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

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

#91

Post by alfor »

mabbo wrote: post #20
bennyp101 wrote: post #18

4,5,15 15 year old does his own thing, not a lot can be done there, but he's not stupid with it. Mainly just playing xbox with his friends, watching other people play games on youtube. Younger ones have a Fire tablet each, 1 hour a day limit (unless they ask for more) - mostly seems to be learning games/lego cartoons. Browser disabled, can only use stuff in their age range. They aren't allowed to watch youTube unless…

Any chance of you doing a write up somewhere of how you set this up, how it all works? This sounds fantastic. I'm 3 months out from becoming a parent. This stuff isn't a big deal yet, but in 3 years or so I'm going to need it. I'd love to learn from you. I know what vlans and pi-holes are, but I've never set them up like that and I want to be able to . And if there's me wanting it, I'll bet there's a lot more parents…

For very young kids, no screen whatsoever. It’s the time they develop bonding with other humans. Best to let them play with physical toys or people.

Resist baby einstein and other things like it for as long as you can

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

#92

Post by yumraj »

smeeth wrote: post #51

I'm not a parent, but I was somewhat recently parented. Consider holding yourself to the same standard you set for your kid. My parents are mental health professionals and did this with me. I think it was incredibly valuable and I respect them a lot for it now that I'm older. I don't think its wise to restrict usage, watch over their shoulder, or block websites if you aren't willing to submit to the same restrictions…

I fully agree with this. In our household FB, Instagram, TikTok... are bad mouthed and blocked for everyone. Kids understand this and are on board with it.

If I was using FB and blocking for them, it would have been a hard sell.

I'm paranoid about passwords and sharing info online, and they've also started adopting those practices. Yesterday a kid had to login onto a public terminal at school, and once done the kid immediately changed password because I've been doing this. I was very proud. :)

Younger kid also makes sure passwords are hidden and so on...

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

#93

Post by aerovistae »

codazoda wrote: post #82

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 fi…

Yeah - for sure the difference here is when your kids grew up. I was a 90s/00s kid and in that time frame youtube didn't exist until I was 15. Facebook was new and alone in its category besides myspace. Instagram, Snapchat, and Tiktok didn't exist at all, and youtube hadn't yet cultivated itself into the monstrous addiction engine it is today (for kids, specifically.) Moreover smartphones didn't exist or were just starting to proliferate, so it didn't follow you everywhere. Growing up using the internet was a different experience back then.

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

#94

Post by tombert »

codazoda wrote: post #82

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 fi…

My parents were generally lax on how much computer time I had, with the only time they wouldn't let me use my computer was if I got bad grades in middle and high school (which admittedly was far too frequent...sigh).

I pretty much got all my dad's hand-me-down computers since I was a kid, and as a result I became fairly tech-savy relatively young. Once my parents saw that I was learning to code C++ for fun when I was fifteen, without getting any school credit (and instead of playing video games), they stopped taking my computer away completely; partly because I was getting too old to "ground", and partly because they realized that me showing interest in technical work was probably something they want to encourage.

When I dropped out of college, I was able to find tech work pretty quickly, and built a pretty cool career out of it, and I largely thank the fact that I was constantly tinkering with computers as a kid and teenager for that.

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

#95

Post by aerovistae »

tompagenet2 wrote: post #88
aerovistae wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ob…

Fair enough! That's a good point too, they really are everywhere now. I guess I just am someone who really enjoys a good movie and got that appreciation by growing up watching a couple every week, and I would lament missing out on that. I loved legos and books too as a kid, and I do agree tablets/phone with Candy Crush and the like are basically mind-poison for young kids.

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

#96

Post by rsync »

Aeolun wrote: post #47
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…

> we don't owe them explanations as to why our family is different from other families Don’t you feel like this will backfire at some point? I don’t think I would have liked it if my parents never explained themselves.

"Don’t you feel like this will backfire at some point? I don’t think I would have liked it if my parents never explained themselves."

This is turning into a discussion of parenting, generally, so I won't go too deeply into this ...

What I will say is that stability and predictability are what make this possible.

When our children were old enough to care about wifi and Internet and social media, these limitations were no surprise at all to them because they were directly inline with all of our parenting up to that point.

We have simple, predictable rules (and schedules and behaviors) and they have a good idea, in advance, as to how everything is going to turn out.

And to be clear ... we explain everything to them ... we have a very high level of communication and discussion and learning.

It's just never in the context of complaining, bargaining or negotiation.

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

#97

Post by liveoneggs »

I have an 8 y/o (3rd grade) and a 6 y/o (kindergarten) -

we have pretty open access to netflix kids, youtube only for cosmic kids yoga (although it might be on amazon now?), and am pretty liberal about the time watched.

My 6 y/o is kind of a jerk after watching television though so we might dial it back.

I bought an amazon fire kids tablet and it was so pre-loaded with junk that I returned it.

We haven't found our way into any devices yet. I think video games are pretty healthy but my wife disagrees so we've been not buying a Switch at all :(

They're pretty bad at video games anyway but my old DS Lite still works (!!) and my 8 y/o discovered Brain Age so I say play that as much as she wants. :)

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

#98

Post by 310260 »

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…

Ho-boy you're cruising for a bruising when they get further into their teenage years. No way there's not gonna be rebellion in some form.

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

#99

Post by t0mbstone »

I have a 5 year old son. He has access to an iPad and all of my old game consoles (a Switch, my old PS4 Pro, and my Xbox One X), but he mostly prefers using the iPad.

The iPad is locked down and has a ton of educational apps on it, but the main thing he does on there is watch Youtube Kids or play Minecraft (using an Xbox controller with a bluetooth connection to the iPad).

His Youtube Kids account is locked down to mostly educational content only, with the content restrictions set to 2-4 years old. When I had it set to the 5-7 age range, Youtube kept showing him a lot of inappropriate videos.

He knows how to use the search feature to find videos about just about any topic. I might have a conversation with him about quantum mechanics and then later in the day I will catch him watching a bunch of videos about the topic. He is obsessed with outer space and black holes. He will binge on low quality entertainment like my little pony for a while, and then he will watch some educational videos about math, and then he will switch over to some Kurzgesagt educational videos about outer space or something, and then he might switch to magic school bus.

Any time I see something that I don't like on Youtube kids (like Ryan toys review), I will block the video (or the entire channel). I probably have 30 different channels blocked on Youtube Kids.

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing by letting him watch so much content, but I can definitely say that he knows waaayyy more about the world than I ever did at his age, and he is also a voraciously curious self-educator. He loves math, mainly due to the Number Blocks TV show, for example.

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

#100

Post by meheleventyone »

My kids are five and nearly eight.

Five year old has her own iPad Mini that's a hand me down with YouTube Kids on it and some kids apps. We've recently let her on a much less locked down profile for YouTube. She also enjoys watching kids TV on Netflix and our Icelandic watch-on-demand service.

Eight year old uses our computers and has recently got a phone which was a hand me down from me. Phone is completely locked down so she just has some games and can send SMSs to us and her friends. She mostly takes pictures though. Computer wise she mostly watches a selection of gaming YouTubers, mostly Minecraft and Roblox related. I also play a lot of Roblox and Minecraft with her. Recently shes started playing Roblox with her friends as well. She's also now addicted to Forza Horizon 5 which is excellent.

Neither of them does any of this without casual supervision and we've not had any real moments of concern. We don't strictly limit their time on devices but do make sure we're doing a lot of other activities.

My own take is it's better to give them more freedom but be there to guide, answer questions and if necessary step in.

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