This article really struck a chord with me, since I’m increasingly worried about my children growing up in a world that is fundamentally different from the one I grew up in. It’s incredibly hard to make sure that children are not confronted with disturbing imagery and all the propaganda that is circulating online without the fully developed critical thinking of an educated adult. How do you go about making sure your children become responsible adults online?
I feel like with most things with kids, you just talk to them honestly and openly about things. I feel like, if they’re old enough to ask, they’re probably old enough to hear the answer.
This way they feel more comfortable asking you things. Because even if you lock down their devices air tight, they’re friends parents probably didn’t do the same. You can’t protect your kids from the world but, you can prepare them to face it.
My kids are still youngish enough that I can get away with limiting their internet access to screens I can see and hear. They have the TV in the living room and an old laptop beside dad’s desk. I tell them that there are a lot of bad things on the internet and I need to be able to help them if they find something bad by accident. Whenever they stumble on something questionable, I tell them why I don’t like it and we look for something else. Luckily they really don’t argue about it (yet, I’m sure). I feel like it’s working, though. They seem to be developing a healthy relationship with tech and screens. They love to watch arts and crafts tutorials on youtube and have been teaching themselves to draw and play piano, and they’re actually doing well!
I’ve taken this approach with my kids, and although none are teenagers, I’ve still never got any kickback. For a while now they will even self report and call me if rubbish comes on. Actually, at this point they’d just change it to something quality themselves. I wonder if the reasons I don’t like certain videos has sunk in for them, and they’re just not interested in weird stuff now? A couple of them push with computer games though. I’m clear and consistent in allowing no first person shooters yet, but they try to get away with it if they think I’m not paying attention.
We’re going with a bit of both: time limits and exclusion, and an explanation why.
I expected my kids to figure out how to bypass my site blocks (All they had to do was change DNS), but they never did. I eventually just turned them off as they got older.
My kids will never defeat me. I’ll shoot meth into my eyeballs and work to destroy them 24/7 if they dare try.
Last resort… I release the genophage and doom us all
Haha, I’ve just kept the embarrassing pics (3-2-1 backed up) as blackmail material. They’re still only 8 and 6, so not changing DNS yet, but when they do I’ll be proud. I plan to make weak blocks and ramp them up as they learn to circumvent. Teach tech skills while allowing a drop feed of inappropriate content.
The bigger issue for me is how to teach them privacy when they have never experienced it.
Check out Emily Cherkin, I heard an interview with her the other day (she has a new book out: A Judgement Free Guide To Becoming A Tech-Intentional Family), and what she had to say mirrored a lot of the comments here - communication with kids, working with them so they learn how to manage tech themselves (and develop a healthy relationship with it), etc. I haven’t read it, but maybe she has some structural ideas in it (she was a school teacher).
I can say first hand that using blocks, parental controls, etc, are limited tools that should only be used as a small part of the bigger plan (I manage these things for my family and extended family). These tools show that they almost don’t matter - there are successful parents with/without them in my family (I think mostly because all the parents didn’t allow unsupervised tech time when kids were little, so were able to teach some fundamentals organically).
Good luck out there!
Thanks! This sounds interesting and I’ll look into it.
Concerning parental controls I share your doubts. While you may be able to have some form of limited control over the device used by the child, there is no control whatsoever over the type of content shared by peers. It just seems difficult to make sure that my children already have the necessary skill set of critical thinking at a very young age. I know for a fact that I didn’t have that skill at the age of 6 or 10. Luckily I only ever got my first mobile phone, a good ol’ Nokia brick, at the age of 16.
