151–160 of 232 posts
I have some pre-teen children that have access to an iPad, Xbox, and an Apple TV. My #1 recommendation is NO YOUTUBE, unless it's for education purposes. I don't have the App installed on any of my kids devices (they can access it via the website, but they don't do that). It's just a cesspool of garbage for kids. Even YouTube Kids is bad. Occasionally, they will complain about not having the YouTube app... but I neve…
For rewards, we use the star/chart system, works well! Define some chores, each chore got a star sticky. After 10 stars, gets a toy or Roblox bucks. Roblox is pretty good at teaching lessons in money management, spend it all or slowly save up. Never allow them to buy without a parent. Do not save that CC info online! Same with iPad and other devices, lock down all payments!
Video watching is more open now that they are at a later age, but I had to put my foot down on Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure recently, lol, maybe when they're older. I used to regulate the YouTube to ONLY certain channels that don't swear, like Zack Scott, who is great, BTW.
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The "girl" doesn't want him to mention her, because her dad's possessive and abusive and if he finds out, she's dead meat. Your kid now has a selfless, noble reason to be uncomfortable sharing that information.
Do you have children? If they trust a stranger they just met on the internet more than a parent, that's the problem. No amount of technological redress is going to fix that.
I have a friend who was catfished in high school, and the fisher took on a persona for several years before "introducing" her to the fisher's "friend" who was actually the fisher -- and he maintained the ruse for several years after. I'm honestly unsure of how a parent could even prevent something like that. The only comfort I've got today is that video chat is normal and a friend who couldn't do that would probably noteworthy enough to mention. That comfort is diminishing: by the time my kid will be old enough to worry about, deepfakes will be that much more advanced.
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> Your trust is misplaced. Could you provide some explicit examples to what you linked above? > Weird old guys contacting his son This one sounds a little weird, but the rest could just be the kid isn’t following modern western progressive values (and being obsessed with games depending on how much is just being a kid). > swearing (fine by me, but still), being drawn to the wrong kind of "friends", hate speech I’d ne…
It’s sad that being against hate speech is considered modern, western and progressive. It seemed like the norm not too long ago.
It's 100% ok to teach kids they they shouldn't promote genocide or use racial slurs.
I have installed Qustodio to block and monitor their internet habits. But my 12 year old somehow figured out how to unblock herself from Qustodio, but things are blocked on my younger one's laptop. Every time I restart the laptop, sites are blocked for sometime, she does something again to unblock herself. So I had to manually block a bunch on in appropriate domains that I am aware of via /etc/hosts.
I think once kids grow up (11y+ in my personal case), they don't like us to know what they are doing online. They wouldn't want you to be around when they chat with their friends etc. But whenever there is an opportunity I try to tell them about the bad that happens online, not share their personal information, addresses, pictures online, monitor the sites they visit and block if they are inappropriate.
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And the opposition is doing everything they can to 1) make that communication remain innocuous long enough to fall into background ignore status 2) escalate in a way that will either avoid communicatong with you or even better seem fine to the child but not to you and so invoke the "my parent isn't fair" response and stop consulting you wholesale
Yes. And why is your teen so desperate for attention that they're willing to get it from a random stranger on the internet? Instead of their friends or someone they know in real life? Jesus, this thread of an exercise of people making more and more convoluted excuses to treat their own children like criminals. Is this the HN that was against warrantless wiretapping, or did I mistakenly fall through into another forum…
I am a parent. It's difficult at times to balance freedom and regulation. Do the best you can, and remember balance is key. Early years (2-7yo) was highly regulated, but gave more freedom at older ages (7+ yo). For rewards, we use the star/chart system, works well! Define some chores, each chore got a star sticky. After 10 stars, gets a toy or Roblox bucks. Roblox is pretty good at teaching lessons in money managemen…
Tip: the Dollar Stores have a toy aisle with toys little kids love. Go nuts at $1.25 each. Some of them they may only play with once.
If you try to control your kids internet/device usage too much they will learn to work around it (at least once they hit the young teens). Try to have open conversations with them and teach them about the dangers of strangers, predatory microtransactions, the permanence of whatever they post on the internet etc. If you just try to monitor and restrict what they do they will grow to resent you, and they'll hide everyt…
They also have good advice for how to teach and equip kids to be independent while maintaining appropriate safety boundaries at each stage along the way to full independence. [1]
Discussion and trust are important but I think there is a phase where kids do not yet have the maturity for discussion and trust to be enough to keep them safe. In the meantime, they also need supervision and physical boundaries to be safe.
As an analogy, no amount of verbal instruction will allow a toddler to walk safely by themselves near traffic. Until they reach a certain maturity level, children need an adult who is paying attention and is ready to physically intervene if they start heading for the street.
I think there's a similar dynamic at play when it comes to internet safety. We need to teach our kids so that they will be ready for independence but we also need to recognize that they will not be ready for full independence for quite a while, given the complexity of the risks involved.
[0] https://www.kidpower.org/library/article/online-safety-for-y...
[1] https://www.kidpower.org/library/article/preparing-independe...
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Yes. And why is your teen so desperate for attention that they're willing to get it from a random stranger on the internet? Instead of their friends or someone they know in real life? Jesus, this thread of an exercise of people making more and more convoluted excuses to treat their own children like criminals. Is this the HN that was against warrantless wiretapping, or did I mistakenly fall through into another forum…
Uh... Because they're a teenager. Sometimes, that are bottomless pits of craving attention for reasons that aren't logical.
I’m going to go the other direction…it’s your responsibility to violate your childrens online privacy at least up to a certain age. Block, restrict, monitor. Say no pretty much all the time. They’ll be fine. There’s so much stuff out there where they’ll have no idea what’s going on but you’ll recognize it immediately. NextDNS is great for this stuff. Apple Family Manager too. On a phone or iPad just remove safari ent…