4 ms·

As someone who grew up in an extremely religious (arguably "cult-ish") home. I can tell you that your approach to parenting leads to healthier children (at leas

As someone who grew up in an extremely religious (arguably "cult-ish") home. I can tell you that your approach to parenting leads to healthier children (at least mentally). Hiding children from facts of life (sex, death, drugs, abuse, alcohol, etc) does not in fact help them, it helps you (the parent). It makes parents feel good, but leaves children scarred and unprepared for when they will inevitably face those facts later in life. There are stages of life when children will (or should be) exposed to those things. The brain naturally regulates these things. If a child is exposed at the proper time, their brain regulates the amount of information they are capable of understanding. As they re-experience the same thing later in life, they will understand more and their progress towards understanding that concept is more gradual and healthy. By contrast, if you shelter a kid, they will still inevitably face reality later in life, but the experience will be more difficult because they have to face everything at once. Parents should not be afraid to discuss or even introduce difficult concepts to children. The children will inevitably face these. It is better for them to face them in a controlled manner early in life so they can build healthier relationships with these hard ideas. It also gives parents better control over the introduction of these ideas. If you turn sex, alcohol, and drugs into a taboo in your house, you might think you are helping your children, but the reality is that you are actually setting them at higher risk to abuse these things later in life. Back to the original comment. If your kids are going through all this effort to subvert your DNS and controls in order to see something on the internet. It would be better to allow the child to confront their curiosity in a controlled way. Their curiosity is clearly very strong if they are willing to go to this extreme to satisfy it. Letting the curiosity pent up, will ultimately have the reverse effect than you desire. It could lead to overindulgence of that curiosity, or potentially abuse of that curiosity later in life.

novok 5y ago
I think there are good cases to be made about pre-puberty vs post-puberty controls. Strong fences for the 4-8 age group is pretty different than than 9-11, 12-14 or 15+
supernovae 5y ago
Oh believe me, NextDNS isn't because i'm trying to keep my kids safe from sex, death, drugs and alcohol, it's because the world is out to harm 13 year old girls and I want them to be protected. They watch horror movies and we've never been ashamed of nudity and sex is nothing to be ashamed of. Ironically, its not porn, warez, hacking or any of that crap that concerns me - it's the dudes who pray on girls - it's the people with fake disorders building communities to cause people to have ticks and self diagnose with severe disorders. It's kids who don't sleep because they're addicted to tik tok and instagram. Take away their phone to help break that addiction and they end up with friends phones or connecting on other devices... I can't police all that, I can't talk my kids out of that and I certainly won't hide them from the internet - but i can block the URLS of places i know that shouldn't exist and i can set sane restrictions as any good parent should Of course kids are gonna find porn and yeah, they're going to try and bypass controls. Clearly, they're figuring it out and clearly, they think we don't know so whose the clever one now? Still think Apple should have MDM for families. When i was a kid we were stealing pornos from Circle K so it's not about that at all.
1123581321 5y ago
Mate, your second paragraph is essentially reframing trauma. It's true that trauma can prepare one to face a bigger challenge later in life, but not always, and it can make facing other kinds of challenges more difficult and incentivize withdrawing from a number of wonderful parts of life. There have been successful societies built around early trauma (Spartans, etc.) but we remember many of them as brutal by necessity of their surrounding environment. Agree with the rest entirely.

novok 5y ago

I think there are good cases to be made about pre-puberty vs post-puberty controls. Strong fences for the 4-8 age group is pretty different than than 9-11, 12-14 or 15+

supernovae 5y ago

Oh believe me, NextDNS isn't because i'm trying to keep my kids safe from sex, death, drugs and alcohol, it's because the world is out to harm 13 year old girls and I want them to be protected. They watch horror movies and we've never been ashamed of nudity and sex is nothing to be ashamed of. Ironically, its not porn, warez, hacking or any of that crap that concerns me - it's the dudes who pray on girls - it's the people with fake disorders building communities to cause people to have ticks and self diagnose with severe disorders. It's kids who don't sleep because they're addicted to tik tok and instagram. Take away their phone to help break that addiction and they end up with friends phones or connecting on other devices... I can't police all that, I can't talk my kids out of that and I certainly won't hide them from the internet - but i can block the URLS of places i know that shouldn't exist and i can set sane restrictions as any good parent should Of course kids are gonna find porn and yeah, they're going to try and bypass controls. Clearly, they're figuring it out and clearly, they think we don't know so whose the clever one now? Still think Apple should have MDM for families. When i was a kid we were stealing pornos from Circle K so it's not about that at all.

1123581321 5y ago

Mate, your second paragraph is essentially reframing trauma. It's true that trauma can prepare one to face a bigger challenge later in life, but not always, and it can make facing other kinds of challenges more difficult and incentivize withdrawing from a number of wonderful parts of life. There have been successful societies built around early trauma (Spartans, etc.) but we remember many of them as brutal by necessity of their surrounding environment. Agree with the rest entirely.