My 11 year old son has an old android phone, to keep in touch with his friends and family.
He does not have access to any form of social media.
His friend list is limited to people he knows irl.
Activity on all devices is monitored (Google family link) and controlled (pi-hole, DNS blocking, ad blocking etc).
The internet is a cesspool and I agree we should limit children from free access to this - but telling kids to stick to pen and paper until they are 13 isn't the way to do it.
evanmoran · 1h ago
Just to add to this. It’s important to monitor group chats a well as avoiding social media. Close friends 1 on 1 are usually somewhat ok, but the bigger groups / discords that happen quickly in middle school have more issues.
tmpz22 · 2h ago
Definitely agree. Kids are not prisoners and will react predictably if you try vainly to lock them down. Theyll find vpns, save money for their own phone, barrow a friends ipad, google the simplest way to jailbreak a cheap IoT device, or any of dozens of ways to subvert lockdown.
Or worse the kid wont be subvertive. Theyll be supplicative, submissive, and compliant.
Maybe just spend a few less hours in the office or on netflix and develop a trust filled relationship with your child, prempting the biggest threats with candid conversation about sex, drugs, risk analysis, and the fact that as a parent we broke all those rules too.
bluefirebrand · 1h ago
> Kids are not prisoners and will react predictably if you try vainly to lock them down. Theyll find vpns, save money for their own phone, barrow a friends ipad, google the simplest way to jailbreak a cheap IoT device, or any of dozens of ways to subvert lockdown
This all actually seems like good lessons to me. Well, except simply borrowing a friend's ipad. But I guess even just making a close enough friend who trusts them to lend an ipad is still a good skill
I don't know. Maybe kids can benefit from having some artificial boundaries that make them think outside the box and put in effort to overcome
bogzz · 47m ago
This is why I'm expanding my basement to make a much larger pitch-black labyrinth. If anyone knows where you can still buy minotaurs lmk pls.
He does not have access to any form of social media.
His friend list is limited to people he knows irl.
Activity on all devices is monitored (Google family link) and controlled (pi-hole, DNS blocking, ad blocking etc).
The internet is a cesspool and I agree we should limit children from free access to this - but telling kids to stick to pen and paper until they are 13 isn't the way to do it.
Or worse the kid wont be subvertive. Theyll be supplicative, submissive, and compliant.
Maybe just spend a few less hours in the office or on netflix and develop a trust filled relationship with your child, prempting the biggest threats with candid conversation about sex, drugs, risk analysis, and the fact that as a parent we broke all those rules too.
This all actually seems like good lessons to me. Well, except simply borrowing a friend's ipad. But I guess even just making a close enough friend who trusts them to lend an ipad is still a good skill
I don't know. Maybe kids can benefit from having some artificial boundaries that make them think outside the box and put in effort to overcome