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Parenting is hard, but if you ever find yourself in a situation where you are doing weird stuff because your kids completely disregard family rules, just stop.

Parenting is hard, but if you ever find yourself in a situation where you are doing weird stuff because your kids completely disregard family rules, just stop. There are more fundamental issues that need to be addressed first, and your kids will almost certainly get around whatever you're trying to do anyway.

abyssin 5y ago
I agree with you, but I’m curious if you could offer some specific measures to assess what these fundamental issues are.
- dbrueck 5y ago
  A good starting place for assessing is on communication-related things like: do we regularly just talk with our kid? How does that go? Are we able to talk about anything it depth or is it just superficial "how was school today" stuff? How much of our interactions are tense or even contentious? If communication is in a decent state, then another thing to look at is the rules for the kids, like: have we really given our kid a chance to weigh in on things or do we just dictate? As a parent you do sometimes just have to put your foot down, but there's a world of difference between shutting down pushback with "I'm the parent and that's the way it is" and a collaborative attitude and an open conversation with real listening and sharing of viewpoints/concerns and, where appropriate, some compromising. Are our rules based on solid principles or just things we pulled out of the air? The article mentioned that the kids were addicted to social media. If it's an actual addiction, then that probably needs to be addressed with professional help. If it's more a compulsion/habit, then good communication is again key. Does the kid agree it's excessive but isn't sure how to reign it in? Or does the kid genuinely think it's just fine? Gotta figure that out first, but in either case, jamming the signal to their phones doesn't really address the problem.
  - thesuitonym 5y ago
    I'm not saying this is bad advice, but I don't feel like you're really thinking about the issue. If the child is spending all day on his phone, how do you think trying ``communication'' is going to go? If you don't take the phone away, the child won't interact at all, beyond the superficial, ``school was fine.'' If you do take the phone away, do you really believe interactions won't be tense or contentious?
    - dbrueck 5y ago
      Haha, I'm definitely thinking of the issue; I've raised several kids and this is stuff we dealt with all the time. It's not easy and as a parent you screw up a ton because you're usually figuring it out as you go and making lots of mistakes along the way. :) These sorts of issues aren't things you address in a moment. Yeah, if you suddenly take a phone away, you kid will likely blow up. But the problem wasn't created in a moment, either. Things got to a bad place over time so it's unsurprising that improving them takes time. Further, in the heat of the moment everyone (including the parents) are less even-keeled, so most progress happens when tempers are cool. One thing we did for awhile was, as a family, we came up with the rule that from 5-7pm (IIRC) each night there were no devices/screens and we had to be around each other during that time. (We settled on that after a family discussion and some back and forth negotiating, but eventually everyone committed to it.) We did it for /months/ before I felt like it really paid off, but eventually every one of the kids recognized that we were stronger as a family and that they actually enjoyed the screen breaks. And one side effect of it was that we all started talking to each other a lot more, but again, it was a slow process. What works varies by family and changes over time as the family changes, but the meaningful changes seem to always take a lot of time.
hackerdotmkv 5y ago
> just stop On one hand (and as a parent) I agree, there are deep-seated issues around boundaries and authority... on the other hand if my folks had followed that advice I would have never been incentivized to learn to hack. I'm conflicted.
- newjersey 5y ago
  I sincerely believe the incentives are out of whack. In the US, at least the only way to "win" parenting is to not play. We should refuse to have children at all. My hope is once we see total fertility rate shrink below one, we will start to see proper support for parents and children with things like paid paternity leave and medicare for all enshrined in our laws. That being said, I absolutely do not condone frequency jammers and were this to happen in the US, I'd argue a minimum of six months in jail is an appropriate sentence.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    Unfortunately the most realistic scenario where the birthrate drops below 1 comes from extreme economic inequality or authoritarianism. The birth rate does indeed drop as countries develop more, and as more people get educated about birth control, but controlling it beyond that is likely not a good thing. Jail time for frequency jamming seems very extreme (if you want to see the failure of jail time to curb behavior, look at how many people are in American prisons and how high their recidivism rate is).
    - newjersey 5y ago
      > Jail time for frequency jamming seems very extreme (if you want to see the failure of jail time to curb behavior, look at how many people are in American prisons and how high their recidivism rate is). I find this comment interesting because I remember people were very supportive of Freakonomics (iirc) saying locking away people works. >> Steven Levitt (of Freakonomics fame) wrote a paper in 2004 that concluded that 58 percent of the drop in violent crime during the 1990s was due to incarceration. (pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf) I am OK with no prison for the criminal in the OP. However, I would like a drop in jail time or prison sentences for more people at least for non-violent offenses. I agree that too many people are in prison in our country. > The birth rate does indeed drop as countries develop more, and as more people get educated about birth control, but controlling it beyond that is likely not a good thing. Sorry for my poor communication skills. I meant to say voluntarily, not through use of force or coercion. People are just way too optimistic about the future or maybe I am just too pessimistic...
recursive 5y ago
> There are more fundamental issues that need to be addressed first I mean maybe so, but if I knew what they were, I'd already be doing them. This advice doesn't seem like it could help anyone.
- ouid 5y ago
  If you are actually in this position, then you should understand that the advice is not to fix the other issues, but to stop doing what you are currently doing, not because it's not working, although that is a very good reason to stop expending the energy, but because it's making the situation worse.
  - dbrueck 5y ago
    Yes, thank you for saying it more clearly than I did.
  - recursive 5y ago
    I'm not really in this position, but the advice sounds way too general and blunt for it to be generally useful.
    - dbrueck 5y ago
      Just to break it down a bit more (and with this particular article we are speculating some since there aren't a lot of details, but the situation in the article sure looks similar to what parents deal with a lot): 1) With anything, it's good to take a step back and ask yourself if you're addressing a symptom or a problem. Again, don't have a lot of details, but this sure looks like the dad was addressing a symptom. This doesn't solve anything (and the problem will manifest again 10 different ways later), it almost certainly does more harm to the relationship, and it leads to everyone feeling terrible. 2) It's easy to /think/ you'd tackle the problem if you knew what it was, but that's often not true at all. This probably applies to all relationships, but as a parent at least it's often much easier to fixate on a symptom. If I suspect my kid is lying to me often, it's realllly easy to go down the rabbit hole of trying to come up with ways to catch them and then to punish them, and it's far harder to focus on healing/strengthening the relationship, getting to the bottom of why the kid feels the need to lie, confronting the flaws in my parenting style etc. :)
djaychela 5y ago
How old are your kids?
- dbrueck 5y ago
  4 kids, 18-26 years old.
  - djaychela 5y ago
    Then you've done a better job than me! I was expecting you to say 5 or something. I've totally failed with my four step kids (15-23). Three have been involved in all sorts or shenanigans (all of which have involved the police, social workers and huge amounts of distress). We have good communication, an open, tolerant family culture where we talk about issues, and still three of the four have gone off the rails in truly "You must be making this story up" ways. I've tried to model appropriate behaviour (I'm not manacled to my phone, and I've been way ahead of the curve on phone use and social media's effect, but I've not stopped them from doing it as 'everyone is on there', and they think I'm an old man who doesn't know what he's talking about). I dread every phone call I get from my partner when they're not 'scheduled' as it's nearly always another disaster. What I'm saying is that I could easily be the guy in this story, because short of a blackout, I've got kids on VPNs who are looking at extreme content (because everyone they know does, apparently), thinking QAnon is real, etc., and whose capacity for disrupting everyone around them without a moment's thought of anyone but themselves knows no bounds. Pandora's box is open, and I have no idea how to close it. On dark evenings when we've had another gut-wrenching round of horror stories, I'd probably buy one if I knew where to get one.
    - sillysaurusx 5y ago
      It's probably not your fault. My dad couldn't control me. I never got into trouble with the police, but I could easily imagine a version of myself that felt compelled to do so. And then my dad (and I) would've been in real trouble. Don't let it bug you. People are how they are, more often than not. And your kiddos will probably relax in a decade or so when their testosterone levels start to drop.
popotamonga 5y ago
I did some sneaky crap to mine, routed all PS4 traffic through a linux box that added random 200ms-500ms delay on packets. He could play but kept dying because its so fun to play with high ping.
- moritonal 5y ago
  Hey I ain't got kids so only a thought but whilst fun, that sounds toxic. Let the kid play to their fullest enjoyment then tell them to stop, this seems the worst of both options.
  - Mathnerd314 5y ago
    Having grown up in a house with DSL, I can say that this works. When YouTube only plays in 240p it's a lot less addictive.
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      Though then you run the danger of https://xkcd.com/598/ https://xkcd.com/598/
  - emsy 5y ago
    Some children hit a certain age and then just don’t give a shit. Can happen to the best parents. Honestly, the only thing toxic about it is that it sounds like the the child didn’t know it had been done to him. Let them know they have boundaries. If he gets around it, at least he’s showing ingenuity.
  - moritonal 5y ago
    Or at least tell the kid, and have it play normally, but increase over time past the allocated hours. They'd likely work out which games have the best net-code and would be a teaching opportunity about TCP vs UDP xD
  - AlwaysRock 5y ago
    I don't have kids either but I remember my youth well enough to know that this probably would have worked on me and my parents just telling me to stop probably wouldnt (and hadnt if they made the effort to do this)
prpl 5y ago
What is “weird stuff”? I have actually set up two different ssid’s and the kids only connect to one, but I haven’t enabled time limits on theirs (yet). I need to, because the 13 year old doesn’t understand not to use devices which don’t have easy parental controls (switch) at night. Previously I also edited /etc/hosts to localhost youtube, which was most effective (but not available on iOS/switch. The big cause of the problem? Fortnite. I would love to just kill Fortnite but it would also mean disconnection from part of his social network (which he is experiencing currently) So anyway, as a parent, you are up against a social network and an addicting game company - the odds are stacked against you.
- hannob 5y ago
  > What is “weird stuff”? Doing something that is clearly illegal to stop your kids from accessing the Internet certainly is. Bonus points if it is also heavily enforced and easily traceable. All of that is true for using a signal jammer.
- causi 5y ago
  The Switch has pretty robust parental controls; you can even control it remotely from a smartphone.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  You don’t need any help by the sounds of it, but her is some unsolicited advise anyway. A Pihole gives a nice GUI to what you are doing, and has some nice config options.
  - 123pie123 5y ago
    PiHole is just DNSmasq (unless it has newer features?) my teenage kids have figured how to get around that
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      I think I like them! Wonder if you can channel their abilities somewhere.
passivate 5y ago
>There are more fundamental issues that need to be addressed first, and your kids will almost certainly get around whatever you're trying to do anyway. I'd bet most parents intuitively know this, the problem is nothing they have tried has worked. How have you solved this problem?
- dbrueck 5y ago
  At the risk of oversimplifying: if you have a problem with something but the kid does not see it as a problem at all, and it doesn't give them much pause that you consider it to be a problem, then that's a problem. :) Any rules you try to enforce will be circumvented, ignored, or hurt your relationship. That doesn't mean you get rid of the rules - you still need to be the parent - but you need to put at least equal focus on coming to a shared understanding of why it's a problem, or building a relationship where they can have some faith that you might be able to see a danger where they don't, or seeing the wisdom in at least temporarily agreeing to some rules that they don't totally "get" yet.
  - passivate 5y ago
    You're defining end-states and goals, e.g. - 'focus on coming to a shared understanding of why it's a problem' and 'building a relationship where they can have some faith that you might be able to see a danger where they don't', etc. While that is great, I think the problem parents have is with the steps/process to get there. What works for one child won't work for the other, etc. Like I said, the problem isn't that parents don't know these things, the problem is stuff they're trying isn't working.
    - dbrueck 5y ago
      Hmm... maybe. Since we're generalizing, I'll throw another generalization on the pile. :) Most parents are slow to react to these problems but, once they do react, they want fast results and so they are tempted to reach for actions that are unhelpful or even counterproductive. When parents approach it with a mindset of realistic expectations (especially around timeframes), I think most of them can in fact figure out things that work (where 'work' means 'lead to improvement over time'). There are always some kids who simply don't respond, but speaking generally, I believe most do.
idontwantthis 5y ago
I thought kids could set their own boundaries with tech (like I did), but I no longer believe that's possible. The internet is like a drug and sometimes you need to take drastic measures to keep your kids safe from it. I got my kid on all Apple devices and set screen time to completely block him out outside of school hours, when unfortunately he is required to have his computer all day. He's never been as respectful, attentive, or creative as he is now, and after an angry adjustment period, I only regret not doing this sooner.
- grp000 5y ago
  He might be hiding it, or playing along hoping to get access back later. Regardless, one thing I learned growing up with incredibly strict parents is that it doesn't teach you self-governance. Once he starts living independently, this could come back to bite him. There's also a level of animosity to your parents when they don't trust you that pervades the relationship. Add to that, a level of social isolation since almost every remote interaction is done on an app nowadays, I really question that decision to completely block him out.
  - idontwantthis 5y ago
    I let him back in when he asks for it. About self-governance, honestly I don't know. I know that what kids are dealing with online is crack compared to the coffee I grew up with. I don't know if anyone can have a healthy relationship with Roblox, Tiktok, and Youtube. I also know that now he finishes his school work, is learning guitar entirely on his own, and talks to us about school and his friends. Before he would stare at the computer until dinner and go back to it after unless we forced him to do something else.
    - bcrosby95 5y ago
      I'm curious how old your kid is? It took a lot to convince my wife to enable the time limit on our Amazon Fire tablets. They get 1 hour of videos and apps, but unlimited book time.
tomhallett 5y ago
Are there any books that anyone recommends? We do our best to limit screen time, but you can tell it's all they think about sometimes. When we say "You can play nintendo switch when your friends come over", their brains kick-in like limitless -- "i need to charge the controllers now, so they don't run out of battery. 2 need the usb cables while 1 needs more AA batteries". In comparison to when I recommend doing something creative, I have to push through "if you want to draw, the paper is on your desk"....
- yurishimo 5y ago
  I did this sometimes as a kid. 28 now. I think they’ll grow out of it. Alternatively, you could try to encourage better habits around charging after they’re done playing. Which creative medium they use I don’t think I care as much about. The reality is that screens aren’t going away. If they want to draw on an iPad, I’d allow it.
rsync 5y ago
"... if you ever find yourself in a situation where you are doing weird stuff because your kids completely disregard family rules, just stop ..." Carseats come to mind immediately as I think of counterexamples to this ...
Angostura 5y ago
I found the Apple parental controls worked pretty well - set max hours per day, set bedtime after which apps are restricted. Didn't really cause much friction, worked well enough.

abyssin 5y ago

I agree with you, but I’m curious if you could offer some specific measures to assess what these fundamental issues are.

dbrueck 5y ago
A good starting place for assessing is on communication-related things like: do we regularly just talk with our kid? How does that go? Are we able to talk about anything it depth or is it just superficial "how was school today" stuff? How much of our interactions are tense or even contentious? If communication is in a decent state, then another thing to look at is the rules for the kids, like: have we really given our kid a chance to weigh in on things or do we just dictate? As a parent you do sometimes just have to put your foot down, but there's a world of difference between shutting down pushback with "I'm the parent and that's the way it is" and a collaborative attitude and an open conversation with real listening and sharing of viewpoints/concerns and, where appropriate, some compromising. Are our rules based on solid principles or just things we pulled out of the air? The article mentioned that the kids were addicted to social media. If it's an actual addiction, then that probably needs to be addressed with professional help. If it's more a compulsion/habit, then good communication is again key. Does the kid agree it's excessive but isn't sure how to reign it in? Or does the kid genuinely think it's just fine? Gotta figure that out first, but in either case, jamming the signal to their phones doesn't really address the problem.
- thesuitonym 5y ago
  I'm not saying this is bad advice, but I don't feel like you're really thinking about the issue. If the child is spending all day on his phone, how do you think trying ``communication'' is going to go? If you don't take the phone away, the child won't interact at all, beyond the superficial, ``school was fine.'' If you do take the phone away, do you really believe interactions won't be tense or contentious?
  - dbrueck 5y ago
    Haha, I'm definitely thinking of the issue; I've raised several kids and this is stuff we dealt with all the time. It's not easy and as a parent you screw up a ton because you're usually figuring it out as you go and making lots of mistakes along the way. :) These sorts of issues aren't things you address in a moment. Yeah, if you suddenly take a phone away, you kid will likely blow up. But the problem wasn't created in a moment, either. Things got to a bad place over time so it's unsurprising that improving them takes time. Further, in the heat of the moment everyone (including the parents) are less even-keeled, so most progress happens when tempers are cool. One thing we did for awhile was, as a family, we came up with the rule that from 5-7pm (IIRC) each night there were no devices/screens and we had to be around each other during that time. (We settled on that after a family discussion and some back and forth negotiating, but eventually everyone committed to it.) We did it for /months/ before I felt like it really paid off, but eventually every one of the kids recognized that we were stronger as a family and that they actually enjoyed the screen breaks. And one side effect of it was that we all started talking to each other a lot more, but again, it was a slow process. What works varies by family and changes over time as the family changes, but the meaningful changes seem to always take a lot of time.

hackerdotmkv 5y ago

> just stop On one hand (and as a parent) I agree, there are deep-seated issues around boundaries and authority... on the other hand if my folks had followed that advice I would have never been incentivized to learn to hack. I'm conflicted.

newjersey 5y ago
I sincerely believe the incentives are out of whack. In the US, at least the only way to "win" parenting is to not play. We should refuse to have children at all. My hope is once we see total fertility rate shrink below one, we will start to see proper support for parents and children with things like paid paternity leave and medicare for all enshrined in our laws. That being said, I absolutely do not condone frequency jammers and were this to happen in the US, I'd argue a minimum of six months in jail is an appropriate sentence.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Unfortunately the most realistic scenario where the birthrate drops below 1 comes from extreme economic inequality or authoritarianism. The birth rate does indeed drop as countries develop more, and as more people get educated about birth control, but controlling it beyond that is likely not a good thing. Jail time for frequency jamming seems very extreme (if you want to see the failure of jail time to curb behavior, look at how many people are in American prisons and how high their recidivism rate is).
  - newjersey 5y ago
    > Jail time for frequency jamming seems very extreme (if you want to see the failure of jail time to curb behavior, look at how many people are in American prisons and how high their recidivism rate is). I find this comment interesting because I remember people were very supportive of Freakonomics (iirc) saying locking away people works. >> Steven Levitt (of Freakonomics fame) wrote a paper in 2004 that concluded that 58 percent of the drop in violent crime during the 1990s was due to incarceration. (pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf) I am OK with no prison for the criminal in the OP. However, I would like a drop in jail time or prison sentences for more people at least for non-violent offenses. I agree that too many people are in prison in our country. > The birth rate does indeed drop as countries develop more, and as more people get educated about birth control, but controlling it beyond that is likely not a good thing. Sorry for my poor communication skills. I meant to say voluntarily, not through use of force or coercion. People are just way too optimistic about the future or maybe I am just too pessimistic...

recursive 5y ago

> There are more fundamental issues that need to be addressed first I mean maybe so, but if I knew what they were, I'd already be doing them. This advice doesn't seem like it could help anyone.

ouid 5y ago
If you are actually in this position, then you should understand that the advice is not to fix the other issues, but to stop doing what you are currently doing, not because it's not working, although that is a very good reason to stop expending the energy, but because it's making the situation worse.
- dbrueck 5y ago
  Yes, thank you for saying it more clearly than I did.
- recursive 5y ago
  I'm not really in this position, but the advice sounds way too general and blunt for it to be generally useful.
  - dbrueck 5y ago
    Just to break it down a bit more (and with this particular article we are speculating some since there aren't a lot of details, but the situation in the article sure looks similar to what parents deal with a lot): 1) With anything, it's good to take a step back and ask yourself if you're addressing a symptom or a problem. Again, don't have a lot of details, but this sure looks like the dad was addressing a symptom. This doesn't solve anything (and the problem will manifest again 10 different ways later), it almost certainly does more harm to the relationship, and it leads to everyone feeling terrible. 2) It's easy to /think/ you'd tackle the problem if you knew what it was, but that's often not true at all. This probably applies to all relationships, but as a parent at least it's often much easier to fixate on a symptom. If I suspect my kid is lying to me often, it's realllly easy to go down the rabbit hole of trying to come up with ways to catch them and then to punish them, and it's far harder to focus on healing/strengthening the relationship, getting to the bottom of why the kid feels the need to lie, confronting the flaws in my parenting style etc. :)

djaychela 5y ago

How old are your kids?

dbrueck 5y ago
4 kids, 18-26 years old.
- djaychela 5y ago
  Then you've done a better job than me! I was expecting you to say 5 or something. I've totally failed with my four step kids (15-23). Three have been involved in all sorts or shenanigans (all of which have involved the police, social workers and huge amounts of distress). We have good communication, an open, tolerant family culture where we talk about issues, and still three of the four have gone off the rails in truly "You must be making this story up" ways. I've tried to model appropriate behaviour (I'm not manacled to my phone, and I've been way ahead of the curve on phone use and social media's effect, but I've not stopped them from doing it as 'everyone is on there', and they think I'm an old man who doesn't know what he's talking about). I dread every phone call I get from my partner when they're not 'scheduled' as it's nearly always another disaster. What I'm saying is that I could easily be the guy in this story, because short of a blackout, I've got kids on VPNs who are looking at extreme content (because everyone they know does, apparently), thinking QAnon is real, etc., and whose capacity for disrupting everyone around them without a moment's thought of anyone but themselves knows no bounds. Pandora's box is open, and I have no idea how to close it. On dark evenings when we've had another gut-wrenching round of horror stories, I'd probably buy one if I knew where to get one.
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    It's probably not your fault. My dad couldn't control me. I never got into trouble with the police, but I could easily imagine a version of myself that felt compelled to do so. And then my dad (and I) would've been in real trouble. Don't let it bug you. People are how they are, more often than not. And your kiddos will probably relax in a decade or so when their testosterone levels start to drop.

popotamonga 5y ago

I did some sneaky crap to mine, routed all PS4 traffic through a linux box that added random 200ms-500ms delay on packets. He could play but kept dying because its so fun to play with high ping.

moritonal 5y ago
Hey I ain't got kids so only a thought but whilst fun, that sounds toxic. Let the kid play to their fullest enjoyment then tell them to stop, this seems the worst of both options.
- Mathnerd314 5y ago
  Having grown up in a house with DSL, I can say that this works. When YouTube only plays in 240p it's a lot less addictive.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    Though then you run the danger of https://xkcd.com/598/ https://xkcd.com/598/
- emsy 5y ago
  Some children hit a certain age and then just don’t give a shit. Can happen to the best parents. Honestly, the only thing toxic about it is that it sounds like the the child didn’t know it had been done to him. Let them know they have boundaries. If he gets around it, at least he’s showing ingenuity.
- moritonal 5y ago
  Or at least tell the kid, and have it play normally, but increase over time past the allocated hours. They'd likely work out which games have the best net-code and would be a teaching opportunity about TCP vs UDP xD
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  I don't have kids either but I remember my youth well enough to know that this probably would have worked on me and my parents just telling me to stop probably wouldnt (and hadnt if they made the effort to do this)

prpl 5y ago

What is “weird stuff”? I have actually set up two different ssid’s and the kids only connect to one, but I haven’t enabled time limits on theirs (yet). I need to, because the 13 year old doesn’t understand not to use devices which don’t have easy parental controls (switch) at night. Previously I also edited /etc/hosts to localhost youtube, which was most effective (but not available on iOS/switch. The big cause of the problem? Fortnite. I would love to just kill Fortnite but it would also mean disconnection from part of his social network (which he is experiencing currently) So anyway, as a parent, you are up against a social network and an addicting game company - the odds are stacked against you.

hannob 5y ago
> What is “weird stuff”? Doing something that is clearly illegal to stop your kids from accessing the Internet certainly is. Bonus points if it is also heavily enforced and easily traceable. All of that is true for using a signal jammer.
causi 5y ago
The Switch has pretty robust parental controls; you can even control it remotely from a smartphone.
lostlogin 5y ago
You don’t need any help by the sounds of it, but her is some unsolicited advise anyway. A Pihole gives a nice GUI to what you are doing, and has some nice config options.
- 123pie123 5y ago
  PiHole is just DNSmasq (unless it has newer features?) my teenage kids have figured how to get around that
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    I think I like them! Wonder if you can channel their abilities somewhere.

passivate 5y ago

>There are more fundamental issues that need to be addressed first, and your kids will almost certainly get around whatever you're trying to do anyway. I'd bet most parents intuitively know this, the problem is nothing they have tried has worked. How have you solved this problem?

dbrueck 5y ago
At the risk of oversimplifying: if you have a problem with something but the kid does not see it as a problem at all, and it doesn't give them much pause that you consider it to be a problem, then that's a problem. :) Any rules you try to enforce will be circumvented, ignored, or hurt your relationship. That doesn't mean you get rid of the rules - you still need to be the parent - but you need to put at least equal focus on coming to a shared understanding of why it's a problem, or building a relationship where they can have some faith that you might be able to see a danger where they don't, or seeing the wisdom in at least temporarily agreeing to some rules that they don't totally "get" yet.
- passivate 5y ago
  You're defining end-states and goals, e.g. - 'focus on coming to a shared understanding of why it's a problem' and 'building a relationship where they can have some faith that you might be able to see a danger where they don't', etc. While that is great, I think the problem parents have is with the steps/process to get there. What works for one child won't work for the other, etc. Like I said, the problem isn't that parents don't know these things, the problem is stuff they're trying isn't working.
  - dbrueck 5y ago
    Hmm... maybe. Since we're generalizing, I'll throw another generalization on the pile. :) Most parents are slow to react to these problems but, once they do react, they want fast results and so they are tempted to reach for actions that are unhelpful or even counterproductive. When parents approach it with a mindset of realistic expectations (especially around timeframes), I think most of them can in fact figure out things that work (where 'work' means 'lead to improvement over time'). There are always some kids who simply don't respond, but speaking generally, I believe most do.

idontwantthis 5y ago

I thought kids could set their own boundaries with tech (like I did), but I no longer believe that's possible. The internet is like a drug and sometimes you need to take drastic measures to keep your kids safe from it. I got my kid on all Apple devices and set screen time to completely block him out outside of school hours, when unfortunately he is required to have his computer all day. He's never been as respectful, attentive, or creative as he is now, and after an angry adjustment period, I only regret not doing this sooner.

grp000 5y ago
He might be hiding it, or playing along hoping to get access back later. Regardless, one thing I learned growing up with incredibly strict parents is that it doesn't teach you self-governance. Once he starts living independently, this could come back to bite him. There's also a level of animosity to your parents when they don't trust you that pervades the relationship. Add to that, a level of social isolation since almost every remote interaction is done on an app nowadays, I really question that decision to completely block him out.
- idontwantthis 5y ago
  I let him back in when he asks for it. About self-governance, honestly I don't know. I know that what kids are dealing with online is crack compared to the coffee I grew up with. I don't know if anyone can have a healthy relationship with Roblox, Tiktok, and Youtube. I also know that now he finishes his school work, is learning guitar entirely on his own, and talks to us about school and his friends. Before he would stare at the computer until dinner and go back to it after unless we forced him to do something else.
  - bcrosby95 5y ago
    I'm curious how old your kid is? It took a lot to convince my wife to enable the time limit on our Amazon Fire tablets. They get 1 hour of videos and apps, but unlimited book time.

tomhallett 5y ago

Are there any books that anyone recommends? We do our best to limit screen time, but you can tell it's all they think about sometimes. When we say "You can play nintendo switch when your friends come over", their brains kick-in like limitless -- "i need to charge the controllers now, so they don't run out of battery. 2 need the usb cables while 1 needs more AA batteries". In comparison to when I recommend doing something creative, I have to push through "if you want to draw, the paper is on your desk"....

yurishimo 5y ago
I did this sometimes as a kid. 28 now. I think they’ll grow out of it. Alternatively, you could try to encourage better habits around charging after they’re done playing. Which creative medium they use I don’t think I care as much about. The reality is that screens aren’t going away. If they want to draw on an iPad, I’d allow it.

rsync 5y ago

"... if you ever find yourself in a situation where you are doing weird stuff because your kids completely disregard family rules, just stop ..." Carseats come to mind immediately as I think of counterexamples to this ...

Angostura 5y ago

I found the Apple parental controls worked pretty well - set max hours per day, set bedtime after which apps are restricted. Didn't really cause much friction, worked well enough.