Ask HN: How to deal with children's online habits?

Ah, those are good questions. It really strikes me as a search for nuance and forethought that you're sharing, too. If so, one natural blind spot here is going to be the dichotomy of 1) an abscence of clearly-drawn lines and 2) a tendency to draw lines too firmly, too late or in a poorly calibrated way. It can be helpful to be aware of that, so you can more easily avoid swingy behaviors and positions that feel less authentic or even less loving.

One of the transcendant superpowers of nuance is not just that it's deep and considerate of all sorts of factors and outcomes, but that it also helps people understand better where and how to draw lines in given situations. This is really cool and helpful, even if it has to be used kinda faster than people may be aware, and in little prospective doses.

So, perhaps one of the best nuanced things you could do to pass along this gift of yours is to share with your children why you draw a line at outright snooping, and ask them what they think about how they use the internet for example (or their money, or...). What you'll be doing here is passing on a subjective perceptual quality factor in your inquiries and personal development, not just a lesson on inappropriate behavior, or whatever. This is pretty huge by itself! Developmental vitamins for your kids, basically. (A lot of what's inappropriate on the internet also has a side that would then naturally feel jarring or somehow off to a kid raised with those vitamins, IMO.)

You'll also have a lot of other opportunities to take in relevant hints as your kids continue to develop, so this is more like a set of questions to revisit over time, and you'll likely observe changes to the set of questions. For that reason I would recommend organizing your own approach digitally or on paper, keeping your personoal philosophy and technique in this area working & developing.

A danger point in this kind of consideration is the dichotomy of thought: "Do I X, or don't I X," for example. These questions are always begging for some rephrasing or new vocabulary. Sometimes it helps to first define the terms and the problems in depth, and second (mentioned briefly above as well) to involve the children in what is effectively you educating yourself. Do they see it as a problem? How would they phrase it? What does that teach you about how they learn best? What insights might it give you about their gifts?

"Aww that's nuthin dad" vs. "That's really scary to think about" can indicate two completely different sets of cognitive gifts at work.

Personally I grew up with a parental dichotomy of sorts. I had one snoopy parent and another who was very lax. To me as someone with kind of ridiculously high personal ethical standards, even as a kid, the snoopy parent made things so much worse. I realized that I could be an absolute angel, and that parent would _still_ find something to pin on me anyway. For example when I was 9 years old, they found a trash bag full of very-adult magazines at a construction site a couple blocks from our house, brought the whole huge muddy bag home, and accused me of hiding my stash over there! (Makes me laugh to this day, but it was also extremely hurtful)

However, this same parent could spot some things that other people just couldn't see--they had an amazing general perceptual ability even if it was overused when it came to some guessing games close to home. And so they actually intervened in some pretty amazing moments, like when our family doctor was really struggling in life, this parent was one of the only one of his friends to notice the signs and intervened to help him out before things got really bad.

Anyway, just some examples of how a parenting gift can also be a huge liability, especially when it turns things into this dichotomy, like "did you or didn't you" vs "hey look, what do you think of this situation, here's why I struggle". Everything we think is so great about ourselves, as parents, o...

>What fraction of their online time should I sit with them?

Unless they're 5 year old and learning the ropes or asking for it, then none

>Do I play all video games with them or should they have some of "their own"?

If they want to play with you: as much as you want, otherwise none.(I kinda wish I played with my parents honestly, but they never cared)

>Do I give them the ability to do online purchases?

Physical products? Probably yes, but it should go through you to check that the site is not a scam or shady. Virtual items, crappy lootboxes and predatory subscriptions? Absolutely not.

>Do I allow them to use up all of their money even as a mistake, or do I set up a limit?

Depends on how much money you have.

>Do I limit their "screen time" (hate that term) or will that prevent them from interacting with their friends in the way they would want to?

No, I don't see the point. I spent hours doing programming exercises in freaking notebooks because my parents were soo keen on limiting my screen time. Dozens of arguments because they would take away my consoles. Not worth it.

Also I'm not really in favor of trying to control what your children do, but block TikTok if it still exists in 5 years, some social medias aren't social medias, they're psychological warfare.

Here's my thoughts.

> - What fraction of their online time should I sit with them?

I try to spend any time I'm not doing something like housework or whatever with my kid. But ultimately (and you're going to hear this repeated) I ask her if I can join. I will state "ok I've finished my chores can I come and hang out with you?" She usually says yes. But I make sure to emphasize that I was doing chores as to give context and to also normalise the idea that when you do chores there's no tv or anything else. (music is fine)

> - Do I play all video games with them or should they have some of "their own"?

I let my daughter drive this... Almost always she wants me to play a multiplayer game with me. But about 20% or more she wants to play something by herself. So I give her that space.

> - Do I give them the ability to do online purchases?

Yes and No... We have a calendar on the wall, and every night before bed we do a ritual.. if she was a good girl she gets to color in the day green, if she wasn't good, then she colors it in red. If there's less than 5 red days then she can chose something to have... Last month was a pokemon game for her switch.

That said... I have setup our online consoles so if she wants to buy something it sends me a message, and I approve it. This never happens, as I do the purchasing. But it's an option you can consider.

Finally on our Xbox, Game pass is amazing.. she knows if she sees something in game pass she's free to download it and play..

> - Do I allow them to use up all of their money even as a mistake, or do I set up a limit?

Depends on the age of the kid. If they understand the idea of money, you should probably setup goal oriented systems.. so do X and get $Y, it's important for them to learn how to earn money, and the value of money.

If they are too young to understand money.. then a behaviour based system such as my red day green day calendar system.

> - Do I limit their "screen time" (hate that term) or will that prevent them from interacting with their friends in the way they would want to?

No, screen time is a stupid fear a bunch of people have. It's just the next dumb panic. Our grandparents had it when our parents were put in front of the TV. I'm guessing if you go back far enough there was probably panics about kids sitting in front of the radio.

Screen time is dumb. However the real issue is what they are doing..

There should be some educational component.... BUT remember that everyone needs downtime.. you cannot expect your kid to go 100% education all the time....think about us at work, we need to browse the web or table tennis or whatever to have a mental break. So do kids.

I have some pre-teen children that have access to an iPad, Xbox, and an Apple TV.

My #1 recommendation is NO YOUTUBE, unless it's for education purposes. I don't have the App installed on any of my kids devices (they can access it via the website, but they don't do that). It's just a cesspool of garbage for kids. Even YouTube Kids is bad. Occasionally, they will complain about not having the YouTube app... but I never took it away, so they aren't missing it.

I've loaded up the iPad with fun age appropriate games and activities, that don't require any In-App purchases. If my kids want more apps, then Apple will ask my permission on my iPhone.

I use an Ubiquiti Dream Machine as my home router, so I have some basic content filtering and I have some categorisation of the traffic available, but nothing detailed.

In terms of video games, my recommendation is have a games console in the living room. They have access to video games, but they can play them where everyone can observe. They can have their own video games, this isn't a problem. Microsoft sends me a family report every week about what games were played, but I don't pay much attention to it. Purchases require parent approval on Xbox too.

With a 0.2 and 2 year old, you are somewhat lucky. The ages are close enough that they will play with each other a lot... and screen time won't be too much of an issue until they hit teenage years.

Good luck.

Other replies already addressed the screen time/hanging out together aspect, so I will comment on being unsupervised.

I was a kid on the early-ish internet and I was free to "surf the interwebs" unsupervised. The internet is not the same anymore but I think the general rules still apply. This was a very valuable learning experience for me.

Based on my own experience (anecdata, I know) what I found really helped me is grownups around me explaining things clearly and hammering a few facts into my brain:

1. Don't put anything about your real self on the internet (this is increasingly harder due to social media, I'm glad I was just on IRC back in the day).

1a. What goes in the internet will stay in the internet forever. Mind the info you get out there, even if it's supposed to be a private message. Leaks happen.

1b. Encourage them not to use their real name and address, to be pseudonymous at the least (or better, completely anonymous). Help them set up accounts that don't link to their identity (specially email which is the center of your online identity nowadays).

2. Not everyone on the internet is who they say they are. On the internet nobody knows you're a dog.

2a. Be clear on what grooming and pedos are and that they're out there to catch you off-guard.

2b. Show them what spam, scams, malicious sites, phishing, etc. look like and how to prevent damage.

3. No matter what happens or how deep in shit they are they can come to you for help. You won't approve the ugly things they do, but you will forgive them and help them clean up the mess. If in doubt, come get help. The earlier you ask for help, the faster the cleanup.

Make all of this real by showing them what could happen. Show them real cases (there's plenty on the news) and the consequences. Show them how easy it is to trick the other side of the conversation. E.g. it was eye-opening for me to watch a friend of my brother pretend he was an MD from a completely different city on the IRC. He was just a horny teen looking to meet women. He often joked about how we were probably chatting with other men lying about their identity too.

Once your kids are old enough to understand this then they can go on the internet 100% unsupervised (it was around 8-9 y/o for me but everyone is different).

This will take a while given your kids' age, but we all know time flies. Better get them ready before the time comes!

a few pro tips from me with two kids now 12F and 14M.

Subscribe to youtube premium. you do NOT want those adverts on your kids devices. get them an account each (lie about what their ages are), periodically log in to your kids accounts and look at their watch history and deal with as desired. But more importantly subscribe to the channels you feel they should be seeing and unsubscribe what they should not. You can do this quietly for years and they wont have any idea... its helpful to guide their viewing.

one issue here is youtube shorts.. its viral trash like tiktok and gods dammit I wish I could ban my daughter from it. there is just no way to block it.

Keep computers in the "family area" not in their bedrooms.

keep phones and tablets etc in the family area not in bedrooms

put a pihole in your home network, its free, and very simple to setup on a rPi or synology nas or pretty much anything.

Setup a minecraft server for kids old enough for it. host it yourself and if you can let their friends play on it.

Teach them to lie on the internet. they should not be using their real names and addresses.

teach them to use a PW manager.

Dont allow consoles. Consoles are zombie inducing machines. They want to play games then its computers all the way because computers are multifaceted tools not just dedicated gaming machines. you never know what they will self educate themselves on a computer. on a console they only have one choice... play games.

My son has taught himself C# programing in Unity just by watching youtube videos and self exploration. its a marvel to see him accelerate his learning way past what the school can teach him at the moment. He and his sister are also teaching themselves modelling in blender

I have friends with children in the age of 12-14, one of which excessively monitors his son's online behavior.

He's shown me results of his monitoring and it pretty much ended the debate. Weird old guys contacting his son, excessive cyberbullying, swearing (fine by me, but still), being drawn to the wrong kind of "friends", hate speech, general addiction and obsession with games and in-game items, the list goes on.

Doesn't mean one should intervene all the time, but you should know. I'm not a parent so I don't know at what age you should back off, but I'd say don't do it too early. Your trust is misplaced.

#1 Recommendation is no Roblox. It destroys kids. Not to mention, exploration by the game itself, and pedos. Kids who play are unable to do anything else. Maybe your kid will be able to regulate, but I’d guess not. Ask an elementary school teacher about it.

#2 is no devices in their own bedroom.

Edit: Exploitation not exploration

> - Do I give them the ability to do online purchases?

> - Do I allow them to use up all of their money even as a mistake, or do I set up a limit?

IMHO you should not allow online purchases until a certain age, I would say until 10 years old or so, before that they should ask you for something and you pay for them (if the request is reasonable and anyway if they deserve that).

Starting from 5 or 6 years old you will need to teach them about money (its uses, its risks, how it costs time and sweat to have it), which is something extremely difficult in these times of "immaterial" money, in the old times it was easier, with "real" money kids had their own piggy bank that had its own weight that could be felt, when you opened it there was the ritual to count the coins (and possibly a few notes) and see if it was enough to buy the whatever was desired, a 5/6 years old kid will have difficulties in understanding what the balance of an online account is (that those numbers represent actual money).

When you will be able to allow them to directly make their own purchases (again after some training with you) you should let them spend what they want to spend within a given total budget, i.e. refill a rechargeable card to (say) 100 dollars and give them access to it. (i.e. they should be free to spend the whole 100 dollars on a single, stupid item or buy 5 items 10 dollars each and keep the remaining 50 in the balance, without any intervention by you).

At a given fixed interval (let's say monthly) you credit (still say) 50 dollars more to the card, plus you may credit some more dollars for merit/prizes (if they behaved good, had an exceptional good vote at school, etc.).

This way they will (should) learn that money is a finite amount and that - while one is free to use as he/she wishes - it doesn't come out of thin air.

The problem might be with gifts from relatives, in my times (I was a kid many years ago) I had some uncles that often slipped a note to me (without telling anything to my parents, it was our little secret), now the kid would probably have to "declare" this extra income to you in order to be able to spend it online (and I doubt - but I may be wrong - that modern uncles will recharge the card online directly).

My opinion: children don't need access to the internet, period. There are plenty of ways to let them explore, learn, and play, without giving them any access to the internet. I plan to host an entirely off-line copy of Wikipedia, a bunch of other resources, video games, programming tutorials and libraries. Basically a whole bunch of content that will let them learn about computers and the world, without having access to the internet. The internet is not what is used to be, and the cons severely outweigh any possible pros, especially since the pros can be achieved in other ways.

All I can say is, I grew up in the 80s and that means no internet. I come from a working class family. The neighbor was an architect who had a C64. Because of that I got interested in computers at the age of 8. Age 10 my dad bought me a CPC 464. I learned that BASIC and wrote a graph that displayed a static set of numbers, kind of a stock exchange graph. I had a deal with my dad that he'd pay me if I managed to write this and complete it. He paid. Later I got a C64 because of games. Also the Final Cartridge 1. It had the ability to freeze execution, a memory monitor and assembler editor. I cracked my 1st game at the age of 11. One year later I wrote cracktros and linked them with my cracked games. I also used it to cheat in games. However I never did professional piracy. I only distributed the disks locally among friends. It was really amazing seeing one of my cracktros years later at someone's C64, a guy I never knew.

Nowadays the playing field is different. The internet isn't real life. I have never witnessed such hostility in real life that I have on the internet. But it is now part of life. And it's full of junk. But you can't shield your kid from it. It will have to deal with it sooner or later. But... I still had a somewhat normal childhood, exploring nature, building tree houses and such. If your kid spends all its time in front of a screen, it will never experience or learn about the real reality, not the fake interreality. Already the rudeness of the internet is changing real life. Because people get used to be rude because they're sheltered from repercussions on the net, but get used to that behavior in rl.

To make it short, I was not supervised or monitored. I had great grades in school without learning. Just listening to what the teachers had to say was enough to make it through school with an American B result in the end, without ever learning for a single test. I would've liked if my parents pushed me a little bit. That B could've been an A if I tried. But I really enjoyed my freedom and when the internet came 1995 I enjoyed the freedom I had there. The internet was something that wasn't on the mainstream people's radar. It was my refugee from real life and its harsh, controlling rules. Over the years it turned into this trashpile that's the complete opposite of what it was. It's now used to spy on you and to monitor you and everyone. What was once a dream of freedom and progress is now a tool for oppression and used to spread nationalism and racism or let's put it like that... reality has caught up with it and made it part of its ecosystem only without the barriers of decent behavior toward each other. But then again it's just a medium. The way I live my life and have lived it in the past 25 years was like a slave, sitting in front of a computer screen writing things in a made up world, because I need to earn money to live or rather to perpetuate this slave existence.

I often wonder if I had a child what I would teach it in regards to the internet. Probably that it can be a dangerous place, just like the real world. I would not prohibit its use or have dedicated "screen time". But I would not allow purchases. If they manage to make their own money in it, of course they could spend it any way they want. I would urge them to go outside and play vs spending time in front of the computer. Nowadays you have your computer with you. I would explain why, with every decision I do, so the kid understands why I do what I do and why it should as well. And sometimes I would have to be the authority, because that's life.

My dad said once, "I don't want to be your dad, but a friend". That is not what I wanted. I wanted a dad, friends I could always have, but only 1 dad. I think he said that so it was easier for him to accept his role. I'm not good with kids either or other people. When I was younger I hated chit chat or smalltalk. Most jokes were not funny to me. I always admired Mr. Spock for being cold...

They are kids.

Kids should be able to have their room door closed but that room is a save space.

The internet is not a save place it's like walking in an huge anyounmous city

You should not let your kids walk alone in a huge city until certain knowledge is learned.

Unfortunately the internet provides even more hurdles than a huge city.

I personally would even create a list of things I would teach my kids over a period of month and years. From grooming, pedophiles, scams, password management, spyware etc.

One thing about screen time i haven't seen mentioned yet, is it doesn't have to be the same for everything. I know a parent basically saying: you have a limit on playing games, but not on being creative. So drawing, reading, coding, etc. are not limited. Works for them, but requires some supervision of course.

0.2 years old. Congratulations, by the way! Mine is 1.5 years old. He has 2 iPhones, 1 iPad and one MacBook Air. All "inherited" stuff. Luckily he is not really interested in the screens and more of how they feel like physically. I will need to plan how to avoid him spending too much time on devices. Luckily we have a huge yard with lots of outside activities, so that mitigates the risk a little.

I have 3 kids between 7 and 12.

Both PCs and Chromebooks have parental controls that are okay but not stellar.

For PCs, Microsoft lets you set up profiles for your kids where you can specify what apps they can access, and for web access you can either go with a Microsoft-selected whitelist or build your own white/blacklists.

We as parents get a weekly activity report showing what sites they spent the most time on and what disallowed sites they tried to access. Obviously, this doesn't align with your privacy objective, but frankly, until my kids are able to keep themselves safe online without parental supervision, the slight infringement on their privacy is a reasonable trade-off.

When my kids were small, I was fighting with crazy Youtube videos. Kids started with something innocent and soon were watching sick and disturbing pieces.

So I built an app to control their Youtube consumption, which later turned to a cool small business https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1431645198

As a tech worker with kids, what I see is an all out war being waged on their attention span, motivation to consume, and healthy self-concept with zero regard for their healthy cognitive development. I let my kids watch certain specific shows on YouTube Kids and Netflix, and that's it. About 30 minutes a day, tops, and I am almost always in earshot. Articles that came out in the last 5 years or so about Silicon Valley execs keeping their kids away from the very products that make them rich was a very telling indicator. Much good as the internet has done or my life, I was also blessed to have grown up with a childhood that was not permeated by it during my early formative years. There is some great content out there, but the data is coming down firmly on a negative correlation between screen time and a variety of child health measures. Kids deserve their innocence. When they are older, I will definitely be installing monitoring on my router for their IP traffic.

Every child is different. As parent only you can make the right decision in context. We select and watch film together unless its clearly kids content. Personally I do not encourage spending. Money is a vile thing.

Whatever you do, don’t give them free access to devices or the internet before a certain age. Some parents give their kids iPads as early as two and you can see the behavioral challenges and addiction they struggle with as they get older.

All of the answers to your questions are personal to you and your beliefs. The only considerations are to set some ground rules for using these things, moderate how long they can be on them a day, and have a trusting relationship about what they are doing on it by asking them regularly and caring without being too protective.

You may benefit from reading “The Self-Driven Child”.

Short answer: we don’t know. This technology is too new on a human sociological timeline.

Our strategy is explicit in categorizing digital activity as reading literature, gaming, content consumption, and creation.

We will sometimes tell the kids that they are only allowed to play games on the iPad, and if they are in a ‘ I only want to drone out and watch shows‘-Mode, then they will actually choose to do something else in the real world many times.

Shows are super useful for road trips, road trips have never been easier. But download good movies to their device to limit choices.

One thing I noticed that is often missing in these discussions, sometimes it isn't up to the parents to decide at all.

Imagine your 8 - 11 years old daughter's social circle, and the school she is at where her classmate were allowed very little Internet at home or school. Then you wouldn't have a problem enforcing whatever internet rules.

Now imagine everyone of her classmate were playing Minecraft, and she is the only one being left out.

The point is, if everyone at her school is spending time on god damn stupid Chinese TikTok, then a 10 - 15 minutes Tik Tok for her would be a necessary evil.

So far most of the Internet stuff are entertainment only. So stuff like Pop Music, Anime, Viral Videos etc. While not productive, they are harmless. And educating them not to use real names and talk to strangers on the internet seems to have worked so far. And only keep track of topics they looked into. ( At least before the age of 12 or 14 ) Generally speaking the internet is still fairly safe under some guidance.

But I have witness teenagers ( son of my close friend ) wondered into politics and culture war at the age of 14+. And it is absolutely destructive. The age where they start doing things without telling you, and going on to Reddit or whatever Internet forums. I dont have a good solution to that.

Part of the reason why I have been thinking about Age restricted participation on web forums. You could only reply if you are over the age of X.

My kids are under 10.

1. No internet access 2. A tablet with a few select apps and no games. 3. A tv with a Raspberry Pi running xbmc with a few videos I've curated.

Access to the tablet and tv are limited to certain times, say when we're driving or when my wife's cooking. At some point I'll probably use a PiHole or something like that to give them whitelisted access to a few sites. Not sure where I'll go after that. I don't plan to secretly monitor any conversations but I think I'll stress that I don't consider online and messaging communications to be private and they will be monitored.

As for the money, I'd address the goals separately. Have investment accounts which aren't touched and a performance-based allowance which they can spend completely. I think the Dave Ramsey "when the money's gone it's gone" lesson is something that's supremely important to learn early. And if they need some more money they can always make an appeal to the local VC (you).

Nobody can help you here. They would get a Nobel prize if they knew how to raise kids. By having kids you accept all risks involved, to both your kids and yourself.

There is no silver bullet.

As always, going for education is the only thing you can do to reduce risks.

> I have this preconceived notion that I don't want to violate my children's privacy.

If you have a preconceived notion that frames these questions in terms of privacy, then you will have a preconceived solution. Why is this discussion being framed in terms of "privacy"?

There is a large and growing advocacy for "children's privacy" that I am quite hostile to. The advocacy largely seems to be focused around allowing children to "experiment" and try things for themselves without feeling pressure from their parents to respond in a particular way, or fear repercussions. The stated goal is to let the child become their own person.

But by and large, these "experiments" are around topics like drugs, sexuality, politics, and religion -- and at increasingly younger and younger ages. All of these are extremely hot button issues, so I'll choose the last to make an example of. I've worked extensively through my church with our youth ministry. How would you feel if I wanted to have a "private" conversation with your grade school child about their sin, and necessity of repentance? If I responded to your objections by framing you as the unreasonable one, and asking why you wanted to invade your child's privacy? They need to become their own person, and be free to make choices for themselves!

You would be right to have a legitimate fear that your child would not be "becoming their own person" (as advertised), but being indoctrinated (or even brainwashed) into a certain way of thinking when their minds are too young to know how to appropriately think about these things independently. As a parent, no one should want to have "private" access to your children -- and even unsupervised access to your children should be completely transparent.

Freedom and privacy are important values to teach your children. But this is the privacy that should be taught: there are certain things that you should not expose to the world, and others have no right to ask of you. But the "privacy" that I see being discussed is an inversion of that. "We want privacy with your children, and you cannot violate that privacy!"

To close with an example of how I'd frame this issue: YouTube/TikTok wants unfettered access to my children, to sit them infront of a non-stop roll of advertisements, content that has been engineered to be addictive, and has the potential to create harmful feedback loops. To supervise, monitor, and restrict the quantity and quality of what my child watches (or even searches for) is not an invasion of my child's "privacy" or "freedom".