Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 159 posts

Re: Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

#81

Post by jrm4 »

api wrote: post #3

The only one we have so far is that we blocked YouTube at the router level. YouTube (and YouTube Kids etc.) is down-right creepy when kids get hold of it. The kids will watch things like Netflix or Amazon Prime for a bit, get bored, and do something else. They'll play stuff like Minecraft for a bit and move on too. But put them in front of YouTube and they will sit there all day watching banal, repetitive, shockingly…

Interesting, for the 5 year old I blocked Youtube and kept Youtube kids, though I'm always over his shoulder. It's weird because, while I have concerns over the tons of Minecraft and that kid who got rich playing with toys with his parents -- the whole Aumsum deal feels worth it; kid's dropping all kinds of knowledge on me from it.

Re: Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

#82

Post by codazoda »

I think I'm going to be the odd man out here but I did not restrict my kids. I purchased mobile phones for them when they were around 8 years old (when they become affordable enough for us). I put no restrictions on their screen time, websites, or anything else. I simply talked to them about what I thought was right or wrong and let them decide.

My kids are now adults and it seems to have worked for them.

I got my first computer system when I was 10 years old. I spent more time in front of screens than I spend anywhere else. I believe my entire life and career is a result of being allowed to express my creativity that way and I wanted my kids to be afforded the same freedoms.

Re: Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

#83

Post by code_diego_code »

dxbydt wrote: post #61

9 year old. He started coding when he was 7. JS. He maintains an online website with all his JS code. Updates his own website. No screentime limits. No restrictions. I bookmarked developer.mozilla on his pc but he still prefers that dirty w3schools. I help out sometimes but that shitty language truly drives me up the wall. Sometimes out of spite I code up 1-liners in R and tease him that it'll take 100 years to do th…

One day he'll see the light. My coworkers are still saying the same about me when it comes to monads and functional programming.

If nothing else, you can have your son write up a few one-function JS librarie, put them up on NPM, and hopefully collect some of Drew DeVault's money in time for Christmas.

Re: Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

#84

Post by tombert »

aerovistae wrote: post #78
dxbydt wrote: post #61

9 year old. He started coding when he was 7. JS. He maintains an online website with all his JS code. Updates his own website. No screentime limits. No restrictions. I bookmarked developer.mozilla on his pc but he still prefers that dirty w3schools. I help out sometimes but that shitty language truly drives me up the wall. Sometimes out of spite I code up 1-liners in R and tease him that it'll take 100 years to do th…

w3schools is really not that bad. I hate that it still gets such a bad rep. I don't use it myself, nowadays the MDN docs have long since exceeded it in comprehensive content and clarity, but w3schools is fine for people who are learning. I learned the same way 10 years ago. It has plenty of excellent examples and clear explanations. Yes, it has a couple of flawed pieces of information (like recommending document.writ…

I agree; I've been coding for awhile now, so I don't use W3School for anything JS related, but I don't think it's so bad if you have zero experience with anything related to web development.

Also, I honestly think that their Raspberry Pi + Node.js GPIO programming tutorial series is actually pretty good.

Re: Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

#85

Post by aerovistae »

yumraj wrote: post #79

High school kid (HSK), Elementary School kid (ESK) HSK has a cellphone (iPhone), ESK does not, and will not get till ESK is in High School. HSK got cellphone in 9th grade. HSK has the iPhone parent thing on his phone so that HSK needs permission for installing apps. No social media apps of any kind, except Join me, which is used by school (I had to compromise here). HSK is ok with it. At home: We don't use FB, Instag…

This seems like one of the best schemes I've heard here so far. Only part I disagree with is the "no multiplayer online games" - they are addictive, I've lost a lot of time to them in my life, so maybe you're right, but I want to believe moderation is better than abstinence.

Re: Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

#86

Post by rsync »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #60
rsync wrote: post #38

7,12,14. I find that rules and firewalls and schedules and blocking are a fools errand - it is a cat-and-mouse game that you can't win. So we just turn off the Internet. We have a different wifi network for the children that has a very restrictive schedule. Basically just Fri/Sat night and 15 mins on weekday evenings to send messages to friends and check school assignments. The 7 year old gets his Nintendo Switch on…

I don't mean to judge, but this sounds like a great way to make sure your kids become experts at circumventing your limitations. Take it from a kid whose parents didn't let him play RuneScape because it had witchcraft in it, and whose playtime of neopets was limited to 1 hr per day. I quickly became unusually good at both sneaking around the house at night to use the computer at 2am and also was surprisingly good at…

"I don't mean to judge, but this sounds like a great way to make sure your kids become experts at circumventing your limitations."

There is nothing to circumvent and no adversary to overcome.

The Internet just disappears. They can play games or watch shows all they want to.

"... this sounds like a great way to make sure your kids become experts at circumventing your limitations."

If my children manage to erect a cellular tower within range or our ranch I will tip my hat to them.

"Well played", I will say.

Re: Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

#87

Post by aerovistae »

colinmhayes wrote: post #80
Aeolun wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point do you see this starting? I certainly don’t expect or trust a 3 year old to act as responsibly as I do And I’m already a fairly irresponsible person.

Probably when they're capable of realizing you're a hypocrite?

Well said

Re: Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

#88

Post by tompagenet2 »

aerovistae wrote: post #63
tompagenet2 wrote: post #32

8 year old and 5 year old. Same for both of them. No TV. 25 mins each of video games every other day. We occasionally (maybe once every 6 weeks) watch a film together at the weekend. No tablets. Perhaps once a week they might ask to use the (Windows) laptop to go to a website they use at school, such as Mathletics. We'd normally let them use this. 8 year old has a Kindle (not a Fire but the eReader type) that is used…

Personally I would say this sounds mega-restrictive in a non-constructive way. To each their own with parenting of course, but I hope others don't imitate this person's choices. This sounds limiting to the point that the kids might grow up having limited tech skills and no familiarity with the shows, movies, and games that their peers will be talking about. I remember growing up watching Discovery channel specials li…

That's a valid view point. We don't watch TV (as in me and my wife) so it seems odd for us to encourage our children to do something we don't. I'm sure your experiences were formative (I watched a reasonable amount of kids' TV when I was young), and my 8 year old reads way more books than I did and I assume gets something out of this that encourages her to love stories, history, wildlife etc. My 5 year old is Lego obsessed and loves being read to (and it's getting much better at reading). I don't think TV is the only place to get this enjoyment from.

I think you might also not be appreciating how common computers are in (UK) schools. Both children have lots of computer time in schools (both on iPads and standard computers). I don't think either of them lack familiarity (at least for their age) for how to use them. You might be confusing not having a cheap Android tablet that allows children to play a child-friendly version of Candy Crush with the concept of tech skills; I don't think they're the same.

Re: Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

#89

Post by bachmeier »

Our teenage boy faces a strict limit of 24 hours a day of screen time. If he goes over, well that's okay, because he'll be getting a Nobel Prize. On a serious note, it works for him, so we haven't had a reason to change it. If he stays up too late, he knows he'll be tired the next day. If he misses assignments at school or does poorly, he knows he'll lose his devices. He's active in sports twelve months a year, so no concerns about physical fitness. Everything with kids is YMMV - what works for us would be a disaster for many.

Re: Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?

#90

Post by annoyingnoob »

We've gone back and forth, kids now 12, 10, 7. We implemented screen time limits pre-pandemic as the kids were not listening, would not put devices down, would skip important things by being stuck in front of a screen. We limited to 2 hours a day.

Then Covid hit and home school shattered our ability to apply limits. We've never gotten back to screen limits. Things are a little better as the kids are a little older. We do more parenting now and less tech restrictions, sometimes its a fight.

I'm a fan of letting the kids fail to learn. Too many guard rails changes the lesson.

Post reply on HN