Do you pay for his phone? If so, make it a condition for continued payment that you either get the password or the password protection is turned off. That phone is NOT his, technically.

Your job as his parent with the responsibility that brings trumps his rights to privacy. Teenagers are infamous for making VERY POOR decisions....... even the most trustworthy of children.

"young and stupid" kids do dumb things
a teen is entitled to no expectation of privacy from a parent,

Since you pay the bill, I wonder if the company can send you his passwords? Be hilarious if he THOUGHT he was getting away with stuff.

With our kids we pay for their phones and the services so we let them know that they have USE of the phone as a privilege we provide for them but that the phone and all the stuff on it belongs to US. If they would like the privilege of USING the phones, then they must respect us when we ask them to see the phone.

They do have their phones password protected so that it keeps it mostly safe from kids at school or where ever they are - if others come upon their phone they cannot get in to their stuff. But we have trained our kids to write down the passwords in our password book (like an address book) that I keep in my desk at home. If I try to access their phone and the password doesn't work, they know they risk losing their phone privilege.

Also, we have their data usage restricted. They are not able to download anything onto their phones. They also are not allowed to send or receive photos. They can take photos, just not send or receive them. Having teenage and young adult (oldest is 20) boys, and knowing how aggressive and "free spirited" the girls are these days (I spent many years volunteering in the schools) I felt it was important for their own protection to ban the photo sharing capability.

Our 20 year old will probably get himself his own phone soon, but we have told him that while he is in college and still living at home, we will provide him the use of a phone. So even though he is 20, and he is an adult, we still view it as our phone that we allow him to use. Not his phone. And he respects that. He knows the deal and respects it because that is how it has always been with us.

I regularly ask for my son's phone and his password and check it. I do it randomly and if he ever had an issue with it there would be no more phone.

There is no such thing as phone privacy in my house, my 12 year old has a phone but she is well aware that I have access to it at all times. I always have her password and randomly ask, "hey can I see you phone for a min." She know that if she ever tried to hide anything on it from me she would lose it. Her phone also charges upstairs in the livingroom every night. These are rules that have been in place since she got a phone, and they will continue until she's living on her own and she knows that as well.

When we gave our son the phone, we made it very clear that it was "our phone". We pay the bill. We have the right to randomly check his texts and other social media on his phone. So far he has complied and we don't have a reason to not trust him. He needs to keep up his end of the bargain, or the phone gets taken away.

There is a system if you want in where you can read his texts and emails if his phone is link to yours and if you share the same plan. I did this with my son. I felt like it was a way to respect his independence but at the same time keep him safe. I got bored after a while, I was being paranoid for no reason and discontinued the service after a while. What you want is to trust you child that he is making the right decisions as well.

I decided that unless he doesnt give me a reason to not trust, then I will choose to trust he is handling his cellphone in a sensitive manner.

Don't give him very costly phone.Give him simple phone that can be used only for calling purpose in which no password is required.

Time out phone!! I just posted this. My wife found the secret weapon
AT&T phone called spareone it for safety and young children I think but my wife swaps it out when our kids are in trouble. tell him it this phone or that and when he is in trouble exchange phones for a few days and see what happens hope this helps

I have my 17 y/o daughter's pw and can do random checks on her phone. However, if I read this forum, it appears like this is a simple and easy thing to do. It is not. The resistance I have had from my kid has been akin to likening me to a mass murderer. Yes, she has gotten in trouble, but probably no more than the average teenager. I don't care about her privacy, but she acts like I am stalking her like a crazy person (I check it every few months) It's even an issue we have discussed with her therapist (about how she can't deal with no privacy.) She has been paying her phone bill for years, so I can't use that on her. I would just say that if you don't start checking the phone regularly on day one, then you're gonna have a fun time once you start trying.