4 ms·

> With cable you could sometimes get a clear spot in the scrambled channels. I do remember that. By the time kids were old enough to bother with it, none of th

> With cable you could sometimes get a clear spot in the scrambled channels. I do remember that. By the time kids were old enough to bother with it, none of them were hurt by it. > And I assume you were not a latchkey kid, alone for hours before an adult came home? I actually was. That's how I know that older children don't need to have parents hovering over them 24/7. I didn't burn the house down, didn't join a street gang, didn't become an alcoholic, or host orgies. I was given education about dangers and how to avoid them and the freedom to develop a sense of responsibility. I didn't always listen to my parents, but I never did anything bad enough to matter either. A parent's job isn't to make it 100% impossible for kids to ever do anything, it's to prepare them to make smart choices even when you aren't around. For smaller children (the kind you can't just leave in a house alone for hours) it's easy to keep devices where they can't get them or to temporarily disable a PC. If you leave the older kids alone, you'd just have to check up on the logs when you get back. > And from a rich enough family that could afford a personal device for each kid? Shared devices are even easier to monitor and control access to. A lot of families have a single shared computer in a public space (living room or den). > Where do you even get a computer these days with zero internet access? What software will the kid use? I'd probably give the kid one of my old ones with the NIC pulled or the port removed or epoxied, but honestly you probably don't have to go through the trouble for small kids. Disabling the interface in software is probably good enough. As for what kind of software they could use: games/emulators, ms-paint/photoshop, office apps for writing/journals/notes/homework, an MP3 player, VLC for pre-selected/loaded movies, a comic viewer/ebook reader, AV recording software, LOGO or some other kid programing stuff, etc. A computer without internet access is still a pretty useful and entertaining device. > Logging doesn't handle most of the issues mentioned in the article, like not wanting your 6 year old to see the "headlines of the day about how the world is on fire", or not wanting your kids to download something from the Microsoft Store. I don't have any objection to kids seeing news, if they want to. I have an objection to news being forced on them so Bing gets disabled or (more likely) just don't use windows. Let's face it, windows is user-hostile. Even with windows is it actually impossible to disable the store or set windows to not allow random software to be installed without admin rights? For work I've got a windows machine I've set up with polices to block the store, but I assume there must be options for home users. More to the point, it's not the end of the world if the computer allows children to install something. It's my job to set boundaries and make sure the kid understands them. If I see that something got installed that shouldn't have been I can handle that by parenting the child not tweaking the OS.

eesmith 3y ago
> I didn't burn the house down ... What a way to dial things up to 11. The usual scenario is more "You can watch 30 minutes of Disney+ then you need to work on your online homework", but the kid instead watches 2 hours of Disney+, because it's easy to forget the timer when watching Ninjago. You can't take the computer away, because schools assign online homework. So what should you do to help the kid remember to do homework? Some people buy a lockable drinks cabinet to keep their underage children out of the liquor supply, which is a solution for alcohol, but schools don't require students to drink. > Shared devices are even easier to monitor and control access to. A lot of families have a single shared computer in a public space (living room or den). The example of sharing was when using a Switch, and one kid is allowed to play M-rated titles, while the other may only play E-rated titles. That is not the same as single shared computer in a public space. Just because a solution works for you doesn't mean it's an appropriate solution for everyone else. Just because you don't need a lockable drinks cabinet doesn't mean it can't be appropriate for others. > but I assume there must be options for home users As far as I can tell, there is not. Since Windows is user-hostile, can/should we legislate for less hostility? The overlying point of the article is that you can't simply dismiss the heavy hand of government intervention by saying that parental controls exist and are enough. If you don't want parental controls, that's fine. But you must realize that if the system providers don't be careful, the government will use it as an excuse to step in.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > The usual scenario is more "You can watch 30 minutes of Disney+ then you need to work on your online homework", but the kid instead watches 2 hours of Disney+, because it's easy to forget the timer when watching Ninjago. That's a parenting problem though, not a technology problem. Either the kid's homework is getting done or it isn't. > You can't take the computer away, because schools assign online homework. Young kids can get access to a computer with an internet connection while you're there watching over them. Older kids can do their homework and the logs will tell you if they were doing other things when they should have been studying. > So what should you do to help the kid remember to do homework? That problem has existed long before computers. The oldest solutions still work too, but a lot of it comes down to parents nagging. It's just part of the long and natural process of teaching kids how to manage their time. > Some people buy a lockable drinks cabinet to keep their underage children out of the liquor supply, which is a solution for alcohol, but schools don't require students to drink. If schools did require kids to drink alcohol it'd be reasonable for parents to unlock the cabinet while the kids were being watched and to serve them what they need before locking it up again. Same with computers. No student in elementary/middle school needs 24 hour access to the internet to be successful in class. > The example of sharing was when using a Switch, and one kid is allowed to play M-rated titles, while the other may only play E-rated titles. That is not the same as single shared computer in a public space. That's a valid concern, and I'm disappointed that Nintendo doesn't provide profiles for their devices, but it's still an easy problem for parents to solve. Kids who aren't old enough to play adult video games don't get unsupervised access to devices with adult video games installed. No kid is going to die if they don't have 24 hour access to their gameboy. It could even be a great opportunity to give older siblings responsibility by allowing them unrestricted access to the device if they can make sure to keep it out of the hands of the younger ones. I think a lot of older kids in that situation would be concerned about their younger siblings messing with their saves anyway. > Just because a solution works for you doesn't mean it's an appropriate solution for everyone else. That's the truth. Parents have to figure out what will work for them, but they can't expect software to do their job for them. What they should expect is that companies aren't making software that makes their job harder, or undermines their efforts. > Since Windows is user-hostile, can/should we legislate for less hostility? We agree here. What MS gets away with these days is insane. I have no doubt that they're collecting a ton of our children's data. I think government regulation and software both have roles to play in protecting kids, and helping parents raise them, but none of that should come at the cost of freedom/privacy for adults. Anything that would mean that adults are restricted from accessing content they want, or that forces them to hand over their personal data to prove their age and identity in order get that access goes too far. Generally, I suspect that we'll all be a lot better off if parents spent more time teaching children how to behave rather than looking for ways to never give them the option or opportunity to misbehave. We should be careful about over-reliance on technological and legislative solutions intended to replace parenting.

eesmith 3y ago

> I didn't burn the house down ... What a way to dial things up to 11. The usual scenario is more "You can watch 30 minutes of Disney+ then you need to work on your online homework", but the kid instead watches 2 hours of Disney+, because it's easy to forget the timer when watching Ninjago. You can't take the computer away, because schools assign online homework. So what should you do to help the kid remember to do homework? Some people buy a lockable drinks cabinet to keep their underage children out of the liquor supply, which is a solution for alcohol, but schools don't require students to drink. > Shared devices are even easier to monitor and control access to. A lot of families have a single shared computer in a public space (living room or den). The example of sharing was when using a Switch, and one kid is allowed to play M-rated titles, while the other may only play E-rated titles. That is not the same as single shared computer in a public space. Just because a solution works for you doesn't mean it's an appropriate solution for everyone else. Just because you don't need a lockable drinks cabinet doesn't mean it can't be appropriate for others. > but I assume there must be options for home users As far as I can tell, there is not. Since Windows is user-hostile, can/should we legislate for less hostility? The overlying point of the article is that you can't simply dismiss the heavy hand of government intervention by saying that parental controls exist and are enough. If you don't want parental controls, that's fine. But you must realize that if the system providers don't be careful, the government will use it as an excuse to step in.

autoexec 3y ago
> The usual scenario is more "You can watch 30 minutes of Disney+ then you need to work on your online homework", but the kid instead watches 2 hours of Disney+, because it's easy to forget the timer when watching Ninjago. That's a parenting problem though, not a technology problem. Either the kid's homework is getting done or it isn't. > You can't take the computer away, because schools assign online homework. Young kids can get access to a computer with an internet connection while you're there watching over them. Older kids can do their homework and the logs will tell you if they were doing other things when they should have been studying. > So what should you do to help the kid remember to do homework? That problem has existed long before computers. The oldest solutions still work too, but a lot of it comes down to parents nagging. It's just part of the long and natural process of teaching kids how to manage their time. > Some people buy a lockable drinks cabinet to keep their underage children out of the liquor supply, which is a solution for alcohol, but schools don't require students to drink. If schools did require kids to drink alcohol it'd be reasonable for parents to unlock the cabinet while the kids were being watched and to serve them what they need before locking it up again. Same with computers. No student in elementary/middle school needs 24 hour access to the internet to be successful in class. > The example of sharing was when using a Switch, and one kid is allowed to play M-rated titles, while the other may only play E-rated titles. That is not the same as single shared computer in a public space. That's a valid concern, and I'm disappointed that Nintendo doesn't provide profiles for their devices, but it's still an easy problem for parents to solve. Kids who aren't old enough to play adult video games don't get unsupervised access to devices with adult video games installed. No kid is going to die if they don't have 24 hour access to their gameboy. It could even be a great opportunity to give older siblings responsibility by allowing them unrestricted access to the device if they can make sure to keep it out of the hands of the younger ones. I think a lot of older kids in that situation would be concerned about their younger siblings messing with their saves anyway. > Just because a solution works for you doesn't mean it's an appropriate solution for everyone else. That's the truth. Parents have to figure out what will work for them, but they can't expect software to do their job for them. What they should expect is that companies aren't making software that makes their job harder, or undermines their efforts. > Since Windows is user-hostile, can/should we legislate for less hostility? We agree here. What MS gets away with these days is insane. I have no doubt that they're collecting a ton of our children's data. I think government regulation and software both have roles to play in protecting kids, and helping parents raise them, but none of that should come at the cost of freedom/privacy for adults. Anything that would mean that adults are restricted from accessing content they want, or that forces them to hand over their personal data to prove their age and identity in order get that access goes too far. Generally, I suspect that we'll all be a lot better off if parents spent more time teaching children how to behave rather than looking for ways to never give them the option or opportunity to misbehave. We should be careful about over-reliance on technological and legislative solutions intended to replace parenting.