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That parents do a much better job of monitoring their child’s online activity. It’s astounding to me to see minors with unrestricted access in their pockets 24/

That parents do a much better job of monitoring their child’s online activity. It’s astounding to me to see minors with unrestricted access in their pockets 24/7. This isn’t healthy for growing brains.

mgoetzke 3y ago
it is suprisingly hard to control phones/tablets for minors as the different tools to restrict kids access really do not work well and also do not work across ecosystems while kids often need to have a phone for school communication etc. windows/mac/linux?/xbox/ps5/nintendo/steam/etc.. used to be there where physical media, now to play games you need dozens of accounts across multiple sites with different settings and services. and even screen time limits often do not work reliable as it miscounts a lot.
- johndunne 3y ago
  I think the simplest method is to monitor a DNS log and any of the children's devices could be monitored via a DNS log. For me, I just want to know when I need to have a conversation with them rather than scold or punish them based I what I see in the DNS log. I have a pfsense router on my network, and monitoring the DNS requests on the network could help flag when someone needs some 'loving parental guidance'. I'm honestly very nervous about this era of my parenting responsibilities, my eldest being 10 years old.
  - jonhohle 3y ago
    It’s not just online access. Some kids are drawn to screens to their own physical detriment and will stay up all night to get the endorphins hit of the next game. All kids are different, even within a family.
johndunne 3y ago
Agreed 100%. I've a homelab, ntop traffic monitoring and considering forcing my son's mobile device (10 years old and about to receive his first mobile device for Christmas) to go via my home network via VPN and I'm still not sure I really want to do this... He could still come across content via friends devices. My wife and I are trying to figure out a conversation/teaching method to keep his mind healthy (in terms of sex/porn) as he progresses through his childhood into teens. It's a stressful minefield; but we don't want to be overly intrusive and figuring out a balance is not an easy task. I'm certainly not going to rely on the law to cover parenting issue. A child feeling that he can have healthy, open and honest conversations with parents on these issues is critical.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  So, $0.02 as a parent... The overriding goals are to (a) avoid overly alienating him from his peers' experience (e.g. don't be the only kid who can't watch some TV at home), while (b) teaching him to make good decisions himself and use things responsibily, by (c) introducing things at a measured pace. Consequently, you're not going to keep a teenager away from porn. Not without causing more harms in doing so. But! You can (and in my opinion should) absolutely moderate the speed at which it's introduced. E.g. for now, at 10, he gets restrictions via VPN on his device. And you be frank with him about this! "Some websites aren't going to load" etc But also you sit down with him and say "Look, this is how it's going to be, for now, because of your age. But when you turn 12, if you keep your grades up... I'll turn the filtering off for a couple hours a night." IMHO, the problem isn't {thing}, the problem is {abuse of thing}. And the best way to empower people to avoid abusing a thing is to gradually build their skills to cope with it, which means measured exposure. PS: Also, don't ever read his DNS logs. You don't want to know. Everyone, even children, deserve some secrets. The gold standard should be he-comes-to-you-with-questions, not you-go-to-him.
  - cooper_ganglia 3y ago
    "But when you turn 12, if you keep your grades up... I'll turn the filtering off for a couple hours a night." So, $0.02 as a person who grew up with what I thought at the time were overly-protective parents... I say this as respectfully as possible, but imo, this is an insane take and shouldn't be taken seriously at all. Letting 12 year old children watch porn for a "couple hours per night" as a reward for good grades sounds like a dystopian hellscape. Porn is not for minors, full stop. We already have a male loneliness epidemic and a drop-off in dating in young men. We don't need to exacerbate problems by conditioning them to dull their desire for real intimacy, or to be OnlyFans simps from their pre-teen years. 12 year old minds don't need to be implicitly taught that women are objects to be used for the sexual gratification of men. Teach them about sex, respect them and give them space to grow into themselves and still respect you, but pornography is not an inevitable given in someone's life, it is not a universal constant that every person falls into the trap of. It is a toxic, poisonous addiction to an intensely dopaminergic false sense of intimacy, it's destroying our young men and women. and I cannot recommend enough regularly moderating the devices and messages of any minors in your home. 16 years old is the earliest point where I would even consider tapering that moderation off slightly.
jonhohle 3y ago
I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but schools have made this extremely difficult and if a parent is not a technology professional or has a no- computer accommodation at school (which requires a 504 or IEP), they’ve already lost and likely have no idea what their child is accessing. I have a child who is happy to bypass rules and restrictions as a past time and with firewalls, screen time limits, frequent history reviews, physical lock boxes, and school accommodations he still frequently accesses content that is not appropriate. It requires hours a week to manage as well as effectively being constantly on call while my child is at school to approve time-based access to online resources. I have another child who is a rule-follower and could be given a phone with unrestricted access and who would only use the approved apps and sites without any additional guard rails. At least in our school district (and many others around the US), every student is given a computer that parents have no control over and which has filters managed by organizations with different priorities and values (and competency) than every family’s.

mgoetzke 3y ago

it is suprisingly hard to control phones/tablets for minors as the different tools to restrict kids access really do not work well and also do not work across ecosystems while kids often need to have a phone for school communication etc. windows/mac/linux?/xbox/ps5/nintendo/steam/etc.. used to be there where physical media, now to play games you need dozens of accounts across multiple sites with different settings and services. and even screen time limits often do not work reliable as it miscounts a lot.

johndunne 3y ago
I think the simplest method is to monitor a DNS log and any of the children's devices could be monitored via a DNS log. For me, I just want to know when I need to have a conversation with them rather than scold or punish them based I what I see in the DNS log. I have a pfsense router on my network, and monitoring the DNS requests on the network could help flag when someone needs some 'loving parental guidance'. I'm honestly very nervous about this era of my parenting responsibilities, my eldest being 10 years old.
- jonhohle 3y ago
  It’s not just online access. Some kids are drawn to screens to their own physical detriment and will stay up all night to get the endorphins hit of the next game. All kids are different, even within a family.

johndunne 3y ago

Agreed 100%. I've a homelab, ntop traffic monitoring and considering forcing my son's mobile device (10 years old and about to receive his first mobile device for Christmas) to go via my home network via VPN and I'm still not sure I really want to do this... He could still come across content via friends devices. My wife and I are trying to figure out a conversation/teaching method to keep his mind healthy (in terms of sex/porn) as he progresses through his childhood into teens. It's a stressful minefield; but we don't want to be overly intrusive and figuring out a balance is not an easy task. I'm certainly not going to rely on the law to cover parenting issue. A child feeling that he can have healthy, open and honest conversations with parents on these issues is critical.

ethbr1 3y ago
So, $0.02 as a parent... The overriding goals are to (a) avoid overly alienating him from his peers' experience (e.g. don't be the only kid who can't watch some TV at home), while (b) teaching him to make good decisions himself and use things responsibily, by (c) introducing things at a measured pace. Consequently, you're not going to keep a teenager away from porn. Not without causing more harms in doing so. But! You can (and in my opinion should) absolutely moderate the speed at which it's introduced. E.g. for now, at 10, he gets restrictions via VPN on his device. And you be frank with him about this! "Some websites aren't going to load" etc But also you sit down with him and say "Look, this is how it's going to be, for now, because of your age. But when you turn 12, if you keep your grades up... I'll turn the filtering off for a couple hours a night." IMHO, the problem isn't {thing}, the problem is {abuse of thing}. And the best way to empower people to avoid abusing a thing is to gradually build their skills to cope with it, which means measured exposure. PS: Also, don't ever read his DNS logs. You don't want to know. Everyone, even children, deserve some secrets. The gold standard should be he-comes-to-you-with-questions, not you-go-to-him.
- cooper_ganglia 3y ago
  "But when you turn 12, if you keep your grades up... I'll turn the filtering off for a couple hours a night." So, $0.02 as a person who grew up with what I thought at the time were overly-protective parents... I say this as respectfully as possible, but imo, this is an insane take and shouldn't be taken seriously at all. Letting 12 year old children watch porn for a "couple hours per night" as a reward for good grades sounds like a dystopian hellscape. Porn is not for minors, full stop. We already have a male loneliness epidemic and a drop-off in dating in young men. We don't need to exacerbate problems by conditioning them to dull their desire for real intimacy, or to be OnlyFans simps from their pre-teen years. 12 year old minds don't need to be implicitly taught that women are objects to be used for the sexual gratification of men. Teach them about sex, respect them and give them space to grow into themselves and still respect you, but pornography is not an inevitable given in someone's life, it is not a universal constant that every person falls into the trap of. It is a toxic, poisonous addiction to an intensely dopaminergic false sense of intimacy, it's destroying our young men and women. and I cannot recommend enough regularly moderating the devices and messages of any minors in your home. 16 years old is the earliest point where I would even consider tapering that moderation off slightly.

jonhohle 3y ago

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but schools have made this extremely difficult and if a parent is not a technology professional or has a no- computer accommodation at school (which requires a 504 or IEP), they’ve already lost and likely have no idea what their child is accessing. I have a child who is happy to bypass rules and restrictions as a past time and with firewalls, screen time limits, frequent history reviews, physical lock boxes, and school accommodations he still frequently accesses content that is not appropriate. It requires hours a week to manage as well as effectively being constantly on call while my child is at school to approve time-based access to online resources. I have another child who is a rule-follower and could be given a phone with unrestricted access and who would only use the approved apps and sites without any additional guard rails. At least in our school district (and many others around the US), every student is given a computer that parents have no control over and which has filters managed by organizations with different priorities and values (and competency) than every family’s.