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My thoughts as a father of six (ages 10-17): 1. Teach your kids that the most important thing is to treat other people with respect. The most likely harm to ki
by jaxn 7y ago
My thoughts as a father of six (ages 10-17):
1. Teach your kids that the most important thing is to treat other people with respect. The most likely harm to kids comes from bullying. No one wants to think of their kids as a bully, but by focusing on not bullying others is the best way to teach them what to participate in and what not to participate in. They will be able to say they are being bullied.
2. Teach them not to talk to strangers, but understand that Fortnite and other games do and will involve talking to strangers. Most of the other players are kids, but they need to know that just because someone says they are a kid, they can't trust they really are a kid.
3. In order to develop socially, you kids need to be online.
- dorfsmay 7y agoI'd add to that excellent list, talk to them about what are the things on the internet that are bad, explain why you think they are bad, and they should not go there. Do go into morale/ethical issues as well as legal issues and consequences. Explain that until they are old enough you will walk on them and check what they are doing, and do so regularly.
- agotterer 7y agoI know in this case we specifically referencing speaking with strangers online. I generally agree with everything that’s been said there. However there’s a lot of parents who extend no speaking to strangers in the physical world and I thought it was wiring mentioning: I’m teaching my kids that it’s perfectly safe, polite, and expected to talk to strangers. Everyday we encounter strangers on the street or in a store. What if a child needed directions or help? That would most defiantly be an acceptable time to talk with a stranger. However, I am also teaching my kids that they should never go anywhere with a stranger to be touched by one. Hope that gives a new perspective to a parent out there teaching their kids that they should never speak to strangers.
- pergadad 7y agoI guess some parents would feel that their child will more easily resist a lure if they don't even connect with a stranger. It has to be quite some wise 6-year-old to resist the "this puppy needs your help" pitch. On the other hand, most threats of abuse are not from strangers but rather relatives or friends of the parents.
- plutonorm 7y agoNumber 3, this is the most important point. Cutting them off from the internet is forcing social exclusion upon them. If you want unhappy badly adjusted adults place barriers between them and their peer group, isolate them and make them feel powerless by denying them the rights that others around them share. Denying children, growing up in a digital connected age, access to connected technology is very damaging.
- jaxn 7y agoI completely agree! It took a while for us to understand that.
- ACow_Adonis 7y agowhile I agree with your position to a point, does the same apply if you're acting from a position of privilege rather than one of denial? I.e. you have a high income highly educated tech savvy population in your immediate vicinity and you primarily mix with other highly educated high income people physically day to day in your immediate surrounds. while I agree that it is detrimental for society and problematic for these bubbles to be forming, I'm not immediately seeing the disservice to the child from a locally optimal point of view in denying them media consumption and social networking, if you assume that 'a digitally connected world' is essentially marketing speak to get lower class and less educated people to normalize media consumption and social networking. By all means I agree a child needs access to, and ideally to understand programming and computers, but I'm not convinced participation in those other activities are necessary from a locally optimal social perspective except to work in the interests of those who control those mediums and want people to participate in them. obviously?, if you're at a vanilla middle class school and everyone is watching marvel comics, consuming Disney, and sharing their lives on Facebook, and your kids is the only one that isn't, they're going to have a bad time. And I'm not saying I'm a member of that higher class (far from it, although I don't yet take it as a given that I live in a community that doesn't primarily deal face to face, or that my neighbors aren't for the most part highly educated). indeed, I would say this attitude that adtech and media consumption and large scale social networking is harmful isn't a strange position to take amongst those with experience with those things. Like junk food and trash television, sometimes the ability to exclude is a privilege, not a cost...