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Don't have kids, but heard of a cool company doing something tangential: Current (current.com) > The debit card for teens (and parents) > – Automates chores a

Don't have kids, but heard of a cool company doing something tangential: Current (current.com) > The debit card for teens (and parents) > – Automates chores and allowances > – Notifies you about spending > – Works with your bank

quickthrower2 9y ago
Train them for serfdom while they are young
- mc32 9y ago
  And the alternative is what? Financial innumeracy is a pretty big problem even for people with steady jobs and decent incomes.
  - quickthrower2 9y ago
    The app gamifies the uber style serfconomy for kids However teaching children to do chores out of respect/community, giving reasonable pocket money regardless of tasks achieved, and encourage entrepreneur ism to make more cash beyond that.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    It's been my (anecdotal) experience that my peers whose parents tightly controlled/supervised their finances as kids had a bad time when the training wheels came off, while those who had to rely on themselves for discipline (or else be broke for a while) were much more responsible.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
Tools for snooping in on your kid's spending is an instant ugh reaction from me.
- MikeTheGreat 9y ago
  I used to think so too, then I had kids :) One interesting approach is to use snooping tools but to then explicitly tell the kids and to discuss the results periodically. I.e., "my job as a parent is to help you figure out how to be a grown up. Part of that is managing money. I noticed you spent money on X and wanted to talk about it" I think for the 'cellphone based GPS-tracking' there was also an explicit rule that the parents wouldn't get the kids in trouble for information gathered from the GPS tracking. They might talk to them about it afterwards, but they wanted the kids to be willing to not circumvent the device for safety purposes. But yeah - it's weird how it both ughs me out and at the same time scratches a deep itch/fear that I'll still be able to keep my kids safe even as they age.
  - SerLava 9y ago
    This always puts it into a bit of perspective for me. We'd had, say, 99999 generations of people precede us. For 1 generation, we've felt that a vital component of every parent-child relationship is actually the United States Air Force Space Command and their array of 24 orbiting spaceships enabling us to pinpoint and record the geographical position of radio tracking devices in our childrens' pockets, via a world-spanning ground-based civilian telecommunications network.
    - MikeTheGreat 9y ago
      Well, sure, but we've also had 99999 generations where things like 'infant mortality rate' is a very real, everyday concern, too. Here in the US, those in the middle-upper classes basically don't have to worry about that. Think about it this way - it's 5pm. Your late-elementary school kid is always home by 3pm, or else they've texted/called you to let you know where they are. Today they didn't. It's 5pm. Things are probably fine, but you live in a city and sometimes bad things happen. Wouldn't you rather have a way of checking in, just to make yourself feel better? We have these nice, new technologies that are changing how we live. Networked, pocket computer we keep calling 'phones'; data center clusters you can rent by the minute for your distributed applications; I could go on and on and I'm sure you can, too. Of course we're going to look at ways that we can parent differently, just like we're looking at different approaches to business, medicine, etc. I think what's really interesting about this isn't a simple, binary yes/no on whether to do it, but the possibilities it opens up. It makes for an interesting discussion, if nothing else.
a-dub 9y ago
ffs. put down the internet and talk to your kids.

quickthrower2 9y ago

Train them for serfdom while they are young

mc32 9y ago
And the alternative is what? Financial innumeracy is a pretty big problem even for people with steady jobs and decent incomes.
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  The app gamifies the uber style serfconomy for kids However teaching children to do chores out of respect/community, giving reasonable pocket money regardless of tasks achieved, and encourage entrepreneur ism to make more cash beyond that.
- closeparen 9y ago
  It's been my (anecdotal) experience that my peers whose parents tightly controlled/supervised their finances as kids had a bad time when the training wheels came off, while those who had to rely on themselves for discipline (or else be broke for a while) were much more responsible.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

Tools for snooping in on your kid's spending is an instant ugh reaction from me.

MikeTheGreat 9y ago
I used to think so too, then I had kids :) One interesting approach is to use snooping tools but to then explicitly tell the kids and to discuss the results periodically. I.e., "my job as a parent is to help you figure out how to be a grown up. Part of that is managing money. I noticed you spent money on X and wanted to talk about it" I think for the 'cellphone based GPS-tracking' there was also an explicit rule that the parents wouldn't get the kids in trouble for information gathered from the GPS tracking. They might talk to them about it afterwards, but they wanted the kids to be willing to not circumvent the device for safety purposes. But yeah - it's weird how it both ughs me out and at the same time scratches a deep itch/fear that I'll still be able to keep my kids safe even as they age.
- SerLava 9y ago
  This always puts it into a bit of perspective for me. We'd had, say, 99999 generations of people precede us. For 1 generation, we've felt that a vital component of every parent-child relationship is actually the United States Air Force Space Command and their array of 24 orbiting spaceships enabling us to pinpoint and record the geographical position of radio tracking devices in our childrens' pockets, via a world-spanning ground-based civilian telecommunications network.
  - MikeTheGreat 9y ago
    Well, sure, but we've also had 99999 generations where things like 'infant mortality rate' is a very real, everyday concern, too. Here in the US, those in the middle-upper classes basically don't have to worry about that. Think about it this way - it's 5pm. Your late-elementary school kid is always home by 3pm, or else they've texted/called you to let you know where they are. Today they didn't. It's 5pm. Things are probably fine, but you live in a city and sometimes bad things happen. Wouldn't you rather have a way of checking in, just to make yourself feel better? We have these nice, new technologies that are changing how we live. Networked, pocket computer we keep calling 'phones'; data center clusters you can rent by the minute for your distributed applications; I could go on and on and I'm sure you can, too. Of course we're going to look at ways that we can parent differently, just like we're looking at different approaches to business, medicine, etc. I think what's really interesting about this isn't a simple, binary yes/no on whether to do it, but the possibilities it opens up. It makes for an interesting discussion, if nothing else.

a-dub 9y ago

ffs. put down the internet and talk to your kids.