My wife and I have seen the advice to slowly introduce various aspects of smartphone use and social media to teens. We believed that was the best approach. We didn't want to block all access because we know kids will have exposure at some point; we just wanted to introduce different aspects in a sequential manner after our son had demonstrated responsible habits. We started with just voice/text service, no data plan or wifi capability. Then we introduced filtered wifi and Instagram. We resisted on Snapchat for quite a while but finally relented because our son claims that's the only app kids use to text each other and he was being left out because he didn't have access to it. With apps like Kid's Place, Google Family Link, etc., we believed we had reasonable time restrictions in place and we believed we had restricted his ability to install new apps.

All this background leads me to my question: Have you seen any research on best approaches when kids chafe HARD against the reasonable restrictions parents try to put in place? Our son is really susceptible to peer pressure and always tells us that "everyone else has the latest iphone," "no one else has restrictions on their phone," "it's embarrassing to have access limits," etc. His need to "not stick out" or "be different" has led him to finding every chink in the armor of parental monitoring apps, buying burner phones, and borrowing phones from other kids in order to have unrestricted access. The battle and dishonesty has really strained our relationship with him. Plus, he ends up with unrestricted access anyway (by circumventing monitoring apps and using other devices) because he refuses to be bound by what we feel are reasonable restrictions. We can't watch him all day.

I understand that some kids will not push back so hard, and for them it's a good plan to slow things down as you suggest. But for the kids who don't accept the restrictions, at what point does the harm caused by the battle outweigh the potential harm from lifting the restrictions? It goes against my instincts to "let him win" and to lift restrictions because it seems like it will just encourage other bad behavior to eventually get his way. But it's better to have a phone-zombie son or one who is addicted to social media or porn than to have one who won't speak to you. Trying to enforce access limitations is starting to feel like we've ventured into the territory of Satan's plan of coercion. We simply can't make him make wise choices. And we're at the point where trying to do so is not doing him or us any good. It feels like all we have left is to offer guidance and to just let him make the choices he is bound and determined to make.

Does anyone have any advice?