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Parenting a teen is re-forcing values taught earlier in life. Expecting society to share parenting responsibilities doesn't work. It could be safer but it's u

• 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  A child spends more hours of day in school, and under the influence of media (legacy, social and all kinds) and society in general, than with their parents. Unless probably those parents are unemployed and homeschooling the child. Which is its own type of trauma. Any reductionist stance that "only" parents matter and society doesn't, or "only" this or "only" that betrays a lack of basic common sense. A child is a product of its environment, and the child and its parents exist in a society (so says Jared Leto). A child is like a radio antenna, it picks up information and influences from everywhere and reproduces them. A child that hits puberty also wants to do exactly the opposite of what you teach them, and be rebellious with the worst specimens in their class. Opening a chat site is probably the most innocent thing they can do, and if that innocent act can trivially lead to dire consequences, yes, society has a problem to solve. The problem isn't Omegle in particular, but rather how unstructured the Internet is. Anything goes, you can therefore not shape and mold a child's environment to be nurturing and educational. If they have Internet you basically drop the entire world on their shoulders at once. Any filters and controls are at best leaky.
  • johnnyanmac 3y ago
    > A child spends more hours of day in school, and under the influence of media (legacy, social and all kinds) and society in general, than with their parents. Unless probably those parents are unemployed and homeschooling the child. Which is its own type of trauma. Okay, but I'd still call the parent the most important pillar in a child's life. Not the only one, but they have the most influence on a child. Every child is different, but most children will take a parents' action and words to heart and use those to form a world view. which can end with an accaptance or rejection of the parents'. >The problem isn't Omegle in particular, but rather how unstructured the Internet is. Anything goes, you can therefore not shape and mold a child's environment to be nurturing and educational sure you can. plenty of filters and blocks. The key to elevate this from controlling your kid to parenting is to then explain why those blocks exist. We shouldn't be coy to tell kids that there is danger, that they should know how their body and feelings work, and that there is content they are not ready to view. They may still find workarounds anyway, but hard locks under "because I said so" or "I'll tell you when you're older" caused me to rebel way more than "because there are bad people out there" (as an oversimplified explanation). And that's the crux that no one seems interested in solving. Why are we so afraid to educate our kids on this stuff?
    • 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      Who is "we" who are afraid to educate our kids on this stuff? Adults are former children, raised by parents who are also former children. Basically there's no reason for you to focus your sight like a laser pointer on the parents, because it's all a big system in a closed loop, and picking out superficial criteria like age and parenthood as sole indicators about who the blame should go to is primitive. Sex is easy, and therefore making children is easy. And thank God because if it was hard we wouldn't exist in the first place. Piling on responsibility on parents for the world they grew up in and are raising their children is one step away from saying "if you can't be a good parent, don't have children" which is one step away from "just don't have children" and that's why "developed" societies are in a deepening demographic collapse. Also living in a global world is not just about your trinkets being made in China. Internet is a global network and it connects us globally. This "parents have most influence on a child" thing was I'd say valid maybe a century ago. But now parents are much more busy working, and children are engaging much more with society and the world at large, at much earlier age. This is not a choice a family makes. It's imposed top-down from society and its rulers, because the alternative is to not survive. And therefore it's society's responsibility as a whole to get things as straight as possible, before we can attack parents. Again. Those parents are just products of their own parents and so on. And humans in general have absolutely no clue how this works. We go by vibes and superstition and events like the World Wars, depressions, recessions, cultural revolutions have completely disrupted and wiped out centuries of knowledge on what it means to raise a child, and everyone has to keep rediscovering this for themselves, which means they look out and copy what society gives them. We have no other way to operate. We copy, transform and emit. But our ability as individuals to transform is limited. This is why you yourself are speaking the languages you speak, have the beliefs you do, you're just an amalgamation of things you saw and heard, and adopted them as your own. Including the belief we should blame the parents. That came from the society you live in. The irony.
      • johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >Adults are former children, raised by parents who are also former children. Basically there's no reason for you to focus your sight like a laser pointer on the parents, because it's all a big system in a closed loop, Society and norms change. My "former children" were whipped by their parents, they didn't pass that down to me (but I was also raised partially by grandparents, who did the same thing). "we" decided spankings weren't acceptable anymore in a relatively recent time frame. But "we" still can't seem to teach future adults about their bodies and that bad people will take advantage of it. It's a societal issue and I will critique society as they continue to brush the real issue under the rug. Perverts aren't some ancient monster wiped out by war, unfortunately. >This is why you yourself are speaking the languages you speak, have the beliefs you do, you're just an amalgamation of things you saw and heard, and adopted them as your own. Indeed. And my society taught me to think critique every practice, and to unshackle from tradition. "because that's how things were done" is the worst justification in my mind. Which you seem to be using to excuse this behavior. I don't accept it. If only because of this simple norm: if we were thst influenced by our upbringing and this happens, that means we have an entire societal line that thinks it's okay to prey upon children. I hope we aren't taught that by friends or family or education. >Including the belief we should blame the parents. If society believed that, this story blaming a website for facilitating the abuse of a child instead of the parents who should have been aware of the child's browsing activity wouldn't be here, no? I don't really subscribe much to the "you criticize society but you live in one" retort. Societal participation isn't very consentual in and of itself but that's a whole other rabbit hole.