My son has been sneaking tablet time after bedtime. Caught him at 11pm watching YouTube videos about gaming. Set up parental controls but he somehow figured out the password. How is an 8yo smarter than me with tech? Thinking about going back to flip phones for both of us at this point.
That's tough. My kids have found workarounds too. Sometimes I wonder if they're smarter about tech than we give them credit for. Might need to look at the actual device settings - like putting the tablet in another room at bedtime instead of relying on parental controls alone.
Oh man, the 11pm YouTube rabbit hole. I've been there with my oldest. The sneaking around part is actually what I focused on first - turns out the tablet access was less about the tech and more about him testing boundaries. Might be worth a conversation about why he's sneaking versus just blocking everything?
The sneaking part is the real issue. My daughter did the same thing at that age. We set actual tech rules with consequences and actually stuck to them. Took a few weeks but it worked.
What videos is he even watching at 11pm? Because if it's just YouTube Kids that's one thing, but if he's getting into the regular YouTube rabbit hole that's definitely the problem to fix first.
11pm YouTube videos is insane. That's not a screen time problem, that's a boundary problem. You gotta lock down the device at night or move it out of his room entirely.
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Kids are basically little hackers when there's something they really want to do. Have you tried setting up a reward system instead of just restrictions? My 8yo responds better when she knows exactly when she can have screen time versus feeling like it's just being taken away.