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What age groups are we talking here, because if we're talking about a 7 year old, giving them unfettered screen time is probably bad parenting. However if we ar
by bawolff 3mo ago
What age groups are we talking here, because if we're talking about a 7 year old, giving them unfettered screen time is probably bad parenting. However if we are talking about someone old enough to have gf/bf its probably also bad parenting to not let them develop their own self control around technology. They have to be an adult eventually.
- szundi 3mo ago[dead]
- Grombobulous 3mo agoI was a teenager, if that wasn’t clear. But I was more of the mindset of lending a story, I can’t say whether or not it’s relevant to the parent commenter’s scenario.
- kelipso 3mo agoI don’t think “one can get around rules” is a very insightful thing to say, it’s just a truism.
- Forgeties79 3mo agoThey’re talking about the relative ineffectiveness of prohibition when it comes to teenagers. Generally speaking, they’re right. And the implication is therefore “don’t just blanket ban your way through screen time restrictions.” It’s a bit more nuanced than “one can get around the rules.
- JumpCrisscross 3mo agoYup. I think American culture is broadly too permissive with under-14s and too restrictive with over-14s (but under-21s).
- mc3301 3mo agoI told my elementary-age child that they can have a phone when they are old enough to sneakily buy one without me knowing.
- kelipso 3mo agoThere are kids under 18 who drink and plenty under 21 who drink. Still a very good idea to ban under 18 drinking, and not a terrible idea to ban under 21 drinking. You can do this for lots of rules and laws. So yeah, they're basically saying "one can get around the rules" and nothing more than that. Therefore, there is no argument here, just a truism.
- Forgeties79 3mo ago>relative ineffectiveness >generally speaking I felt like I couched and prefaced enough that somebody wouldn’t read this and go “this guy thinks you literally can’t ban teens from anything ever,” which is a ridiculous stance that no reasonable person would hold. I’ll be more explicit in the future. Wholesale banning teens from screens is generally highly ineffective, like many but not all things people try to prohibit at that age. It leads to their seeking it elsewhere, perhaps in less safe environments and certainly with less guidance. It also means they won’t communicate about it with their parents, which has a lot of bad secondary effects. Personally, if my kid experiences or witnesses something disturbing (or illegal/potentially dangerous) when they are young, I want to make sure the lines of communication stay open between us so I can help - or at least help them process it - when they need me. TL;DR: banning smartphones when they can easily access them elsewhere is almost certainly going to end in a net negative. I am not saying we can’t ban anything. That is a ridiculous interpretation of my comment. I hope this clears that up for you.
- Grombobulous 3mo agoI wasn’t trying to make an argument, I was trying to offer a story of a personal experience.
- bawolff 3mo agoJust because someone can get around rules doesn't neccesarily mean they will want to.
- hamburglar 3mo agoI started my kid at 12 with an extremely locked down iPhone. She fights the restrictions at every turn and I have to make sure that she understands that finding loopholes is fun but also if I catch her violating the spirit of the restrictions there will be consequences. So she proudly tells me about clever workarounds she finds but still puts the phone away at the appropriate times. It’s kind of fun that she’s developing an instinct for subversion.
- JoeBOFH 3mo agoThat’s how we handle it with ours as well. He found a way around a certain control and we opened a bug report with the vendor and it was acknowledged and fixed. He then realized he locked out other kids with that and laughed and tries to find more worth reporting.
- lostlogin 3mo agoIs that black hat or white hat?
- vlovich123 3mo agoChaotic hat
- Forgeties79 3mo agoWho said it had to be unfettered?
- mrandish 3mo agoWe didn't give our kid her own phone until a few months past her 13th birthday. She was at a private elementary school since kindergarten and her class was small and mostly had the same kids from K-8, so the parents got to know each other early on and there was general agreement on 'no phones until 13'. This greatly reduced the "but so-and-so has one".