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Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents

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Re: Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents

#51

Post by Mononokay »

XCabbage wrote: post #20
nickthegreek wrote: post #6

When I was a young boy in the 90s, my libertarian aligned father let me use the computer and access the internet. He explained to me that I shouldn't visit certain type of sites, I should never give out my name or address and that he had software installed to monitor what happened on the computer. He explained that this wasn't a breach of trust between us as I was using his equipment and that I had to abide by his ru…

Except that (assuming you define "young boy" anything like I do, and you live in the developed world) you were not free to get a job, due to child labor laws and mandatory schooling. I can't be too annoyed at your father, since most people don't even see the need to justify parents or teachers exercising authority over children, but if you ARE going to try to philosophically justify it, pretending that a child is jus…

Child labor laws and mandatory schooling are draconian - there really needs to be a fast-laned way for kids to test out of it.

Re: Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents

#52

Post by megaman22 »

sevensor wrote: post #7
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #2

It is even worse when schools try to make these mandatory “on behalf of the parents.”

It's tricky -- teachers are in loco parentis , so does that also apply to equipment distributed by the school system? At any rate, I know it annoys the kids, but it gets them off to a good start circumventing technological lockdowns. So at least they're learning a valuable computer skill.

Exactly. My first introduction to proxies and VPNs came about because I couldn't access the Sun JavaDocs for my AP CS class on the school internet, because Bess decided to block it for "hacking"

Re: Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents

#53

Post by ausjke »

At home the router could be a better place to "filter" contents for kids, especially they may use both cellphone and PC at home.

When they're out on 4G network, then you do need those apps to help, unless the 4G operator has a safe-filtering-for-kid-phone-numbers

Re: Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents

#55

Post by Mononokay »

YCode wrote: post #14

It strikes me that the parents who install these apps are likely to be parents who are raising more challenging children. That's not to imply they are bad parents, just that the kid went through a divorce, intense bullying, a change in schools, etc. and that trauma caused them to engage in activities that led to their parents installing the app. I guess in a phrase have they shown causation?

On the flip side, I'd say it's more likely that parents who allow their kid to experience trauma caused by the parent's choices generally are more likely to have an authoritarian outlook on parenting.

Re: Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents

#56

Post by Rotdhizon »

You have to strike a balance between being a worried parent, and letting your child experience individual freedom. Parents who go out of their to make sure their kids know every single action they make is monitored will absolutely drive a wedge between them. It's not a bad idea to install location monitoring apps, but going as far as reading every communication your child makes to peers or knowing every single website they visit can be crossing the line. Granted this is more of a problem with modern generation teens and children, teens and children born in the early to mid 90s didn't really need this level of restriction. It seems as the new generations come about, the level of irresponsibility and poor decision increase. Kids learn from experience, negative experiences do teach lessons and shape decision making. If you go out of your way to block every potentially negatives interaction a child can have on the internet or amongst friends, they won't know how to deal with those harsh reality situations come time when their parents aren't around to protect them anymore. I'd imagine most of us had experiences as a child/teen where we typed in the wrong URL in the early days of the internet and bam, breasts suddenly all over the screen. That's a learning experience. My experience with this was in the middle of a 6th grade history class, mistyped 1 letter and the teacher about had a heart attack from what popped up.

Parent's who block porn websites for their teens for example, why? You know very well that at 13,14,15 your child is going to start getting curious, and outright blocking their access to that content online is only going to make them look for it elsewhere. I'm not saying don't, but casting an iron curtain over their activities and making them feel like they have to constantly look over their shoulder for your monitoring is going to build distrust and disdain. It's all about balance. Older parents that were born in the mid 1900s didn't place many restrictions on their kids because I believe they knew kids had to learn how to experience life for what it had to offer. Modern generation parents who were born just in the late 80s/early90s are getting too heavy handed with moderation and restriction.

Re: Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents

#57

Post by michaelgrafl »

sathackr wrote: post #37
erispoe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much about the breach of trust than about raising independent, well-functioning individuals. There's good evidence than sheltering kids and not allowing them to experiment on their own terms, including by experiencing the consequences of their own actions, does not create well adapted adults. Parents who install monitoring systems are prioritizing their own short-term well-being and peace of mind at the e…

What consequences could you imagine a parent should allow a 10 year old to experience? The consequences of an abnormal sexual development or an unhealthy attitude towards females due to stumbling across hardcore porn and becoming addicted to it at a young age? The consequences of mistaking someone on the internet as a friend and giving them your full address and name so they could bring you ice cream? There are thing…

That's what makes parenting hard. You have to make those decisions.

Ideally, you protect your child from things that will damage them permanently, but let them enough freedom to experiment and get hurt, so they can have a true learning experience.

For example, I don't think a 10 year old will develop an unhealthy attitude towards females just because of watching porn. I would guess you can talk about gender issues and even porn with a 10 year old to offset the effect of it.

Essentially, if you have good communication with your child and keep him or her busy with healthy activities, he or she won't have much reason to do stupid stuff on the Internet. So your made up scenarios kind of predicate subpar parenting to begin with.

Re: Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents

#58

Post by SomeHacker44 »

Apple doesn't make it possible to have reasonable controls on an iOS device, unfortunately.

There is no fine-grained way to say what apps can be used when, what web sites can be used or not used, etc. Even things that seem like they should work (e.g., "Allow the Amazon Kindle app but not Safari") don't, because of hidden features that breaks Kindle when Safari isn't enabled.

I've tried many apps, including Qustodio. I can't do MDM or any of the enterprise-level stuff because guess what, I can't get Apple to give me an Apple ID account that Apple Configurator 2 will accept - despite being a 25+ year industry veteran - and I'm not about to use my company credentials on my personal devices.

Not all kids need these features, and not all parents want them, but for those of us who want our kids to have iOS devices for communication purposes, plus also occasionally allow them for other purposes, we have no choices here. We can lock it all down to near uselessness or leave it open, but there is no in-between.

Re: Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents

#59

Post by rainbowmverse »

throwaway84742 wrote: post #35
mieseratte wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're lucky, you'll accidentally turn your child into a hacker.

I’m ok with that. At least it’s better than “YouTube watcher”, or “Minecraft player”.

A proactive approach might get better results than a prohibitive one. Minecraft modding and making Minecraft videos seems like an obvious route for this given the interest.

Re: Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents

#60

Post by zenonu »

sathackr wrote: post #16

Trust. But verify. Step-father of a 12 year old boy here. We started monitoring his internet after we caught him looking at inappropriate videos on youtube. He knows he is being monitored and I only block actual porn sites. Neither of us like it but until he has earned our trust back, the situation will not change. I'm his parent, not his friend. My job isn't to make him like me, it's to raise him with proper values…

When I was 15, I discovered Usenet and the various binaries subgroups. This was beyond what my folks understood was on the PC. Your son will access content beyond your current understanding as well. Additionally, you might have a monitor on the PCs you own, but you don't have a monitor on his friends PCs either. The monitoring game is already lost. You indicate a loss of trust, but it goes both ways. There's absolutely no way he's going to tell you anything now that you've dealt the monitoring card. He's not going to thank you in the future. He's simply not going to say anything about it.
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