6 ms·

I must be a total minority here but as a parent of a 9 and 11 year old I'm shocked how many commenters recommend "just lie" or even teach their kids that lying

I must be a total minority here but as a parent of a 9 and 11 year old I'm shocked how many commenters recommend "just lie" or even teach their kids that lying is ok on the internet. Maybe this particular kid is a total outlier but I can say for sure that my kids and their friends are definitely not ready for any kind of sophisticated reasoning about when to apply which morals. At that age they are also fairly unable to separate fact from ficition and news from gossip. The age limit of 13 seems pretty reasonable to me and if as a parent you think your kid is so mature (hint: he isn't) then it is definitely your responsibility to act as a guardian. Google didn't make your son cry, you made your son cry. And that's fine, we all make our kids cry from time to time. Explain the mistake you made to your kid, figure out what to do in the future and move on.

palish 15y ago
It seems reasonable to you that you need to be 13 or older to use email? To talk to his grandparents?
- zwieback 15y ago
  Not to use email but to be allowed to sign up for a general purpose email account like GMail without any kind of parental consent.
  - yuvadam 15y ago
    Continuing that line of logic - Should < 13 year olds not be allowed to use 'general purpose' means of communication such as telephones or, god forbid, snail mail?
    - georgefox 15y ago
      Personally, I don't think they should be able to create an account with Vonage or Verizon or whoever and sign up for telephone service, no. I have no problem with them using their parents' account(s), though.
    - zwieback 15y ago
      I think the interesting aspect isn't so much whether they should be allowed to use these services but what kind of contract they should be allowed to enter with providers independently of their parents or guardians.
    - carussell 15y ago
      COPPA http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/usc_sec_15_00006502----000-.html http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/usc_sec_15_00006502----...
Vivtek 15y ago
Oh, come on. I have kids, too. When they were that old, I told them never to sign up for anything without asking me, and I told them why we were lying about their age and address, because there are people on the Internet who we can't trust. Now that they're older (my son is 12 now) and really do have the sophistication to understand this distinction - and you're right, a 9yo or 11yo doesn't - they understand why we did that. But the key is, your 9yo and 11yo trust you, and should continue to do so. They don't care what you answer when signing them up for Google Mail - they don't even notice discrepancies of that nature. In the case they do, you tell them why you're doing it. Google did most certainly make Alex cry - in exactly the same way that his hard drive crashing would have done so. Sure, ultimately it's the parents' fault, in a way, for letting him use fallible computer systems, and that in itself is probably a good lesson, but Google most certainly shares the blame here for boneheaded policies that don't even give parents the option of interceding. And the reason is the same as Google's reason always is: it was easier for Google.
- zwieback 15y ago
  In other words you're acting as your son's guardian, which is exactly as it should be. The problem I have is with telling your kid: go ahead sign up and lie about your age. There's a huge difference between the parent taking the step of creating the account with a password known by the parent and telling the kid to go ahead and lie, which is what a lot of (probably childless) commenters suggest.
  - thaumaturgy 15y ago
    I would be inclined to teach my kids that if they run across something that has unreasonable barriers, they should work around them. The more creative they are in working around them, the better. That will likely make parenting an absolute hell, but they'll be well-equipped for dealing with the adult world.
    - leif 15y ago
      Determining which barriers are unreasonable takes a lot more maturity than I think you realize. Kids need to learn to play by the rules before they learn which ones to break.
lucian1900 15y ago
Because "just lie" is the correct choice. Just because you're overprotective doesn't mean everyone should be.
- Unseelie 15y ago
  No, "Just Lie" is not the correct choice. The properly examined overprotective option is to use a service that doesn't require such age restrictions. And I fail to see any situation where teaching a 9 year old that its sometimes ok to lie won't be incredibly confusing to the child: the child cannot differentiate between lieing here, and lieing about homework, or cheating on a test. Their brains can't do that yet. To tell them to lie here, but no where else, is confusing, and in an extension, is cruel.
  - daeken 15y ago
    While I disagree with the "just lie" approach here, I think saying "I fail to see any situation where teaching a 9 year old that its sometimes ok to lie won't be incredibly confusing to the child" is pretty silly. Kids are much, much better at compartmentalizing things than most people think they are. After all, we teach them to pretend early on, but they very quickly grasp the difference between pretend and reality. Teaching them to lie in one context won't cause them to grow up to be sociopaths.
  - bane 15y ago
    The properly examined overprotective option is to use a service that doesn't require such age restrictions. Any recommendations?
m0nty 15y ago
Lying is self defence. Lying is camouflage. I taught my kids to lie, just like parents always have. But I agree with you that the headline is melodramatic, incorrect and irrelevant to any meaningful discussion about Google or its services. Kid should have lied.
TikiTDO 15y ago
Lying is not just ok on the internet, it's practiced practically everywhere. People lie in business, people lie in politics, people lie in marketing, people lie in retail, people lie on internet forums, people lie on the street, people lie in their homes, places of business, and places of leisure. The fact is simple: people lie. You can and should teach your kids about when it is not appropriate to lie, but please get off your moral high horse of pretending that lying is the some sort of mortal sin. Imagine how badly you would fuck up your kid's life if you managed to really convince him that lying is some sort of abject horror. He would be eaten alive the instant he took a step outside of your home into the real world. When in your opinion is a kid ready for sophisticated reasoning about when to lie? Do you suggest waiting until well past their core formative years before suddenly going, "Hey, remember how I said if you lie you will go to jail? Yeah, about that..." Maybe even wait for their rebellious teenage years so that they get REALLY confused about how they're supposed to behave. Kids are not as stupid as you seem to believe they are, and that's something coming from me since I believe kids are pretty damn stupid. I am not suggesting that they are ready for a university level psychology lecture, but by that point they will have been exposed to plenty of negative things that you should probably take some effort to explain. If your kids are not ready for at least a basic introduction to social reasoning at 10 then you haven't been doing a very good job at educating them.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  Just out of curiosity, Have you raised kids into adulthood (or at least late adolescence), or is this based on your understanding of how kids "should" be raised?
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    I have raised one child into late adolescence and one who's twelve, and I agree with the grandparent. My wife probably wouldn't. But then, I've never had difficulty lying when it was convenient, so I'm probably not the best to ask.
  - TikiTDO 15y ago
    Ah, I was waiting for this question. You can never escape a champion for the wisdom of the majority after all. While I have not raised kids, I do not see why that should factor into the discussion. Your comment suggests that you are operating under the assumption that experience is the only thing that confers ability. However, you may have noticed at some point in your life that we are quite good at obtaining knowledge via the traditional means of learning from the archived experience of others. Arguably even better than learning by first hand experience, though that is up for debate. I have studied various aspects of (adult and child) psychology and sociology to satisfy my urge to understand humanity, and my thoughts on the matter are based on that gained knowledge. While I agree that experience can lead to new insights, and can result in a more optimal utilization of your own knowledge, it is certainly not required to actually discuss a matter. Maybe the lack of practical experience would be more notable if I were trying to suggest some sort of novel ideas, but I am just stating something which has been seen time and again throughout the ages; what skills are necessary to be successful, and how to impart them to your offspring. As you may imagine, I have spent some time trying to understand why some people raise their kids to be successful, and why others fail horribly at the act. It does not take spending 20 years to see a pattern of success or failure emerging with the application of certain techniques. So to more directly answer your question, my opinions based neither of my own experience, nor on my understanding of how kids "should" be raised. Instead, my views are based on the mass of information I have seen and read on the topic, and the trends that clearly exhibit themselves in that data. Going further, I actually find that relying on any long term experience can at times make the results somewhat suspect. While experiencing something several times can help you understand it all the better, once you spent a better part of two decades practicing something you will almost certainly be convinced that you are doing everything correctly. To admit otherwise would be to admit your own failings which few people are willing to do, especially in an area as sensitive as child rearing. This leads to the surprisingly common situation wherein an "authority" who is trusted to make the right decisions acts contrary to the accepted scientific norms of the time. Take for example a grandmother that raised 8 children, and will expound for hours on the necessity of beatings to raising healthy and successful kids. I am sure most of the HN readers can think of a lot of other examples of this in a myriad of fields. Obviously though, neither you, nor anyone else should make fundamental decisions regarding how to raise your child based on something some guy on the Internet said. A responsible parent should spent at least as much time as I have reading the material relevant to the topic in order to make informed decisions. What more, if it appears to a somewhat informed person that you have not done this basic work, they should, as I have with the GGP, point out the flaws in your reasoning without having to wade through comments disqualifying their opinion simply because they have not actually put what they have read into practice. If you have issues with what I said, then by all means please present them, and the supporting arguments, for me to discuss or concede as necessary, but do not for a second think that you can discount me from the discussion simply because I do not adhere to the strict experience requirements that you feel are necessary before even think about the topic.
superuser2 15y ago
Communicating with other people is a fundamental part of being human. You don't take that away from people. It doesn't matter whether they're "ready" for it, it doesn't matter whether they're doing it appropriately. You make mistakes, deal with the consequences, fix them, and you learn. Developing communication skills is essential to growing up. I would go so far as to call it a human right. Your say your children have friends; I assume you don't gag them when they're around each other, or when they go to school? Then they're communicating. They're being exposed to complex social hierarchies, news, rumors, fact, and fiction, and being forced to make judgement calls. It's the same people and the same information you're "protecting" them from by keeping them off social networking. They're going to get their feelings hurt. They might hurt somebody's feelings. They're going to do stupid things. That's life. Parents absolutely have a right and a responsibility to provide guidance. But how does anybody learn any skill besides doing it poorly for a while? Did your parents keep you away from a keyboard until one day you were magically old enough to know how to type? I may be a minority, but I believe experience > age.

palish 15y ago

It seems reasonable to you that you need to be 13 or older to use email? To talk to his grandparents?

zwieback 15y ago
Not to use email but to be allowed to sign up for a general purpose email account like GMail without any kind of parental consent.
- yuvadam 15y ago
  Continuing that line of logic - Should < 13 year olds not be allowed to use 'general purpose' means of communication such as telephones or, god forbid, snail mail?
  - georgefox 15y ago
    Personally, I don't think they should be able to create an account with Vonage or Verizon or whoever and sign up for telephone service, no. I have no problem with them using their parents' account(s), though.
  - zwieback 15y ago
    I think the interesting aspect isn't so much whether they should be allowed to use these services but what kind of contract they should be allowed to enter with providers independently of their parents or guardians.
  - carussell 15y ago
    COPPA http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/usc_sec_15_00006502----000-.html http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/usc_sec_15_00006502----...

Vivtek 15y ago

Oh, come on. I have kids, too. When they were that old, I told them never to sign up for anything without asking me, and I told them why we were lying about their age and address, because there are people on the Internet who we can't trust. Now that they're older (my son is 12 now) and really do have the sophistication to understand this distinction - and you're right, a 9yo or 11yo doesn't - they understand why we did that. But the key is, your 9yo and 11yo trust you, and should continue to do so. They don't care what you answer when signing them up for Google Mail - they don't even notice discrepancies of that nature. In the case they do, you tell them why you're doing it. Google did most certainly make Alex cry - in exactly the same way that his hard drive crashing would have done so. Sure, ultimately it's the parents' fault, in a way, for letting him use fallible computer systems, and that in itself is probably a good lesson, but Google most certainly shares the blame here for boneheaded policies that don't even give parents the option of interceding. And the reason is the same as Google's reason always is: it was easier for Google.

zwieback 15y ago
In other words you're acting as your son's guardian, which is exactly as it should be. The problem I have is with telling your kid: go ahead sign up and lie about your age. There's a huge difference between the parent taking the step of creating the account with a password known by the parent and telling the kid to go ahead and lie, which is what a lot of (probably childless) commenters suggest.
- thaumaturgy 15y ago
  I would be inclined to teach my kids that if they run across something that has unreasonable barriers, they should work around them. The more creative they are in working around them, the better. That will likely make parenting an absolute hell, but they'll be well-equipped for dealing with the adult world.
  - leif 15y ago
    Determining which barriers are unreasonable takes a lot more maturity than I think you realize. Kids need to learn to play by the rules before they learn which ones to break.

lucian1900 15y ago

Because "just lie" is the correct choice. Just because you're overprotective doesn't mean everyone should be.

Unseelie 15y ago
No, "Just Lie" is not the correct choice. The properly examined overprotective option is to use a service that doesn't require such age restrictions. And I fail to see any situation where teaching a 9 year old that its sometimes ok to lie won't be incredibly confusing to the child: the child cannot differentiate between lieing here, and lieing about homework, or cheating on a test. Their brains can't do that yet. To tell them to lie here, but no where else, is confusing, and in an extension, is cruel.
- daeken 15y ago
  While I disagree with the "just lie" approach here, I think saying "I fail to see any situation where teaching a 9 year old that its sometimes ok to lie won't be incredibly confusing to the child" is pretty silly. Kids are much, much better at compartmentalizing things than most people think they are. After all, we teach them to pretend early on, but they very quickly grasp the difference between pretend and reality. Teaching them to lie in one context won't cause them to grow up to be sociopaths.
- bane 15y ago
  The properly examined overprotective option is to use a service that doesn't require such age restrictions. Any recommendations?

m0nty 15y ago

Lying is self defence. Lying is camouflage. I taught my kids to lie, just like parents always have. But I agree with you that the headline is melodramatic, incorrect and irrelevant to any meaningful discussion about Google or its services. Kid should have lied.

TikiTDO 15y ago

Lying is not just ok on the internet, it's practiced practically everywhere. People lie in business, people lie in politics, people lie in marketing, people lie in retail, people lie on internet forums, people lie on the street, people lie in their homes, places of business, and places of leisure. The fact is simple: people lie. You can and should teach your kids about when it is not appropriate to lie, but please get off your moral high horse of pretending that lying is the some sort of mortal sin. Imagine how badly you would fuck up your kid's life if you managed to really convince him that lying is some sort of abject horror. He would be eaten alive the instant he took a step outside of your home into the real world. When in your opinion is a kid ready for sophisticated reasoning about when to lie? Do you suggest waiting until well past their core formative years before suddenly going, "Hey, remember how I said if you lie you will go to jail? Yeah, about that..." Maybe even wait for their rebellious teenage years so that they get REALLY confused about how they're supposed to behave. Kids are not as stupid as you seem to believe they are, and that's something coming from me since I believe kids are pretty damn stupid. I am not suggesting that they are ready for a university level psychology lecture, but by that point they will have been exposed to plenty of negative things that you should probably take some effort to explain. If your kids are not ready for at least a basic introduction to social reasoning at 10 then you haven't been doing a very good job at educating them.

SoftwareMaven 15y ago
Just out of curiosity, Have you raised kids into adulthood (or at least late adolescence), or is this based on your understanding of how kids "should" be raised?
- Vivtek 15y ago
  I have raised one child into late adolescence and one who's twelve, and I agree with the grandparent. My wife probably wouldn't. But then, I've never had difficulty lying when it was convenient, so I'm probably not the best to ask.
- TikiTDO 15y ago
  Ah, I was waiting for this question. You can never escape a champion for the wisdom of the majority after all. While I have not raised kids, I do not see why that should factor into the discussion. Your comment suggests that you are operating under the assumption that experience is the only thing that confers ability. However, you may have noticed at some point in your life that we are quite good at obtaining knowledge via the traditional means of learning from the archived experience of others. Arguably even better than learning by first hand experience, though that is up for debate. I have studied various aspects of (adult and child) psychology and sociology to satisfy my urge to understand humanity, and my thoughts on the matter are based on that gained knowledge. While I agree that experience can lead to new insights, and can result in a more optimal utilization of your own knowledge, it is certainly not required to actually discuss a matter. Maybe the lack of practical experience would be more notable if I were trying to suggest some sort of novel ideas, but I am just stating something which has been seen time and again throughout the ages; what skills are necessary to be successful, and how to impart them to your offspring. As you may imagine, I have spent some time trying to understand why some people raise their kids to be successful, and why others fail horribly at the act. It does not take spending 20 years to see a pattern of success or failure emerging with the application of certain techniques. So to more directly answer your question, my opinions based neither of my own experience, nor on my understanding of how kids "should" be raised. Instead, my views are based on the mass of information I have seen and read on the topic, and the trends that clearly exhibit themselves in that data. Going further, I actually find that relying on any long term experience can at times make the results somewhat suspect. While experiencing something several times can help you understand it all the better, once you spent a better part of two decades practicing something you will almost certainly be convinced that you are doing everything correctly. To admit otherwise would be to admit your own failings which few people are willing to do, especially in an area as sensitive as child rearing. This leads to the surprisingly common situation wherein an "authority" who is trusted to make the right decisions acts contrary to the accepted scientific norms of the time. Take for example a grandmother that raised 8 children, and will expound for hours on the necessity of beatings to raising healthy and successful kids. I am sure most of the HN readers can think of a lot of other examples of this in a myriad of fields. Obviously though, neither you, nor anyone else should make fundamental decisions regarding how to raise your child based on something some guy on the Internet said. A responsible parent should spent at least as much time as I have reading the material relevant to the topic in order to make informed decisions. What more, if it appears to a somewhat informed person that you have not done this basic work, they should, as I have with the GGP, point out the flaws in your reasoning without having to wade through comments disqualifying their opinion simply because they have not actually put what they have read into practice. If you have issues with what I said, then by all means please present them, and the supporting arguments, for me to discuss or concede as necessary, but do not for a second think that you can discount me from the discussion simply because I do not adhere to the strict experience requirements that you feel are necessary before even think about the topic.

superuser2 15y ago

Communicating with other people is a fundamental part of being human. You don't take that away from people. It doesn't matter whether they're "ready" for it, it doesn't matter whether they're doing it appropriately. You make mistakes, deal with the consequences, fix them, and you learn. Developing communication skills is essential to growing up. I would go so far as to call it a human right. Your say your children have friends; I assume you don't gag them when they're around each other, or when they go to school? Then they're communicating. They're being exposed to complex social hierarchies, news, rumors, fact, and fiction, and being forced to make judgement calls. It's the same people and the same information you're "protecting" them from by keeping them off social networking. They're going to get their feelings hurt. They might hurt somebody's feelings. They're going to do stupid things. That's life. Parents absolutely have a right and a responsibility to provide guidance. But how does anybody learn any skill besides doing it poorly for a while? Did your parents keep you away from a keyboard until one day you were magically old enough to know how to type? I may be a minority, but I believe experience > age.