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> 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 does

> 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. :)
  - quacked 5y ago
    I think it is too blunt; the sort-of truth around the matter is that the "stuff you have to stop doing" is often entirely out of reach for most parents. In many families, the adults are both working full- or overtime jobs, the children are at school or in school-adjacent activities (commuting, extracurriculars, homework, etc.) for 9+ hours per day, and 90% of parent-child interactions are rule-reinforcement (Did you do your homework? Did you put your shoes away? Haven't you already used your screens for an hour?) Actual concrete advice, which is "have one parent leave the workforce so they have more time to parent, reject destructive social norms at the family level, and move away from bad social environments" is not only financially impossible for most, but for those that it is possible for may find that they still can't reach their children, because their children have already adopted a "reject-parent" identity and will continue to prefer online-and-friends over offline-and-family. The most useful advice that I think that any parent can take is to learn about what the world is really like to a kid or teenager, not what it appears to be [1]. It is very difficult to do this, because you have to enter a mindset where a child is not a subsidiary of their parents, but rather a totally foreign and separate entity, capable of the same depths of rage, cruelty, laziness, vindictiveness, passion, joy, etc. [2] No Gen-X parent I know models their kids like this; they reserve the true spectrum of emotion for themselves and their age cohort, and treat their children as less-able to think and feel. [1] = (http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html#:~:text=The%20world%20is%20more%20addictive,did%20in%20the%20last%2040 http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html#:~:text=The%20world....) [2] = As a example, I often hear parents discuss with amazement the shenanigans that their kids (even up to and around pre-teen) will pull when video games are restricted: full-body tantrums, claims of hatred, physical violence, etc. From the parents' perspective, their child is being completely unreasonable and upset over inconsequential things, but the parent is assigning their own assessment of consequence to the video games, and not accepting their child's version. To the child, these games often represent the only hours in their life when they feel excited, proud, and free; to deprive them of this gives them the short-term chemical emotions that an adult might feel if their house burned down.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
      This. We are above average US earnings for the region and we do not feel comfortable leaving current dual income setup. It is ridiculous, because on paper, we should be able to. The simple reality is that we will need to make some adjustments to make it happen though, because we both see it as a desirable outcome. I have yet to deal with real child issues ( and I know I was a terror to my parents ), but having time is a pre-requisite to not slap a simple 'solution' on the problem.
zamalek 5y ago
> This advice doesn't seem like it could help anyone. I did sneaky shit to get around my parents' rules when I was a kid, most people here probably did. To some degree kids need to learn how to push boundaries, for everything else device related there's MDM[1]. There are MDM solutions that are specifically for parenting. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_device_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_device_management
- joezydeco 5y ago
  Apple came out and said MDM was not a suitable way to do parental device control and could pose a security risk, which killed apps like OurPact. https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-is-nixing-iphone-parenting-apps-heres-why/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-is-nixing-iphone-pare... Was it meant to promote ScreenTime? Perhaps. But ScreenTime is another iOS feature that was highly touted at first and then became a neglected unusable mess in the years since. Honestly, I don't blame the guy for setting up a signal jammer because the whole cat-and-mouse game you play with teens is fucking exhausting.
  - yonaguska 5y ago
    My parents simply chose to not have internet. We used an old WRT router to boost the neighbors wifi, cracked it, and then had free internet. They had no idea.
    - cwmoreiras 5y ago
      I would be proud of my kid if they did that. I would ground them, but proudly.
    - ngngngng 5y ago
      My dad would take the modem with him to work, and when he was at home using the internet he would turn it on, wait for it to boot, load a web page, and then turn it back off until he needed to load another webpage. That was the only way he actually stopped me from getting to the internet, but it was a too much effort and he didn't keep it up for long.
turtlebits 5y ago
Set expectations, boundaries and define responsible use beforehand. Teach self-control. Talk to your kids and have discussions instead of resorting to passive aggressive style parenting.
renewiltord 5y ago
Well, it's meant to be broad-based. Like if your friend called you, saying "Can I borrow your fire extinguisher; my Internet isn't working", you can say "Whatever you're doing, it's likely to be wrong" and you're most likely correct! Of course, since that is a two-way channel you would ask for clarification after. That second part is unavailable here.
bachmeier 5y ago
My thoughts exactly. It's as helpful as telling people to not be poor. I've known parents doing all kinds of things to prevent their drug-addicted kids from getting drugs. Yes, there are fundamental issues, and yes, it would be nice to resolve them, but in the meantime you do what it takes to stop your kids from getting their hands on drugs.

> 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. :)
- quacked 5y ago
  I think it is too blunt; the sort-of truth around the matter is that the "stuff you have to stop doing" is often entirely out of reach for most parents. In many families, the adults are both working full- or overtime jobs, the children are at school or in school-adjacent activities (commuting, extracurriculars, homework, etc.) for 9+ hours per day, and 90% of parent-child interactions are rule-reinforcement (Did you do your homework? Did you put your shoes away? Haven't you already used your screens for an hour?) Actual concrete advice, which is "have one parent leave the workforce so they have more time to parent, reject destructive social norms at the family level, and move away from bad social environments" is not only financially impossible for most, but for those that it is possible for may find that they still can't reach their children, because their children have already adopted a "reject-parent" identity and will continue to prefer online-and-friends over offline-and-family. The most useful advice that I think that any parent can take is to learn about what the world is really like to a kid or teenager, not what it appears to be [1]. It is very difficult to do this, because you have to enter a mindset where a child is not a subsidiary of their parents, but rather a totally foreign and separate entity, capable of the same depths of rage, cruelty, laziness, vindictiveness, passion, joy, etc. [2] No Gen-X parent I know models their kids like this; they reserve the true spectrum of emotion for themselves and their age cohort, and treat their children as less-able to think and feel. [1] = (http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html#:~:text=The%20world%20is%20more%20addictive,did%20in%20the%20last%2040 http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html#:~:text=The%20world....) [2] = As a example, I often hear parents discuss with amazement the shenanigans that their kids (even up to and around pre-teen) will pull when video games are restricted: full-body tantrums, claims of hatred, physical violence, etc. From the parents' perspective, their child is being completely unreasonable and upset over inconsequential things, but the parent is assigning their own assessment of consequence to the video games, and not accepting their child's version. To the child, these games often represent the only hours in their life when they feel excited, proud, and free; to deprive them of this gives them the short-term chemical emotions that an adult might feel if their house burned down.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    This. We are above average US earnings for the region and we do not feel comfortable leaving current dual income setup. It is ridiculous, because on paper, we should be able to. The simple reality is that we will need to make some adjustments to make it happen though, because we both see it as a desirable outcome. I have yet to deal with real child issues ( and I know I was a terror to my parents ), but having time is a pre-requisite to not slap a simple 'solution' on the problem.

zamalek 5y ago

> This advice doesn't seem like it could help anyone. I did sneaky shit to get around my parents' rules when I was a kid, most people here probably did. To some degree kids need to learn how to push boundaries, for everything else device related there's MDM[1]. There are MDM solutions that are specifically for parenting. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_device_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_device_management

joezydeco 5y ago
Apple came out and said MDM was not a suitable way to do parental device control and could pose a security risk, which killed apps like OurPact. https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-is-nixing-iphone-parenting-apps-heres-why/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-is-nixing-iphone-pare... Was it meant to promote ScreenTime? Perhaps. But ScreenTime is another iOS feature that was highly touted at first and then became a neglected unusable mess in the years since. Honestly, I don't blame the guy for setting up a signal jammer because the whole cat-and-mouse game you play with teens is fucking exhausting.
- yonaguska 5y ago
  My parents simply chose to not have internet. We used an old WRT router to boost the neighbors wifi, cracked it, and then had free internet. They had no idea.
  - cwmoreiras 5y ago
    I would be proud of my kid if they did that. I would ground them, but proudly.
  - ngngngng 5y ago
    My dad would take the modem with him to work, and when he was at home using the internet he would turn it on, wait for it to boot, load a web page, and then turn it back off until he needed to load another webpage. That was the only way he actually stopped me from getting to the internet, but it was a too much effort and he didn't keep it up for long.

turtlebits 5y ago

Set expectations, boundaries and define responsible use beforehand. Teach self-control. Talk to your kids and have discussions instead of resorting to passive aggressive style parenting.

renewiltord 5y ago

Well, it's meant to be broad-based. Like if your friend called you, saying "Can I borrow your fire extinguisher; my Internet isn't working", you can say "Whatever you're doing, it's likely to be wrong" and you're most likely correct! Of course, since that is a two-way channel you would ask for clarification after. That second part is unavailable here.

bachmeier 5y ago

My thoughts exactly. It's as helpful as telling people to not be poor. I've known parents doing all kinds of things to prevent their drug-addicted kids from getting drugs. Yes, there are fundamental issues, and yes, it would be nice to resolve them, but in the meantime you do what it takes to stop your kids from getting their hands on drugs.