone

It’s really about having your teen understand that they need to make a change.

This can start with encouraging a connection between actions and consequences, or by explaining why your teen made an error. Either way, the more you put the pressure on your teen to take responsibility, the more effectively you can influence a change in their behavior.

We hope these four tips help, we think they’re much better than taking the phone away.

Author Bio

Andy Earle is a researcher who studies parent-teen communication and adolescent risk behaviors. He is the co-founder of talkingtoteens.com and host of the Talking to Teens podcast, a free weekly talk show for parents of teenagers.