5 ms·

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 nee

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.
    - idontwantthis 5y ago
      He's 13.
  - jamst174 5y ago
    I completely sympathize with this. I had to kick the ipad off the network an hour ago so I could get the 6 yo to stop playing roblox and go somewhere with me. This was after asking numerous times over the course of 5 minutes and while trying to get results without yelling as often. Anyone judging and trying to lecture on how doing actions like this is actually counter productive - well, chances are you don't have kids or you yell a lot.
    - vmception 5y ago
      People want a more comprehensive solution to be discussed, a wider universe of possibilities, instead of false dilemmas and gatekeeping arbitrary choices with children or not.
  - flycaliguy 5y ago
    Congratulations, those are huge wins. My oldest is 4 so I’m just starting to test the waters with a system and more concrete time blocks.
- bityard 5y ago
  > There's also a level of animosity to your parents when they don't trust you that pervades the relationship. The counter-balance for that is plenty of love, support, and one-on-one time. Building trust, essentially. With that, the kids will understand the reasons for the rules. > I really question that decision to completely block him out. I have two children. One child has always successfully-self moderated her screen time and we have never had to step in and correct anything. Zero worries about her. The other child is the exact opposite. He is not that young anymore but still has no self-moderation. He has his own computer on which he can do an unlimited number of things but if given the choice, he will spend literally ALL of his time on it not even playing video games, but watching YouTube videos of other people playing video games. Even if we tell him, "here's your computer, you can do ANYTHING except watch YouTube gaming videos," he still ends up watching YouTube gaming videos when he thinks we aren't looking. When he gets caught, we take the computer, tablet, or phone away, and remind him what the rules were. He gets angry and throws an enormous temper tantrum. Rinse and repeat, for years on end. He doesn't seem to be learning any lesson here so the only option we are left with is banning him from Internet-connected devices most of the time. It's a real bummer to me because free access to computers (as a kid) and the Internet (as a teen) are the only things that turned me into a half-capable human being. I'm worried he won't have that chance due to his inability to self-moderate his screen time, combined with the fact that the Internet is now more of a shopping mall than a library.
  - kakoni 5y ago
    Oh man, my oldest seems to be exactly like your son. Nowdays its even difficult for him to do homework/read for exams because to urge(fomo?) to watch tiktok/youtube/play whatever free-to-play is so huge.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
fartcannon 5y ago
Apple devices? So what, they can learn to become good consumers? Get them on Linux or a BSD and explain their purpose and value.
dbrueck 5y ago
My two cents: kids can not do this on their own, and the comparison to drugs is apt. I think as parents the goal is to teach the kid the risks and the importance of limits, and then help them over time learn to manage it on their own (i.e. as they mature and show they're able to do so). Working backwards, at some point they are going to be on their own, and if up until that point they are entirely leaning on the fences set up by the parents, and/or don't understand the 'why' behind those fences, they will fail badly.
- bnralt 5y ago
  > Working backwards, at some point they are going to be on their own, and if up until that point they are entirely leaning on the fences set up by the parents, and/or don't understand the 'why' behind those fences, they will fail badly. I've seen situations where the opposite happens. People who aren't exposed to something when they're kids, and then have almost no interest in it when they're on their own as adults. Whereas people who are exposed to it develop an interest and addiction that lasts through adulthood.
  - shankr 5y ago
    I had something similar when I first came across PC, internet and online gaming. Growing up I didn't have any access to these things and I came across them during university, and I kind of got addicted to them and my grades suffered badly. It did help me later in life to adjust my habit around any online gaming. I don't do it at all but sometimes I would install some games, play for few days, and then uninstall them.
Aperocky 5y ago
> completely block him out outside of school hours > He's never been as respectful, attentive, or creative. I hope the latter statement is true and is not just satisfaction from completely controlling your childrens life. Because blocking all electronic after school is certainly the harshest thing I've ever heard of.
- idontwantthis 5y ago
  I completely agree with you, and it took me years to come to terms with the necessity of it. There is so much more positive emotion in my home after making this change. In fact, I exert less control than I used to because now I trust him to be taking care of himself. He gets his work done, he learns new things on his own, and he takes more responsibility for his own health and well being.
  - tombert 5y ago
    How much of this is just timing though? Anecdata, but my parents took my computer away a bunch of times and restricted me from watching TV on weekdays, and I still got terrible grades in middle and high school (though I almost always did well on tests, just didn't like doing homework). My grades didn't get measurably worse when I got the computer back, and my parents stopped taking it away from me when they saw that I was teaching myself how to code for fun, because I think they realized that is a marketable skill, and I think I taught myself to code (and my grades started improving) because I simply grew up a bit. Granted, there weren't really "smartphones" throughout most of my high school years, and I didn't even have a laptop at that point either, so it's possible my information is out of date.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Yeah, if my parents tried to control that much of my life while I was living with them I would be in "basically live at a friends house and move out at 18" mode. Because holy shit "nigh completely cutting off the social life of a kid during their formative years" is brutal. It's gotta be so hard for them to maintain friendships, when I was in HS if you totaled up my Snap/Discord/IG/Texts/iMessage I probably sent 5k messages/mo -- all to IRL friends, and I wasn't even that social.
adonovan 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 Hell, I can barely control my own urges to look up some interesting fact whenever a thought pops into my head---and for years I was the guy everyone mocked for never looking at his phone.
- jwineinger 5y ago
  I'm the same. I distinctly remember being annoyed at my brother and father when they got early-gen iPhones because they kept pulling them out and burying their faces in them. And now, I'm sure I'm much worse than they were then.
kobalsky 5y ago
> to completely block him out outside of school hours they cannot google stuff or check wikipedia when they are at home? no internet access at all?
- munk-a 5y ago
  You'd be surprised how irrelevant wikipedia and googling are to elementary and middle school educations. Due to a lack of assumptions about who has devices at home all the information you'll need for course work is included in the course materials (whether that be a text book or some other form of reference). I think online educators have a lot to offer young students, but they help accelerate the process - they don't replace it.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    > You'd be surprised how irrelevant wikipedia and googling are to elementary and middle school educations. You say that as if the official elementary- and middle-school curriculum are the only things worth looking up. There is much one can profitably learn from the resources which are freely available online beyond the least-common-denominator taught by schools.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I did purposefully exclude High School from that list since that's a good period to start independent research. If you have an issue with the curriculum being taught that's an issue you should take up with your school board - not try and monkey patch by using online learning as a solution. Elementary and middle school expectations are usually focused on learning the way to learn since that's where the brain is at.
      - nybble41 5y ago
        I for one am extremely glad that you in particular, and others of a similar mindset, had nothing at all to do with my pre-high-school education. It is truly unfortunate that not everyone else can say the same. The right time to start "independent research" is approximately from birth. We should be overjoyed that any child is curious and eager to learn. Standing in their way by limiting access to educational resources based on arbitrary ideas of "age-appropriate materials" is absolutely a crime.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
I do the same. No phones after 8 pm. They are pretty free range before that. Better not catch them doing anything on their laptops other than homework after that. Everything goes on the kitchen table/counters after homework is over. I might relent a bit as they get older but tweens and younger seem to have zero self control with electronics. I let them free range with whatever on Saturday (i think everyone needs a safety valve day), but Sunday it's back to business as usual. Firewalls are great at limiting this stuff.
brnt 5y ago
> The internet is like a drug I mean, that's what Big Tech pays many here for, isn't it?

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.
  - idontwantthis 5y ago
    He's 13.
- jamst174 5y ago
  I completely sympathize with this. I had to kick the ipad off the network an hour ago so I could get the 6 yo to stop playing roblox and go somewhere with me. This was after asking numerous times over the course of 5 minutes and while trying to get results without yelling as often. Anyone judging and trying to lecture on how doing actions like this is actually counter productive - well, chances are you don't have kids or you yell a lot.
  - vmception 5y ago
    People want a more comprehensive solution to be discussed, a wider universe of possibilities, instead of false dilemmas and gatekeeping arbitrary choices with children or not.
- flycaliguy 5y ago
  Congratulations, those are huge wins. My oldest is 4 so I’m just starting to test the waters with a system and more concrete time blocks.
bityard 5y ago
> There's also a level of animosity to your parents when they don't trust you that pervades the relationship. The counter-balance for that is plenty of love, support, and one-on-one time. Building trust, essentially. With that, the kids will understand the reasons for the rules. > I really question that decision to completely block him out. I have two children. One child has always successfully-self moderated her screen time and we have never had to step in and correct anything. Zero worries about her. The other child is the exact opposite. He is not that young anymore but still has no self-moderation. He has his own computer on which he can do an unlimited number of things but if given the choice, he will spend literally ALL of his time on it not even playing video games, but watching YouTube videos of other people playing video games. Even if we tell him, "here's your computer, you can do ANYTHING except watch YouTube gaming videos," he still ends up watching YouTube gaming videos when he thinks we aren't looking. When he gets caught, we take the computer, tablet, or phone away, and remind him what the rules were. He gets angry and throws an enormous temper tantrum. Rinse and repeat, for years on end. He doesn't seem to be learning any lesson here so the only option we are left with is banning him from Internet-connected devices most of the time. It's a real bummer to me because free access to computers (as a kid) and the Internet (as a teen) are the only things that turned me into a half-capable human being. I'm worried he won't have that chance due to his inability to self-moderate his screen time, combined with the fact that the Internet is now more of a shopping mall than a library.
- kakoni 5y ago
  Oh man, my oldest seems to be exactly like your son. Nowdays its even difficult for him to do homework/read for exams because to urge(fomo?) to watch tiktok/youtube/play whatever free-to-play is so huge.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

fartcannon 5y ago

Apple devices? So what, they can learn to become good consumers? Get them on Linux or a BSD and explain their purpose and value.

dbrueck 5y ago

My two cents: kids can not do this on their own, and the comparison to drugs is apt. I think as parents the goal is to teach the kid the risks and the importance of limits, and then help them over time learn to manage it on their own (i.e. as they mature and show they're able to do so). Working backwards, at some point they are going to be on their own, and if up until that point they are entirely leaning on the fences set up by the parents, and/or don't understand the 'why' behind those fences, they will fail badly.

bnralt 5y ago
> Working backwards, at some point they are going to be on their own, and if up until that point they are entirely leaning on the fences set up by the parents, and/or don't understand the 'why' behind those fences, they will fail badly. I've seen situations where the opposite happens. People who aren't exposed to something when they're kids, and then have almost no interest in it when they're on their own as adults. Whereas people who are exposed to it develop an interest and addiction that lasts through adulthood.
- shankr 5y ago
  I had something similar when I first came across PC, internet and online gaming. Growing up I didn't have any access to these things and I came across them during university, and I kind of got addicted to them and my grades suffered badly. It did help me later in life to adjust my habit around any online gaming. I don't do it at all but sometimes I would install some games, play for few days, and then uninstall them.

Aperocky 5y ago

> completely block him out outside of school hours > He's never been as respectful, attentive, or creative. I hope the latter statement is true and is not just satisfaction from completely controlling your childrens life. Because blocking all electronic after school is certainly the harshest thing I've ever heard of.

idontwantthis 5y ago
I completely agree with you, and it took me years to come to terms with the necessity of it. There is so much more positive emotion in my home after making this change. In fact, I exert less control than I used to because now I trust him to be taking care of himself. He gets his work done, he learns new things on his own, and he takes more responsibility for his own health and well being.
- tombert 5y ago
  How much of this is just timing though? Anecdata, but my parents took my computer away a bunch of times and restricted me from watching TV on weekdays, and I still got terrible grades in middle and high school (though I almost always did well on tests, just didn't like doing homework). My grades didn't get measurably worse when I got the computer back, and my parents stopped taking it away from me when they saw that I was teaching myself how to code for fun, because I think they realized that is a marketable skill, and I think I taught myself to code (and my grades started improving) because I simply grew up a bit. Granted, there weren't really "smartphones" throughout most of my high school years, and I didn't even have a laptop at that point either, so it's possible my information is out of date.
Spivak 5y ago
Yeah, if my parents tried to control that much of my life while I was living with them I would be in "basically live at a friends house and move out at 18" mode. Because holy shit "nigh completely cutting off the social life of a kid during their formative years" is brutal. It's gotta be so hard for them to maintain friendships, when I was in HS if you totaled up my Snap/Discord/IG/Texts/iMessage I probably sent 5k messages/mo -- all to IRL friends, and I wasn't even that social.

adonovan 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 Hell, I can barely control my own urges to look up some interesting fact whenever a thought pops into my head---and for years I was the guy everyone mocked for never looking at his phone.

jwineinger 5y ago
I'm the same. I distinctly remember being annoyed at my brother and father when they got early-gen iPhones because they kept pulling them out and burying their faces in them. And now, I'm sure I'm much worse than they were then.

kobalsky 5y ago

> to completely block him out outside of school hours they cannot google stuff or check wikipedia when they are at home? no internet access at all?

munk-a 5y ago
You'd be surprised how irrelevant wikipedia and googling are to elementary and middle school educations. Due to a lack of assumptions about who has devices at home all the information you'll need for course work is included in the course materials (whether that be a text book or some other form of reference). I think online educators have a lot to offer young students, but they help accelerate the process - they don't replace it.
- nybble41 5y ago
  > You'd be surprised how irrelevant wikipedia and googling are to elementary and middle school educations. You say that as if the official elementary- and middle-school curriculum are the only things worth looking up. There is much one can profitably learn from the resources which are freely available online beyond the least-common-denominator taught by schools.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I did purposefully exclude High School from that list since that's a good period to start independent research. If you have an issue with the curriculum being taught that's an issue you should take up with your school board - not try and monkey patch by using online learning as a solution. Elementary and middle school expectations are usually focused on learning the way to learn since that's where the brain is at.
    - nybble41 5y ago
      I for one am extremely glad that you in particular, and others of a similar mindset, had nothing at all to do with my pre-high-school education. It is truly unfortunate that not everyone else can say the same. The right time to start "independent research" is approximately from birth. We should be overjoyed that any child is curious and eager to learn. Standing in their way by limiting access to educational resources based on arbitrary ideas of "age-appropriate materials" is absolutely a crime.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

I do the same. No phones after 8 pm. They are pretty free range before that. Better not catch them doing anything on their laptops other than homework after that. Everything goes on the kitchen table/counters after homework is over. I might relent a bit as they get older but tweens and younger seem to have zero self control with electronics. I let them free range with whatever on Saturday (i think everyone needs a safety valve day), but Sunday it's back to business as usual. Firewalls are great at limiting this stuff.

brnt 5y ago

> The internet is like a drug I mean, that's what Big Tech pays many here for, isn't it?