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Curious how tech-oriented parents here are approaching TikTok et al with their kids. My kid isn't walking yet, but for when the time comes, I'm not sure how I'l

Curious how tech-oriented parents here are approaching TikTok et al with their kids. My kid isn't walking yet, but for when the time comes, I'm not sure how I'll limit exposure to what I'd call "pure trash", but also give them freedom and the ability to 'fit in' with (inevitably) the rest of their friends using this stuff.

raydev 2y ago
My now late-teens had complete access back when TikTok was called musical.ly. The youngest was 12 when we handed them iPhones. All we ever enforced with them was strict Screen Time lock at 9pm, and then a couple years ago we turned that off because they were already more conscientious than their mother and I are now. We still need to approve any app they install, but all the most Evil Mind Destroying Apps are on their phones, TikTok, Snapchat, IG, etc. They are fine, do well in school, and are about to be venturing out of our house with much optimism. I understand every child is unique. But you should understand your children's weaknesses and strengths, and build restrictions around that.
stiltzkin 2y ago
[dead]
technotony 2y ago
Also I want my kid exposed to technology, to learn to use and develop with it, but how do you balance that with preventing the damages it seems to cause? We are delaying screen-time for my 2 year old till he's at least 5 or 6 but not sure when is the right time to introduce.
- 1over137 2y ago
  Expose them to old technology. They can experience new technology when (much) older.
  - andrewinardeer 2y ago
    So they'll suffer the angst and pain like I did begging my parents to upgrade the graphics card from CGA to EGA?
    - geerlingguy 2y ago
      Maybe they'll have some respect for resource consumption (unlike 99% of software development these days) and they'll end up writing a text editor that doesn't run in an embedded web browser and soak up 6 GB of RAM to open a blank document!
kevmoo1 2y ago
My 13-year-old just got her own phone. Wired up with https://www.pinwheel.com/ https://www.pinwheel.com/ She is NOT going to be touching social media or similar until at LEAST high school.
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago
  >She is NOT going to be touching social media or similar until at LEAST high school. Says you. Said me (several times). I failed. Got circumvented by three teenagers blessed with the same inquisitiveness that got me into tech.
- throawayonthe 2y ago
  [dead]
Wowfunhappy 2y ago
> but also give them freedom and the ability to 'fit in' with (inevitably) the rest of their friends using this stuff. I teach fifth grade at an upscale private school. None of the children in my homeroom have cell phones; one has an apple watch. I think more parents are becoming aware of the problem, which in turn makes social pressure less of an issue.
- djhn 2y ago
  Which country’s system fifth grade? Or alternatively, which age are talking about? If it’s 13 year olds, that sounds very surprising and wildly impractical.
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    United States, so ten and eleven year olds.
twodave 2y ago
We aren’t. As the company itself will admit when they don’t realize they’re going to be quoted, the goal is not to create healthy community but to compete for attention. It is by definition pulling you away from normal, healthy relationships. We refuse to harm our kids by subjecting them to this kind toxic trash.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
No phone until early to mid teens, flip/dumb phone only until they buy their own.
- bubaumba 2y ago
  sure, just don't forget, that will be the kid who chooses the shelter...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    It's probably exactly backwards. Social media breeds narcissism.
    - bubaumba 2y ago
      I haven't seen any research on this matter. How modern kids compare to their (grand) parents. Likely with free food for everyone and legal drugs more are choosing jobless path. One way is sort of a job. For example 'influencer', most of whom don't make enough for living, but hope one day..
internet101010 2y ago
The proper term for this content is brainrot.
xyst 2y ago
Keep it simple dude. All they get is a basic device with text/RCS and call capabilities. I would be okay with giving a kid just a smart watch. No social media or smart phones until 16 y/o. Also making sure kids have friends in their community is a plus. Involve them in school programs, help guide them as they find their interest. For love of god, don’t give your kid an unlocked iPad with YT/TT/FB/Twitch/kick.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  > Also making sure kids have friends in their community is a plus. A lot of them coordinate hangouts via social media, unfortunately. It’s a tough balance.
  - nicksergeant 2y ago
    Yup. This is what I see missing from all the non-parents or parents of kids under 10 on HN. Once middle school hits their whole friend/support system is probably on SnapChat and if you're not on there, you're instantly excluded from everything.
    - nytesky 2y ago
      Imagine growing up without a phone in the 90s. That’s what these Luddite patents are advocating. It’s hard. We actually have banned social media until 16, but fortunately iMessage was the defacto coordination and we accepted that. No TikTok until adults, for a host of reasons.
      - nicksergeant 2y ago
        Same here. Hard no on YouTube and TikTok. Sadly everything happens on SnapChat in their friend groups and SnapChat has a terrible TikTok style feed that I wish to god I could disable somehow. It adds nothing to the experience for actually socializing with one's friends group and is simply designed for mindless scrolling and consumption. I hate it.
  - asdf000333 2y ago
latentsea 2y ago
I repeated to my boy that the Chinese government uses it to spy on people and he won't go near it for that reason. Yay propaganda.
- filoleg 2y ago
  And when he finds out later in life that it was just propaganda, his trust in you and any warnings of a similar kind will go entirely away. Which carries a massive e risk of doing the exact opposite of what you intended (despite the advice itself, at the core, being pretty decent). Case in point, the massive failure of D.A.R.E. drug abuse prevention programs for children and teenagers in the US. Yay propaganda. Turns out that even when the advice itself is decent, you can easily sabotage it all in the long term by using those types of propaganda methods. All just for a short-term “win”.
nkrisc 2y ago
My kid is 7. He has a Linux desktop he can use whenever he wants with no internet access from his user account. My wife and I abandoned all social media and we’ll probably get him a dumb phone when the time comes. I’ve heard the stuff some of his friends with more internet permissive parents parrot from YouTube and stuff and honestly it’s frightening. As for the good stuff that’s actually out there, I download for consumption offline. As someone who grew up in the 90s and learned touch type playing StarCraft online, the internet is not for kids.
- winterbloom 2y ago
  If you do that, your kid won't fit in and will be a social outcast
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    But at least they’ll be functional with a potentially positive trajectory vs their peers.
    - threeseed 2y ago
      Humans especially children need to be part of healthy social groups. Being excluded is not setting them up on a positive trajectory.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - cortesoft 2y ago
      Social skills are probably the most important and valuable skills to success in life
      - AlexandrB 2y ago
        Social media and staring at a screen destroy social skills. I know, I lived through 2 years of COVID.
malshe 2y ago
I have a 11 year old who is remarkably obedient. Credit to my wife. So we decided no social media for our child and she is pretty much fine with it.
dools 2y ago
My daughter is 14. We will get her a mobile phone next year. She has an iPad and a laptop. She has issues with youtube shorts taking attention away from school work on her laptop. We will be maintaining screentime controls, and won't allow TikTok to be installed on her phone. She has a snapchat account, and uses it primarily for the messaging feature. She knows she's not allowed to view content not related to her friends and we regularly check up on that. We have the password to both her devices. Since we discovered she has problems with impulse control with YouTube shorts, she can't have her door closed if she has her computer or iPad in the room with her. She is an avid reader, and reads for hours a day, re-reads the same books, and on YouTube she mostly consumes recipes, book reviews and book related content (like fanfic) so by most standards she's pretty good. That being said, once she has a phone, she will not be allowed to use it in the house at all. Our youngest has fewer issues with impulse control, and uses her iPad for things like Duolingo, Toca Life and Finch the self-care pet and messaging friends on iMessage or Facebook Messenger kids. She doesn't have access to YouTube, but does have YT kids. She likes the tiny cakes channel and regularly brings me the videos because I find them very enjoyable also. They're both very heavily supervised and when they demonstrate there are problems, we take away their devices. My eldest has had an apple watch SE since year 7 and we use that for communicating, and she can get in touch with friends that way. I also bought a 4g nokia with has the SIM for the same number in it (I had to use my backup iPhone to set up her watch) and if she is going somewhere further or longer than a school day she takes that for safety reasons. My youngest will follow the same trajectory, we talk about the risks with them often, and they aren't allowed phones at school (by the school) and have had regular online safety sessions provided by the school. Australia is also seriously considering legislation to criminalise allowing children under 16 from having any social media accounts. Note that we only got them iPads in 2020 because of home schooling, prior to that we had given them iPhone 5s each to listen to podcasts and music. We always used screentime controls, and had them set up with family sharing and their own iCloud accounts, they have never (even as children) been allowed to use either mine or my wife's phones, we never let them watch or listen to anything during dinner or on car rides under 2 hours (a rule that still stands).
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
game_the0ry 2y ago
> Curious how tech-oriented parents here are approaching TikTok et al with their kids. Curious why parents don't limit their kids screen time. Not 'fitting in' is not an excuse. This is a parent problem, not a TiktTok problem.

raydev 2y ago

My now late-teens had complete access back when TikTok was called musical.ly. The youngest was 12 when we handed them iPhones. All we ever enforced with them was strict Screen Time lock at 9pm, and then a couple years ago we turned that off because they were already more conscientious than their mother and I are now. We still need to approve any app they install, but all the most Evil Mind Destroying Apps are on their phones, TikTok, Snapchat, IG, etc. They are fine, do well in school, and are about to be venturing out of our house with much optimism. I understand every child is unique. But you should understand your children's weaknesses and strengths, and build restrictions around that.

stiltzkin 2y ago

[dead]

technotony 2y ago

Also I want my kid exposed to technology, to learn to use and develop with it, but how do you balance that with preventing the damages it seems to cause? We are delaying screen-time for my 2 year old till he's at least 5 or 6 but not sure when is the right time to introduce.

1over137 2y ago
Expose them to old technology. They can experience new technology when (much) older.
- andrewinardeer 2y ago
  So they'll suffer the angst and pain like I did begging my parents to upgrade the graphics card from CGA to EGA?
  - geerlingguy 2y ago
    Maybe they'll have some respect for resource consumption (unlike 99% of software development these days) and they'll end up writing a text editor that doesn't run in an embedded web browser and soak up 6 GB of RAM to open a blank document!

kevmoo1 2y ago

My 13-year-old just got her own phone. Wired up with https://www.pinwheel.com/ https://www.pinwheel.com/ She is NOT going to be touching social media or similar until at LEAST high school.

Ylpertnodi 2y ago
>She is NOT going to be touching social media or similar until at LEAST high school. Says you. Said me (several times). I failed. Got circumvented by three teenagers blessed with the same inquisitiveness that got me into tech.
throawayonthe 2y ago
[dead]

Wowfunhappy 2y ago

> but also give them freedom and the ability to 'fit in' with (inevitably) the rest of their friends using this stuff. I teach fifth grade at an upscale private school. None of the children in my homeroom have cell phones; one has an apple watch. I think more parents are becoming aware of the problem, which in turn makes social pressure less of an issue.

djhn 2y ago
Which country’s system fifth grade? Or alternatively, which age are talking about? If it’s 13 year olds, that sounds very surprising and wildly impractical.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  United States, so ten and eleven year olds.

twodave 2y ago

We aren’t. As the company itself will admit when they don’t realize they’re going to be quoted, the goal is not to create healthy community but to compete for attention. It is by definition pulling you away from normal, healthy relationships. We refuse to harm our kids by subjecting them to this kind toxic trash.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

No phone until early to mid teens, flip/dumb phone only until they buy their own.

bubaumba 2y ago
sure, just don't forget, that will be the kid who chooses the shelter...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  It's probably exactly backwards. Social media breeds narcissism.
  - bubaumba 2y ago
    I haven't seen any research on this matter. How modern kids compare to their (grand) parents. Likely with free food for everyone and legal drugs more are choosing jobless path. One way is sort of a job. For example 'influencer', most of whom don't make enough for living, but hope one day..

internet101010 2y ago

The proper term for this content is brainrot.

xyst 2y ago

Keep it simple dude. All they get is a basic device with text/RCS and call capabilities. I would be okay with giving a kid just a smart watch. No social media or smart phones until 16 y/o. Also making sure kids have friends in their community is a plus. Involve them in school programs, help guide them as they find their interest. For love of god, don’t give your kid an unlocked iPad with YT/TT/FB/Twitch/kick.

ceejayoz 2y ago
> Also making sure kids have friends in their community is a plus. A lot of them coordinate hangouts via social media, unfortunately. It’s a tough balance.
- nicksergeant 2y ago
  Yup. This is what I see missing from all the non-parents or parents of kids under 10 on HN. Once middle school hits their whole friend/support system is probably on SnapChat and if you're not on there, you're instantly excluded from everything.
  - nytesky 2y ago
    Imagine growing up without a phone in the 90s. That’s what these Luddite patents are advocating. It’s hard. We actually have banned social media until 16, but fortunately iMessage was the defacto coordination and we accepted that. No TikTok until adults, for a host of reasons.
    - nicksergeant 2y ago
      Same here. Hard no on YouTube and TikTok. Sadly everything happens on SnapChat in their friend groups and SnapChat has a terrible TikTok style feed that I wish to god I could disable somehow. It adds nothing to the experience for actually socializing with one's friends group and is simply designed for mindless scrolling and consumption. I hate it.
- asdf000333 2y ago

latentsea 2y ago

I repeated to my boy that the Chinese government uses it to spy on people and he won't go near it for that reason. Yay propaganda.

filoleg 2y ago
And when he finds out later in life that it was just propaganda, his trust in you and any warnings of a similar kind will go entirely away. Which carries a massive e risk of doing the exact opposite of what you intended (despite the advice itself, at the core, being pretty decent). Case in point, the massive failure of D.A.R.E. drug abuse prevention programs for children and teenagers in the US. Yay propaganda. Turns out that even when the advice itself is decent, you can easily sabotage it all in the long term by using those types of propaganda methods. All just for a short-term “win”.

nkrisc 2y ago

My kid is 7. He has a Linux desktop he can use whenever he wants with no internet access from his user account. My wife and I abandoned all social media and we’ll probably get him a dumb phone when the time comes. I’ve heard the stuff some of his friends with more internet permissive parents parrot from YouTube and stuff and honestly it’s frightening. As for the good stuff that’s actually out there, I download for consumption offline. As someone who grew up in the 90s and learned touch type playing StarCraft online, the internet is not for kids.

winterbloom 2y ago
If you do that, your kid won't fit in and will be a social outcast
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  But at least they’ll be functional with a potentially positive trajectory vs their peers.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    Humans especially children need to be part of healthy social groups. Being excluded is not setting them up on a positive trajectory.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - cortesoft 2y ago
    Social skills are probably the most important and valuable skills to success in life
    - AlexandrB 2y ago
      Social media and staring at a screen destroy social skills. I know, I lived through 2 years of COVID.

malshe 2y ago

I have a 11 year old who is remarkably obedient. Credit to my wife. So we decided no social media for our child and she is pretty much fine with it.

dools 2y ago

My daughter is 14. We will get her a mobile phone next year. She has an iPad and a laptop. She has issues with youtube shorts taking attention away from school work on her laptop. We will be maintaining screentime controls, and won't allow TikTok to be installed on her phone. She has a snapchat account, and uses it primarily for the messaging feature. She knows she's not allowed to view content not related to her friends and we regularly check up on that. We have the password to both her devices. Since we discovered she has problems with impulse control with YouTube shorts, she can't have her door closed if she has her computer or iPad in the room with her. She is an avid reader, and reads for hours a day, re-reads the same books, and on YouTube she mostly consumes recipes, book reviews and book related content (like fanfic) so by most standards she's pretty good. That being said, once she has a phone, she will not be allowed to use it in the house at all. Our youngest has fewer issues with impulse control, and uses her iPad for things like Duolingo, Toca Life and Finch the self-care pet and messaging friends on iMessage or Facebook Messenger kids. She doesn't have access to YouTube, but does have YT kids. She likes the tiny cakes channel and regularly brings me the videos because I find them very enjoyable also. They're both very heavily supervised and when they demonstrate there are problems, we take away their devices. My eldest has had an apple watch SE since year 7 and we use that for communicating, and she can get in touch with friends that way. I also bought a 4g nokia with has the SIM for the same number in it (I had to use my backup iPhone to set up her watch) and if she is going somewhere further or longer than a school day she takes that for safety reasons. My youngest will follow the same trajectory, we talk about the risks with them often, and they aren't allowed phones at school (by the school) and have had regular online safety sessions provided by the school. Australia is also seriously considering legislation to criminalise allowing children under 16 from having any social media accounts. Note that we only got them iPads in 2020 because of home schooling, prior to that we had given them iPhone 5s each to listen to podcasts and music. We always used screentime controls, and had them set up with family sharing and their own iCloud accounts, they have never (even as children) been allowed to use either mine or my wife's phones, we never let them watch or listen to anything during dinner or on car rides under 2 hours (a rule that still stands).

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

game_the0ry 2y ago

> Curious how tech-oriented parents here are approaching TikTok et al with their kids. Curious why parents don't limit their kids screen time. Not 'fitting in' is not an excuse. This is a parent problem, not a TiktTok problem.