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There are less harsh methods of convincing kids to do their part in the household. Taking their devices with screens from them or limiting their screen time/int

There are less harsh methods of convincing kids to do their part in the household. Taking their devices with screens from them or limiting their screen time/internet access works great in today's world! Kids should always get basic necessities like a bed and food, but if they refuse to help the family in any way, there is no reason to not limit their access to luxury stuff, like electronic entertainment devices or sweets or whatever. Being able to do that is an enormous leverage in the hands of parents, and I really wonder why so many parents seem to hesitate to use it.

m0zg 8y ago
Entertainment, yes, but school requires a computer nowadays. Which means unless you stand there and look over their shoulder they're still getting their "entertainment".
- Slartie 8y ago
  School does not require 24/7 internet access, so even if they have their own computers on their desks, just shut down their internet access except for the express purpose of doing homework, for which you re-enable it for a limited time. They might still have the machine then, but since today's kids have never gotten into "downloading digital stuff locally" but use streaming and online-only services for practically anything, the machine without internet access is nearly useless for entertainment purposes.
  - m0zg 8y ago
    >> shut down their internet access except for the express purpose of doing homework And how do you propose to do that? I have PiHole and OPNSense set up already. It's impossible to block everything.
    - Slartie 8y ago
      You of course need to know when they're doing their homework. Enable their device(s) for internet access in your home router during that time, disable it afterwards. You can surely hack together a nice solution to quickly block/unblock certain MAC addresses on the touch of a button with some IoT equipment and some Python scripts (like these Amazon ordering buttons which can be repurposed to control anything, or even a turnkey switch connected to an IoT sensor, which makes enabling/disabling internet access a cool and enjoyable process - I've personally planned to implement such a solution for quite a while now and researched parts and stuff, just haven't found the time to actually do it yet). If your kid isn't enough of a hacker already that she/he uses MAC address modification to get around your limitation (most aren't, which is what I'll assume for now), this should do it - and you won't have to deal with the manual work of blocking and unblocking for too long, because I can guarantee you that they will bend to your will rather sooner than later. After all it's just some easy-to-do and quickly done household chores, it's not like you want to enslave them. And once you've followed through on your "no-internet-for-lazy-kids" policy once or twice and shown them that you are indeed able to take their toy from them, the threat of doing it alone will do wonders when the next chore comes up and they start inventing reasons again why they just can't do that nasty work right now.

m0zg 8y ago

Entertainment, yes, but school requires a computer nowadays. Which means unless you stand there and look over their shoulder they're still getting their "entertainment".

Slartie 8y ago
School does not require 24/7 internet access, so even if they have their own computers on their desks, just shut down their internet access except for the express purpose of doing homework, for which you re-enable it for a limited time. They might still have the machine then, but since today's kids have never gotten into "downloading digital stuff locally" but use streaming and online-only services for practically anything, the machine without internet access is nearly useless for entertainment purposes.
- m0zg 8y ago
  >> shut down their internet access except for the express purpose of doing homework And how do you propose to do that? I have PiHole and OPNSense set up already. It's impossible to block everything.
  - Slartie 8y ago
    You of course need to know when they're doing their homework. Enable their device(s) for internet access in your home router during that time, disable it afterwards. You can surely hack together a nice solution to quickly block/unblock certain MAC addresses on the touch of a button with some IoT equipment and some Python scripts (like these Amazon ordering buttons which can be repurposed to control anything, or even a turnkey switch connected to an IoT sensor, which makes enabling/disabling internet access a cool and enjoyable process - I've personally planned to implement such a solution for quite a while now and researched parts and stuff, just haven't found the time to actually do it yet). If your kid isn't enough of a hacker already that she/he uses MAC address modification to get around your limitation (most aren't, which is what I'll assume for now), this should do it - and you won't have to deal with the manual work of blocking and unblocking for too long, because I can guarantee you that they will bend to your will rather sooner than later. After all it's just some easy-to-do and quickly done household chores, it's not like you want to enslave them. And once you've followed through on your "no-internet-for-lazy-kids" policy once or twice and shown them that you are indeed able to take their toy from them, the threat of doing it alone will do wonders when the next chore comes up and they start inventing reasons again why they just can't do that nasty work right now.