I don't think I am able to answer this. If you took a bank robber instead of hacker you could ask the same question and if anybody had an answer to this I don't

I don't think I am able to answer this. If you took a bank robber instead of hacker you could ask the same question and if anybody had an answer to this I don't think there would be bank robbers in the world. edit: This actually feels like more of a personal philosophy type of thing. Say maybe I consider "borrowing" money from a big corp. that screws over the average working person at every chance it gets a good thing. They probably don't. You surely have your own opinion. Hope you see what I mean. edit2: actually now that I think about it, if you (as a parent) have prior knowledge of the field then you surely could spend quality family time orienting the kid in the right direction, while still keeping him happy doing the stuff he wants to do, namely "hacking". This way if he ever ventures too close to the thin line of legality you can be there to have a say in it and make him realize there is suc a thing. (Because to be honest at that time, I did have the notion that what I was doing was illegal, but no idea of what how consequences would affect me, I was a kid. It's the same as kids and the concept of death. Only now do I actually REALIZE that most of the stuff I did could have landed me years of prison time, even if you told me at the time I would not have cared, because being a kid and thinking you are hot shit all the time makes you try crazy stuff just to see how far you can take it)