Drawing the line for the behavior of what I require my children to do at "is this legal or not?" is patently a bad idea, not to mention morally confused. As ch

Drawing the line for the behavior of what I require my children to do at "is this legal or not?" is patently a bad idea, not to mention morally confused. As children get older, you of course give them more autonomy, but so long as they are your dependents, you have both an obligation and a right to set reasonable boundaries on their behavior. I certainly explain the rationale, and when possible try to persuade rather than force behavior where possible, and also let them make bad choices so they can learn from the experience, but they don't always possess the rational capacity to think about the long-term consequences or the ability to deal with those consequences when they occur. I require my children to brush their teeth, because a failure to do so would result in both poor health consequences for them, and a great deal of expense for me. As for restricting access to lurid content when my children are given internet access? Absolutely. I say this as someone who had unfiltered internet access as a teenager. They do whatever they want once they get their own internet access.