> If watching your kid’s real-time location isn’t enough, there is Life360, a tracking app that allows parents to review up to 30 days of time-stamped location history, monitor driving to make sure their kids stay within the speed limit, and get alerts when they arrive at or leave saved locations, such as home, school, and, yes, a college dorm. “Holy sh—,” a psychologist who studies kids’ resilience started to say when I described the app to him.
I’m sorry, this psychologist is a person who academically studies the issue and is not familiar with the capabilities of Life360?? Why would the author of this piece have continued talking to someone after they demonstrated themselves to be so shockingly ignorant of their own field?
Modern marketing just preys on parental guilt. If you don't buy a $300 sensor or track your kid's location every second, they subtly make you feel like an irresponsible parent.
It's actually sad for kids. In childhood being able to stay out a bit longer, solve sudden problems without calling mom, or just sit alone taught you how to cope with the world. But if someone monitors a child all the way to their college dorm door, it's unclear how they're supposed to develop personal autonomy at all
> being able to stay out a bit longer, solve sudden problems without calling mom, or just sit alone
none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
my hesitation is from knowing these _dont_ work: by the time airtag shows where someone actually is that isnt a 500m circle, you can see them with your analog eyes :/
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
When I was about 8 years old I was allowed to go with the bus by myself between my mom and my dad.
I can remember two times I fell asleep on the bus, and ended up some other place, and had to figure out how to get home from there, by myself.
I'm sure of the technology was available at the time, my mom would have placed an airtag on me, and without a doubt, would have seen me miss my bus-stop and jumped into her car to pick me up wherever I ended up. Bless her heart, but I'd miss the opportunity of figuring it out by myself.
Of course, just one silly example, but I could see if this was constantly happening, a child might get accustomed to this "saving" being automatic, and not even trying to solve things yourself because you know your parent will come save the day. Until they don't, of course.
> I can remember two times I fell asleep on the bus, and ended up some other place, and had to figure out how to get home from there, by myself.
if it involved asking a business (car service in my case) to let you use their phone, or already having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom... thats an airtag :)
> a child might get accustomed to this "saving" being automatic
i dont fear a perfectly functioning society; im an adult and am also used to 911/999/etc being available. some people watch Demolition Man and get the wrong idea...
> if it involved asking a business (car service in my case) to let you use their phone, or already having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom... thats an airtag :)
No. An airtag works for your mom no matter if you want it or not, some payphone on the street places the agency about calling help into your hands.
> having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom
I had enough coins for 2 phone calls in a sealed envelope in my school bag for emergencies - probably still in the bottom of my bag wherever it may be.
It is not an airtag. The payphone doesn't use a network of snitches to say where you are at all times. It is really bad to instill the idea that you are never private, it makes our surveillance situation worse and more accepted. Which i am sure hackernews and the EFF have plenty of articles to show why normal people need privacy.
How so? Mom has no way to know where you are until you initiate the call. Isn’t a big part of the developmental point to have kids recognize they’re lost on their own and then ask for help from a friendly stranger? What’s the ‘no airtag’ scenario you imagine?
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
Do you want to install an app on your phone that will track you and your online activities for the government? They won't interfere, they just want to know what you're up to and help. Children are people and want some privacy too. I know I did.
Presumably, when this generation comes of age they will largely answer this question with "sure, I don't see the problem", which many will consider a big win.
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
It instills a Panopticum-like philosophy in said kids since their very early ages, meaning they become aware that they're being watched at every moment of their lives. In my opinion that does affect said kids' future look on life (once they will have become adults, that is).
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket.
Technically true. However I think there is a very small percentage of parents that can keep themselves from interrupting in such a situation. Actually I think it leads to a slippery slope situation (the article calls it a downward spiral) where the interruptions will be easier to make the more you do it as a parent. The only question remaining is how high up the slope do you start and how fast do you slip?
Most marketing for most things preys on guilt, fear, and avarice - negative emotions are uncomfortable, and you first create the negative emotion in the target's mind, and then sell them the solution, to alleive their discomfort.
I was a kid who wandered. Sometimes through bear infested forests at night. Sometimes through abandoned factories with collapsing roofs. Sometimes to the homes of people my parents strongly disapproved of.
I lived. So did pretty much everyone else. I had a few significant fuck-ups. I learned from them, and didn't repeat them. In my childhood, I knew one kid who died from misadventure - grain silo - and many who died from disease - meningitis, cancer, sepsis. Perhaps parents should keep their children in protective plastic bubbles, if they're going to be consistent about it.
My kid - no tracking, and autonomy that I see makes other parents writhe with discomfort, as they're like "she'll be stolen! Her kidneys!", and I'm going "you guys don't understand statistics, and your kids are going to live with you until you die, and lead stunted lives".
Many decades ago - there was barely a thing you could do roaming my neighbourhood that the network of mothers wouldn't relay back by the time you got home.
Being accused of hurting children is a social death sentence. Parents don't want to be accused. Politicians don't want to be accused. Nobody ever does.
So parents keep their children indoors for fear of being arrested from them crossing the street on their own. Politicians are unable to renege on "child safety" laws because the populace will believe they are harming children and vote them out.
But these things work the way they are because of the social consequences embedded in our culture, caused by the perceived harm to children from inaction.
I lived a chunk of my childhood on a road where most of the traffic was tractor trailers. I went outside and even waited for the bus. Nobody died, nobody got hurt.
I don't know about worldwide, but in Germany[1] the number of children injured or killed in traffic has been on a downward slope for about 40 years. That includes pedestrians. And despite the fact that number of cars has gone up up up[2].
Of course parents being more restrictive with their kids may well be one of the reasons why the number has gone down (there are many confounding factors).
It's so wild to me as a millennial who grew up with a single mom who worked all day to see the obsession with child surveillance/protection that permeates society today. When I was a kid, my mom required only that I let her know where I was gonna be, call her if those plans changed and let her know the new ones, and apart from that I was basically out the door by 7am and home for dinner, absent like sleepover plans or something. In the wintery months I was regularly gone for all daylight hours, and yeah she knew where I was, in theory, but I wasn't wearing a GPS, and her up-to-date information on my place of being was strictly down to my communicating that info.
And this situation was not unique to me, my friends all had basically the same thing going on with minor differences. And like, I dunno maybe this is a reach, but these were the foundations that IMO made me a responsible human, who is able to move and function in the world autonomously, and it seems like newer generations of kiddos are really struggling with that in particular. Perhaps these are connected?
> my mom required only that I let her know where I was gonna be, call her if those plans changed and let her know the new ones, and apart from that I was basically out the door by 7am and home for dinner, absent like sleepover plans or something.
> but these were the foundations that IMO made me a responsible human
These are the same foundations that the surveillance of kids today is build on. It is the same reasoning just further down the slope (enabled by technology).
You probably also knew friends that did not have to call their parents at the same frequency (or more).
Let's be honest that was the average of that day, and today the average is tracking location at any time. If your mom was taking the average measures in that environment she would probably exercise the average measures in the current day environment.
I'm not saying that it was bad. I am saying we should probably be careful with the balance between autonomy and tracking since the same reasoning is used with your mom having you call in vs the current day tracking.
I have heard people say "free range kids" about this.. the one that gets to me is the line of cars in front of each school now.. this is a different age
Some of that might be true, but I can assure you, people _really do_ want to prevent harm to their children. Most of the people I know who are using this stuff do it completely voluntarily, not because of how they will be seen, but because they genuinely want to increase safety for their child.
Maybe its not perfect, but most parents would give everything they have if it meant saving their child's life or health, so spending a few hundred at the chance is a no-brainer.
Seems like "people only wear seatbelts so that they won't get tickets" type of reasoning, which is true for some, but many (myself included) like the additional safety and wear it regardless of law enforcement. I do actually care about my safety and health, and will take reasonable measures for a chance to preserve it; and that same feeling extends to my children.
This is a classic short-term/long-term trade-off. Being informed at all times is gratifying in the moment. It is harmful for everyone, including the parent, long-term.
And seatbelts are one of the cases where it is good short-term and long-term, but you’re right, the same mechanic applies. No one wears a seatbelt because “over a lifetime. I have a lower chance of dying in a car crash“. We wear it because “I’m less likely to die today.“
Strange, I wear the belt because I believe it may save me some day over my lifetime. I have very little concern for it happening this particular day. Or at least I used to. Its just SOP now.
The problem is that protecting children overzealously in the short term can make them more vulnerable in the long term. By attempting to protect them from every concievable risk, real or imagined, you risk preventing them from developing the defences that they will need later in life.
> Maybe its not perfect, but most parents would give everything they have if it meant saving their child's life or health, so spending a few hundred at the chance is a no-brainer.
Any price? What about a portion of your child's development and autonomy?
> Some of that might be true, but I can assure you, people _really do_ want to prevent harm to their children.
They do, and they should. But due to the fact that this really is a legitimate concern in society, and always will be, it is also an infinitely renewable source of discontent that sways public opinion towards pursuing policies that don't actually help protect children. Nothing short of a total panopticon can prevent 100% of harm to children, if even that. Yet saying "we will have less visibility into the safety of children if we choose to do this instead" is seen in the current climate as one of the most distasteful things you can say. So people are afraid to speak up and find alternatives.
Anything short of absolute perfection in child safety is seen as a total disaster that merits the sacrifice of autonomy to prevent the next disaster just around the corner.
People have become very fearful. Here in the UK people (especially people on social media!) express fears about letting their children have the same freedom they had as children because "its so dangerous now".
Crime rates are far lower, road accident fatalities and injuries are far lower, but people are a lot more afraid of both of them.
> Seems like "people only wear seatbelts so that they won't get tickets" type of reasoning, which is true for some, but many (myself included) like the additional safety and wear it regardless of law enforcement
I wore them and made by kids wear them even in a country where they were not required by law. Admittedly I had become accustomed to wearing them in a country where they were required.
That's not an adequate comparison. A ticket is simple. Child services (in the US) is very powerful and complex. I would easily choose to risk my life and a ticket over risking child endangerment or neglect charges and possibly even having them sent to a foster home.
I agree, but i was replying to a comment that made the comparison.
My other point is that it is also happening in the UK where a lot of people do the same without the same fear of child services, so i think its a cultural change that is common to both countries.
I think the problem is that parental instincts are protective, and it takes a conscious effort to let go. Its easier if you understand enough maths to weigh up the risks rationally.
And not just dog owners; car drivers are apparently invulnerable to criticism or shame as well. Big SUVs have been demonstrated to kill children; people buy them, they don't care. Driving fast has been demonstrated to kill children; people speed, they don't care. They think it will never happen to them, as they believe themselves to be Good People, and getting to their destination fast in their nice big car is important to them, and any attempt to curtail that an affront to their freedom.
And when they mow children down, as statistically some of them always will, it's then always described as "an accident", as though performed by some capricious god beyond all human control.
And yet we know the damage Meta, amongst others, knowingly inflict on children and young adults. We know about the poison that is a modern diet and sedentary lifestyle. We see suicides going up.
Both your points and mine can be true at the same time.
"If you don't buy a $300 sensor or track your kid's location every second, they subtly make you feel like an irresponsible parent."
It's not just marketing - the laws are getting more and more restrictive too. Not having some tracking on your kid starts to be used against people in court cases (criminal or civil). The think of tha children crowd has the ear of law enforcement and prosecutors.
It touches on it a bunch of times, most of it falling under the umbrella of how constant surveillance does not teach kids how to be independent and capable of functioning on their own as an adult as well as they should be.
I generally agree but would love to see data on it. I know some adults who had little oversight as kids and they became very independent, while others did not because they knew they could just have their parents fix things later for them even if they weren't there. It seems money related to me. Something like the saying of I know how to do so many things because I can't afford to hire someone to do it for me.
It seems to me that there are many people who never really grew up, never had a struggle that only they could solve or a situation where they were responsible for somthing that could cause great damage (and they cared). Many people just seem to defer to someone else - just call the guy to fix things, repeat their political stances from the "news" (talk show) they perfer, etc. As the percentage of voters who share this mindset increases, this is not a future I look forward to.
Surveillance from parents while I disagree with it is about protecting the child. Surveillance from companies/state is about protecting the company/state not the individual being surveilled.
You assume the parents have good intentions - not all do. You also assumes the state is protecting itself and not the innocent people they claim. Even if I agree, I think it's worth pointing out the biases.
It's not making them better prepared for it at all. Surveillance from parents is about providing safety for the child, if the child grows up confusing surveillance with a sense of safety that's the opposite of prepared.
I am old enough to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the time people in the west were shocked at the level of surveillance that we found had been going on in East Germany.
Now we accept a greater level of surveillance as normal for ourselves.
My cousin still tracks her 23-year-old daughter's location - I thought that was bananas, but in this article there's a 29-year-old who's being tracked by her mother. WTF???
I have nearly the exact same situation. I like being able to see when my mom is visiting my sister or some other place we used to go, and I like my mom being able to see what I'm up to, like when I visit museums or parks. Sometimes on a phone call she'll say "I saw you visited ...some place... so I looked it up online. Did you know ...something interesting about it...?"
Exactly my take. There can be a privacy and trust issue with tracking and location sharing, but the way my wife and I use it, it's a very casual thing so I can see if she's on her way home yet or something like that without having to have her text me while she drives.
Is it okay to track phones if you pay the bill? Want to be independent, they buy your phone and pay the bill. Is it okay to track you if you are driving a vehicle titled in my name and insured by me? Yes!
Can you give a justification for either of those things? Would you not let your older child be on your phone plan or drive your car under your insurance 20 years ago because both of these things weren't really trackable back then? If you would, what changed? I simply don't get what 'lesson' this is meant to impart on them.
First, I responded to examples of 23 and 29 year olds. Second, I pay for my adult children's phones and don't track their locations, but I would if they asked me. They have lost phones and mentioned that they should at least setup find-my-phone and give access to someone. I would let them track me, but I'm still using a flip phone.
Vehicle insurance and owner liability is a whole different topic. I prefer to have them hold title and therefore liability, even if I were to give them the money to purchase and insure.
I don't see how that follows, at all. You can pay the bill and not track them. Do you have them hand over their phone everyday to check their Internet history because you pay the bill? If you don't want to pay their bill, don't, but spying on your kids isn't justified and is a weird control issue.
As I responded below, I do pay but have never tracked. The point is if you want to be independent of a parent that does not respect your privacy, then pay for own cell plan.
Absolutely, unequivocally: I reject this line of thinking.
My parents were these types of people. It's bullying. A grown adult with a degree and full-time job justifying this behavior is ridiculous. Where does a kid with a part-time minimum wage job and undeveloped brain get the money to afford a fully independent life? They simply can't and the adult saying that knows it. It's a way to feel good about exerting power.
If a person is so perturbed at the idea of providing something to their child while simultaneously not having full surveillance into its use, they should've worn a condom. People like this make stupid decisions, have a kid as a result, and then make it the kid's problem that they exist in this world.
Unfortunately, some parents don't understand the idea of respecting boundaries of their child. It is _their_ child after all. An object to do with what they wish.
I do see that you yourself do not do this thankfully. But that logic is still incredibly flawed and perverse in my opinion.
I think the problem here is what are you supposed to do with very low probability really bad events. I.e. your kid being kidnapped or similar. The probability of this extremely low, but it is unimaginatively bad. Therefore any small thing you do that will reduce the chance of this happening may seem reasonable.
It is not clear to me how to think about this rationally.
I don't know that it is possible to think rationally about things like that. It will always be a challenge for parents.
IMHO the key question is: what do you with that fear? If you let it rule you, there is a high risk of becoming such a controlling and overprotective parent that the child never gets the real-world experience that they need in order to survive.
I have seen many real-life cases of parents who were way too overprotective, out of a motivation of love and concern. But it really hurt the children because while they were kept safe, they hadn't developed a lot of street smarts. By the time they then ended up in college, they were a ripe target for predators.
Timeless problem faced by probably every halfway decent parent that ever lived.
Kids now teens. We never had a tv. Only let them watch dvd on laptop. Never allowed them on tiktok. Never gave them surveillance watches (kiddyzoom). I also did not have whatsapp, or even carried my phone half of the time.
They hated us for it. Other parents called us crazy. “They should learn how to handle social media!” And now their kids are unmanageable and ours thank us for shielding them.
They should learn how to handle reality before being inundated with an endless overwhelming deluge of unreality, outright bullshit, and lies. Kudos to you for giving them that chance.
In a world where heroin is normalized, it might be a good idea
A similar question as the European vs American approach to handling alcohol. In Europe (vast oversimplification incoming, big continent with lots of cultures and jurisdictions) it's normal to drink beer the first time by 14, in the presence of your parents, and are typically able to buy it freely at around 16. In the US (oversimplification incoming) you typically have your first experience with alcohol in secret, or binge-drinking once you are 21 and free from your parents. The European version typically results in more alcohol being consumed, but in healthier habits
One crux is that this only works if the parents are actually using alcohol/social media in a healthy way. A heroin addict can't teach their children how to responsibly use heroin
> In Europe (vast oversimplification incoming, big continent with lots of cultures and jurisdictions) it's normal to drink beer the first time by 14, in the presence of your parents, and are typically able to buy it freely at around 16.
You did disclaim about this, but my understanding is that most European countries no longer allow you to buy alcohol before you’re 18 (but with some major exceptions like Germany and Belgium). Culturally, you are however quite spot on.
A lot of the information is from back in the time where opium was legal but most people are not very receptive to opioids. They feel sick and tripping balls and would
not repeat the experience if offered.
It is a very particular kind of person who gets addicted right away.
Of course, in a social context where consumption is expected, many more may reach the point where they keep consuming in order to stave off withdrawal.
Minimizing screens has been shown to have a massive effect on children, positively.
At the same time children are exposed to things and if they don't know how to navigate it, it's critical.
I take small people through what the screens and computers are trying to do their brains and then ask them to watch their brain watching the thing that catches their interest.
It could be someone's smart watch, someone's phone, or a tv.
One time a small humanoid self reported to me that sugar makes them want to have more sugar, and some screens seem to do the same thing, but other screens don't make them feel bad.
I agree - it wasn't that we'd block them from tech without explaining. We take our little people seriously. We always saw them as inexperienced, not dumb. And turns out that if you take people seriously, they return in kind.
So we'd sit them down and discuss what Meta et al were doing to them. And why we thought that was a bad idea. They still hated us for haha but a little less I guess. Rephrase: they still thought it was unfair because their friends got to be on tiktok 24/7 and they couldn't even get a phone.
We told them 'life is not fair', and other parents were ignorant of the dangers but that didn't make the dangers any less.
I don't know - maybe we just got lucky with our kids.
Oh, I want to be very clear. Children absolutely need to be protected, period. The algorithms are completely self-serving and predatory to get and keep people watching, and they do not care.
The simple proof is how impossible it is to even create a single playlist for children on YouTube. The brands actively create more and more official channels to offset parents who are saying to not show a channel in their feed anymore.
You have a great point about what other children do you or don't do. The Every Family is Different Angle is one that I like and also that people who know how to talk to each other will be more able to lead themselves and others compared to anyone who just listens and watches all the time.
There are so many dangers out there and really especially with AI now able to ramp up everything, those dangers are going to increase and there's going to be something needed because otherwise the entire world directly or indirectly is coming into the little screens and little brains unfiltered and unmanaged.
> They hated us for it. Other parents called us crazy. “They should learn how to handle social media!” And now their kids are unmanageable and ours thank us for shielding them.
Life's about boundaries, if you don't set them for your kids they won't grow properly and other people will have to explain them the rules (or they'll be parasites their whole life)
if you set the boundaries on their behalf, they just learn dependence and not how to establish boundaries for themselves. let them get in trouble while they're kids. as soon as they move out or go off to college, they'll be wise not to get caught and to be responsible for themselves if they've had practice doing it already. otherwise, like several people I grew up with, they'll go off the rails and flunk out because they don't have any self discipline and the freedom they were denied their whole childhood was intoxicating
When was the crossover point, when they stopped hating you for it and started thanking you? And what was the specific thank you about? Not wasting their time with tiktok junk, or helping protect their developing brains from addictive slop?
The earliest time they expressed gratitude instead of annoyance at the boundaries was (I think) when they were 13 and 14. Their friends and classmates would be on snap at 04:00am on schoolnights, endlessly argueing and namecalling and drama. The youngest was really gratefull that she could be on snapchat, but only for a short period of time, and never after 19:00.
And this week they both said how thankfull they had so few advertisements in their lives. Because we block with pi-hole and ublock origin, and showed them how online ads work and how to avoid them.
(Sidenote: If you have kids: talk to your teachers and schools and ask to setup firefox+ublock origin on their classroom computer. Or just install 'brave'. All teachers use youtube during classes. With ads. You will be lifted to instant hero status for blocking those.)
I don't think GP described the "bare minimum". Sounds like he went above and beyond to keep bad stuff at bay, and probably took some heat from his kids about it. I hope to be as thoughtful, thorough, and successful with my parenting.
I did not go so far, but things were not as bad when mine were younger (the younger one is 18 now). We did not have a TV, and for a long time they had desktops, and they got phones are teenagers.
It has got crazy. I recently read an article by a journalist whose son had just started university who was watching his tracking app and worrying when he did not get out of bed on time. Not as old as the 29 year old in the article, but she said she could not concentrate on her work because she was worried he would missing things. There are Whatsapp groups for parents at some universities - apparently discussing your now adult child with a group of strangers is normal.
I asked my daughter (also at her first term at university right now) what she though of the idea of having a tracking app on her phone, and (as I expected) there was no way to tolerate this. I think children who have been tracked normalise this. IMO is stalking once they are adults.
I think the perception that kids (or adults!) need constant entertainment is also harmful.
When my kids went away to college it was something of a relief. They were on their own. I would not know where they were, who they were with, how late they were staying out, or any of the stuff I was much more aware of when they were living at home.
I never GPS tracked them even when they were younger. They got cheap Android smartphones in 8th grade, with a talk about what to watch out for. I didn't read their email or text messages, I didn't lurk on their school website checking grades every day. If a teacher or administrator emailed me, I'd deal with that, but otherwise I tried to let them learn to run their lives. They made some mistakes. That's how you grow.
> They hated us for it. Other parents called us crazy.
When did this start? And what ages did they start to appreciate the shielding?
Mine are 7 and 10 now and we don't have any complaints... at least not yet. But I feel like parents around us are pretty aware of the dangers here. I'm not seeing their peers getting phones yet; maybe some smart watches. Definitely not social media. We had a principal mention "wait until 8th" at a back-to school meeting and receive enthusiastic applause.
I'm wondering if the culture is catching up, or if they're just a little too young and the pressure is still incoming.
When they were about 13 and 14 they started to appreciate what they had. Both girls shun Insta and TikTok. They get angry when people take pictures without their permission.
The hardest period was when they were 10-13 I think. Because around that time all other kids got their own phones without any screentime limitations, or app store limitations. We'd hear about their friends being on tiktok and snap until 03:00am on schoolnights. Our kids were really jealous about that. But to us, it was like other parents had forgotten that they could actually... you know... parent.
Did you have landlines? I want my kid to just walk over to his friend's place whenever he wants, but while most parents are coming around to having kids without cellphones they all live in extremely un-walkable neighborhoods.
I’m seeing more retro-style tech spring up for kids. We just got one of these for the kiddo: https://tincan.kids/ and have found out several other parents have them so there’s a small but growing network of kid landlines forming.
Even without purpose-built things like TinCan, most "landlines" these days... aren't. My parents' house is wired for telephony, but the backhaul is 5G. A box in the house serves as the uplink between the 5G network and the "landline" phones throughout the house.
You literally need to give your kids a phone now.
They need to login to school apps to complete their assignments and similar cases.
Yours probably grew up in the interim time before these tools became mandatory.
But: they have phones. Since they were about 12. But with screentime, with us controlling the apps, without tiktok, behind a pi-hole and pivpn. With the initial agreement that we - the grown ups - were _always_ allowed to open their phone and look at any content.
For the past year or so the eldest doesn't have any screentime limitations anymore, but she still does not use insta or tiktok.
What we did was constantly explain our decisions. And showed them how boundaries were there for protection, not holding back. And if they showed us that they could handle lifting of a boundary we would lift a boundary.
Other parents in our neighbourhood just gave phones to their kids at age 11 and never set boundaries. Those kids now take pictures of girls in their classroom, and turn them into nudes. And send them around large groups on snapchat. Police was involved. But I look at the parents. Kids _need_ boundaries.
We pointed out to ours the peers who watch shorts in a doom loop and how they are shaping up to be losers, that pretty much set them straight. But a lot depends on a person too, how competitive they are or how prone to addictive behaviors.
Back about 15 or so years ago, I heard from colleagues and even my sister about how they banned kids from the stupid that was readily available on television. Their kids would be forbidden, for instance, from watching Hannah Montana, or even the entire Disney Channel and/or Nickelodeon. When my nephew was little, Caillou was forbidden to him. I was impressed with these parents' gutsiness and willingness to take action to protect their kids from harmful slop.
Banning kids from social media seems to be the present-day equivalent of that and I commend you.
Here's another one for ya: we also forbade them from watching Barbie. They are, to this day, pissed about that hahaha.
And recently they confessed that they sneakily watched once in a while. :-D
So they got the boundary. Found it to be unjust. Tested it. Crossed it. Got away with it. Grew from that. All without having to steal lipstick, smoke joints, or drink themselves into a coma.
Maybe you did other things right too. Like listening to them. Spending time with them. Passing your genes. Who knows what else. Maybe you’re "just" great parents.
We are. I think. :) We have a great many faults and suck at a great many things. But parenting is not one of those.
We decided early on to treat them as inexperienced tiny teammembers. So many little tricks and nuances. Learned a lot from the book "How 2 Talk 2 Kids".
Like: don't refer to yourself as "Mommy" or "Daddy". Instead use "I": "I'm going to cook dinner now", not "Daddy's going to cook dinner now".
Or: don't tell them what to do, but point out the problem: "Oh, look, those shoes are now blocking my way to the kitchen. Could you help me out?"
(Use that last one at work too. ;-))
But yeah - tiny teammembers because we are a team. We are not against them. Therefor they don't need to fight us. Instead we fight alongside them. And they seem to realize that.
But I'll post back in this thread in 15 years and we'll see how it all turned out by then. ;-)
I don't know if I follow your exact philosophy but one thing I've never done: baby talk. Kid talk? Whatever you want to call it.
I talk to my kids like I talk to other people. "Go to the bathroom" is the notable example. By no means a pro and many flaws in my process.
Frankly, I think the best thing you teach them is not how to do or not do anything but instead the implications of thoughts and actions and what it means to handle and feel comfortable with their choices.
Mine are 8.5 and 4.5. They watch TV like plenty of kids. Rarely used iPads, and my older kid uses a laptop here and there. I will not let them use my phone casually.
But I don't think that them not using it is teaching them much about the phone. Instead it's about opportunity. Do something else! READ, draw, write, sketch, paint, run, craft, build, talk. I'm working on teaching my oldest how to be, well, bored.
I’d like to hear more, if you don’t mind, about your kids’ experience:
1. At what age did they start recognizing your rules benefited them (and start tanking you)
2. Was it a daily nonstop fight to keep telling them “no” to these things?
3. Did your kids feel sincerely ostracized and, if so, for how long?
My boys are 16 and 14, we tried to limit screen time when they were younger but weren’t militant about it. Both are doing fine, good students, and humans. They have had phones since 6th grade and social media but their day-to-day use is more in group iMessage chats and meeting up with friends to play games.
It's probably just not so black and white. Every kid is different and I think you just have to observe how they handle different mediums. If I had a kid that really struggles with peer pressure, why would I put them in a situation where it's likely to be heavily amplified (i.e. social media)? But maybe other kids handle it just fine.
FWIW, I let my boys spend a good chunk of hours on video games because I would be a hypocrite otherwise. But there comes a point when their behavior takes a turn for the worse (I mean after so much video game time) that I end up taking it away for awhile. All things in moderation and such.
I doubt it’s so easy. More likely they’ll overtly break rules and violate norms with no sense of shame or embarrassment, like…(the future is here, just not evenly distributed)
Youth crime started declining in the mid 90s, far before the modern surveillance boom. What it did correlate with was an explosion in the availability of accessible and affordable at-home entertainment. e.g kids playing inside instead of finding trouble out in the streets.
The thing is the parents normalizing this kind of intrusion of privacy think they are in the right while creating a very dangerous world. Even things like going through your kids rooms (yes even when they live at home) is a huge privacy violation.
No wonder the "but think of the kids" argument is so effective, we all grew up being propagandized by or own parents and environment.
Privacy feels like such an innate desire. Your mention of parents going through your room brought back a few negative emotions tied to a few memories, where my mom either came to me with something she found in my room, or walked into my room and went directly to where something was hidden and pulled it out (indicating that she had already been snooping in my room and found it). Thinking about it, I realized that's one of the reasons I started hiding things where my parents couldn't easily get to them, like in the rafters in the garage, or in various forts and hideouts I created in the neighborhood.
> like in the rafters in the garage, or in various forts and hideouts
No imagine your parents tracking you going into the garage every time or to specific hideouts.
Privacy is in my opinion one of the most important human rights that exist and the most frequently diminished or ignored, especially around parent/kid relations. Hence why it is a part of the UDHR (universal declaration of human rights).
With regards to kid/parent relation we are often too lenient as a society. One good measurement that you can keep in the back of your head to judge a kids invasion of privacy is the following question "If this kid was suffering from abusive parents, would this allow the parent to intervene the kid reaching out?".
The earlier you can accept that you'll be perceived as evil to your child for about a decade... the better your child's adulthood will be, and the likelier you'll have mentally healthy great grandchildren.
Both of my parents grew up in very small houses with a lot of children, and my wife shared a room with her sister. I'd guess that the vast majority of humanity now, and certainly in the past, had very little individual privacy because there was no room!
It seems like a modern luxury in western suburban living. Nice if if you can get it, I suppose.
I think there’s a difference between privacy being a challenge (your example) versus a situation where privacy is actively undermined and disrespected (OP’s example).
It’s like accidentally ending up in the background of someone’s photo at a public park versus someone actively following and taking photos of you. Or sharing a room with a sibling versus that same sibling digging through a personal journal.
I find that violent and bad behavior is shifted to environments without surveillance with both children and parents. The verbal and physical abuse is not on camera and is amplified off camera. They know this, they just don't care.
There was a time when I liked having intricate data about things because it was interesting for me to learn about my own world. That rosy-eyed picture was polluted by surveillance capitalism, and it's gotten to the point where I'd often rather write things down on paper or in a markdown or yaml doc rather than use an tracker app, just because I know that my own hand-written data isn't one profile in a global data set used to squeeze value out of me.
Also, after reading the free part of the article, I propose the word "pramopticon".
Technically, the wristband dream isn't totally dead. Like you said, the real poison pill is internet access. As long as tech is physically walled off from bad actors who really really really want to take a look at it, it's not impossible. But as 'the future' comes for us all, the idea of computerized, but not connected devices becomes more of a pipe dream.
It could happen given the reverse engineering efforts that are possible with the LLMs.
I think there will be a nice time window before all hardware is released with some sort of DRM, and while losses from people who reject the surveillance (similar to AdBlock) are small enough, where you will be able to hack this hardware to run for yourself only.
Childhood surveillance may become a very lucrative proving ground for new tech. The usual outrage about privacy don't apply here because of a combination of a very helicopter parenting-friendly society and a common understanding the even older children have zero latitude in making any choices for themselves and are owned by their parents and institutions, who can at any point choose to force them into any new schemes.
I think the next direction these surveillance companies are going to head into is even more invasive aggregation and processing. Instead of just giving parents a basic rundown of what's happening now, have phones record every spoken word and then mine it for sentiment analysis to reveal hidden thoughts and opinions. Schools could deploy software onto all students that tracks everything they say to each other on school property, which then could be used to build social graphs, identify misbehavior, rank social cohesion and obedience to understand which groups are good and bad influences - with all this data immediately provided to teachers and parents so they can take action. Once this is normalized, it will come for us all, just a bit more covertly.
Some of that baby phase and younger kid stuff in the article sounds pretty insane.
My daughter is a teenager and I appreciate being able to look at her phone's location when I pick her up from a place. I don't tend to monitor her phone use, occasionally I will check it out but the "deal" I have with her makes sure she understands she is an individual and I respect her individuality. I have a few apps blocked.
The individual might be back to the 90s, but the rest of society and the environment is not. E.g. kids in the 90s just had to carry a few quarters and they could use a payphone if they really needed to call home. Today payphones have virtually disappeared.
> Once the kids realize their parents are tracking their location with the phone, the answer is easy: ditch the phone.
In the "One Battle After Another" movie there was a (semi)funny subplot about this, except in the other direction, the parent wanted the kid to ditch the phone, and the kid had a secret one.
Oddly enough when I was 9 I regularly went places without a phone. If I needed to reach my family I’d have to find a pay phone and hope someone was at home to answer.
The general backup plan was to go to the nearest friends’ house.
Yeah the difference is that kids now don't really remember phone numbers (neither do I anymore honestly), and pay phones are basically non-existent
I wish kids could go out like I used to but the world is just different and some of the failsafes I took for granted like payphones don't exist anymore
> You can tell them not to do stupid things all day, but life finds a way, and I want them fully equipped when it happens.
Mine's following her uncle's footsteps: he's BJJ black belt (and instructor) and she's into her 4th year of BJJ. She already dislocated another person's arm (another teenager who wanted to "see if BJJ works").
The goal is not to overpower a 25 y/old muscular man: but to win her just enough time to be able to ring an alarm/pass a distress call, grab her pepper spray in her purse, etc.
I trust her and she can do all the crazy shit teenagers do she wants to do: it's some of the others I don't trust.
The tracking is normalized, and they're going to grow up to be adults that both tolerate and impose oppressive surveillance that we couldn't even imagine today.
There are things parents will not want teens to do that teens will want to do. They will not want to feel pressure to even explain themselves after the fact.
That sounds orthogonal to device management to me. It will happen either way, and not having GPS tracking won't stop parents from catching their kids doing stuff they don't want them to (at least if it's a recurring thing)
People here seem to completely overlook that parents have been managing the whole life of their kid for more than a decade and teenagers are really bad at hiding things in general. Perhaps it's different if the parents are working three jobs and never talk to their kid, but I don't see that as a general case.
> most people just talk it out and find some convenient balance
That is decidedly not the way I've seen most people handle the convenience/privacy tradeoffs we all face every hour of every day. So I'll put a question mark on that..
Really ? Kids in family plans will have their devices bound to an admin, and that admin has a lot of rights on their devices, purchases etc (that's the whole point)
I can't imagine every family setting up the admin features to be in psychological crisis.
No it just normalizes being tracked as the price of admission to using these tools.
So they'll keep the phones and accept being tracked and just hold onto a certain amount of anxiety and resentment. Woo
196 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 54.0 ms ] threadIt's actually sad for kids. In childhood being able to stay out a bit longer, solve sudden problems without calling mom, or just sit alone taught you how to cope with the world. But if someone monitors a child all the way to their college dorm door, it's unclear how they're supposed to develop personal autonomy at all
none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
my hesitation is from knowing these _dont_ work: by the time airtag shows where someone actually is that isnt a 500m circle, you can see them with your analog eyes :/
When I was about 8 years old I was allowed to go with the bus by myself between my mom and my dad.
I can remember two times I fell asleep on the bus, and ended up some other place, and had to figure out how to get home from there, by myself.
I'm sure of the technology was available at the time, my mom would have placed an airtag on me, and without a doubt, would have seen me miss my bus-stop and jumped into her car to pick me up wherever I ended up. Bless her heart, but I'd miss the opportunity of figuring it out by myself.
Of course, just one silly example, but I could see if this was constantly happening, a child might get accustomed to this "saving" being automatic, and not even trying to solve things yourself because you know your parent will come save the day. Until they don't, of course.
if it involved asking a business (car service in my case) to let you use their phone, or already having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom... thats an airtag :)
> a child might get accustomed to this "saving" being automatic
i dont fear a perfectly functioning society; im an adult and am also used to 911/999/etc being available. some people watch Demolition Man and get the wrong idea...
No. An airtag works for your mom no matter if you want it or not, some payphone on the street places the agency about calling help into your hands.
I had enough coins for 2 phone calls in a sealed envelope in my school bag for emergencies - probably still in the bottom of my bag wherever it may be.
How so? Mom has no way to know where you are until you initiate the call. Isn’t a big part of the developmental point to have kids recognize they’re lost on their own and then ask for help from a friendly stranger? What’s the ‘no airtag’ scenario you imagine?
Do you want to install an app on your phone that will track you and your online activities for the government? They won't interfere, they just want to know what you're up to and help. Children are people and want some privacy too. I know I did.
It instills a Panopticum-like philosophy in said kids since their very early ages, meaning they become aware that they're being watched at every moment of their lives. In my opinion that does affect said kids' future look on life (once they will have become adults, that is).
Technically true. However I think there is a very small percentage of parents that can keep themselves from interrupting in such a situation. Actually I think it leads to a slippery slope situation (the article calls it a downward spiral) where the interruptions will be easier to make the more you do it as a parent. The only question remaining is how high up the slope do you start and how fast do you slip?
I was a kid who wandered. Sometimes through bear infested forests at night. Sometimes through abandoned factories with collapsing roofs. Sometimes to the homes of people my parents strongly disapproved of.
I lived. So did pretty much everyone else. I had a few significant fuck-ups. I learned from them, and didn't repeat them. In my childhood, I knew one kid who died from misadventure - grain silo - and many who died from disease - meningitis, cancer, sepsis. Perhaps parents should keep their children in protective plastic bubbles, if they're going to be consistent about it.
My kid - no tracking, and autonomy that I see makes other parents writhe with discomfort, as they're like "she'll be stolen! Her kidneys!", and I'm going "you guys don't understand statistics, and your kids are going to live with you until you die, and lead stunted lives".
So parents keep their children indoors for fear of being arrested from them crossing the street on their own. Politicians are unable to renege on "child safety" laws because the populace will believe they are harming children and vote them out.
But these things work the way they are because of the social consequences embedded in our culture, caused by the perceived harm to children from inaction.
Datum vs Data, again.
Of course parents being more restrictive with their kids may well be one of the reasons why the number has gone down (there are many confounding factors).
[1] and, at first glance, most of Europe https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Verkeh... (pages 53 onwards among others)
[2] +40% more cars, in absolute terms, than in 1990!! Crazy.
You're not helping them if when they go off to college they don't know how to be a cautious pedestrian.
And this situation was not unique to me, my friends all had basically the same thing going on with minor differences. And like, I dunno maybe this is a reach, but these were the foundations that IMO made me a responsible human, who is able to move and function in the world autonomously, and it seems like newer generations of kiddos are really struggling with that in particular. Perhaps these are connected?
Let's be honest that was the average of that day, and today the average is tracking location at any time. If your mom was taking the average measures in that environment she would probably exercise the average measures in the current day environment.
I'm not saying that it was bad. I am saying we should probably be careful with the balance between autonomy and tracking since the same reasoning is used with your mom having you call in vs the current day tracking.
Maybe its not perfect, but most parents would give everything they have if it meant saving their child's life or health, so spending a few hundred at the chance is a no-brainer.
Seems like "people only wear seatbelts so that they won't get tickets" type of reasoning, which is true for some, but many (myself included) like the additional safety and wear it regardless of law enforcement. I do actually care about my safety and health, and will take reasonable measures for a chance to preserve it; and that same feeling extends to my children.
And seatbelts are one of the cases where it is good short-term and long-term, but you’re right, the same mechanic applies. No one wears a seatbelt because “over a lifetime. I have a lower chance of dying in a car crash“. We wear it because “I’m less likely to die today.“
Regulation and technical improvements can do a lot for road safety
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Killed_on_British_Roads_1...
Any price? What about a portion of your child's development and autonomy?
They do, and they should. But due to the fact that this really is a legitimate concern in society, and always will be, it is also an infinitely renewable source of discontent that sways public opinion towards pursuing policies that don't actually help protect children. Nothing short of a total panopticon can prevent 100% of harm to children, if even that. Yet saying "we will have less visibility into the safety of children if we choose to do this instead" is seen in the current climate as one of the most distasteful things you can say. So people are afraid to speak up and find alternatives.
Anything short of absolute perfection in child safety is seen as a total disaster that merits the sacrifice of autonomy to prevent the next disaster just around the corner.
Crime rates are far lower, road accident fatalities and injuries are far lower, but people are a lot more afraid of both of them.
> Seems like "people only wear seatbelts so that they won't get tickets" type of reasoning, which is true for some, but many (myself included) like the additional safety and wear it regardless of law enforcement
I wore them and made by kids wear them even in a country where they were not required by law. Admittedly I had become accustomed to wearing them in a country where they were required.
In both cases occurance rates should be low.
My other point is that it is also happening in the UK where a lot of people do the same without the same fear of child services, so i think its a cultural change that is common to both countries.
To what point though? Overprotective upbringings could delay development or produce adults lacking development in critical areas.
I think the problem is that parental instincts are protective, and it takes a conscious effort to let go. Its easier if you understand enough maths to weigh up the risks rationally.
And yet it is so endlessly frustrating what genuinely harmful, awful practices persist anyway.
Not really. Dog owners hurt children all the time, we have zero problems blaming 3 years old for "provoking" an adult!
They were scared and acted in self defense!
Child deserved to go to hospital! Hopefully it learned valuable lesson to respect dog owners and treat them better!
And when they mow children down, as statistically some of them always will, it's then always described as "an accident", as though performed by some capricious god beyond all human control.
Both your points and mine can be true at the same time.
It's not just marketing - the laws are getting more and more restrictive too. Not having some tracking on your kid starts to be used against people in court cases (criminal or civil). The think of tha children crowd has the ear of law enforcement and prosecutors.
It seems to me that there are many people who never really grew up, never had a struggle that only they could solve or a situation where they were responsible for somthing that could cause great damage (and they cared). Many people just seem to defer to someone else - just call the guy to fix things, repeat their political stances from the "news" (talk show) they perfer, etc. As the percentage of voters who share this mindset increases, this is not a future I look forward to.
It's very different.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709250/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yef_HfQoBd8
Some episodes seem just a bit too much. And then, just like that, rumours of David Cameron fucking a pig come to light.
I find the the constant surveillance of our online, and increasingly of our offline, lives infuriating and push back when I can.
Twenty years from now perhaps it will all be accepted as perfectly normal, and I'll be an old man yelling at clouds.
I am old enough to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the time people in the west were shocked at the level of surveillance that we found had been going on in East Germany.
Now we accept a greater level of surveillance as normal for ourselves.
Vehicle insurance and owner liability is a whole different topic. I prefer to have them hold title and therefore liability, even if I were to give them the money to purchase and insure.
if you have a corporate cell phone it's telling on you. they pay for it, they have the right to track and read anything your doing on it.
My parents were these types of people. It's bullying. A grown adult with a degree and full-time job justifying this behavior is ridiculous. Where does a kid with a part-time minimum wage job and undeveloped brain get the money to afford a fully independent life? They simply can't and the adult saying that knows it. It's a way to feel good about exerting power.
If a person is so perturbed at the idea of providing something to their child while simultaneously not having full surveillance into its use, they should've worn a condom. People like this make stupid decisions, have a kid as a result, and then make it the kid's problem that they exist in this world.
Unfortunately, some parents don't understand the idea of respecting boundaries of their child. It is _their_ child after all. An object to do with what they wish.
I do see that you yourself do not do this thankfully. But that logic is still incredibly flawed and perverse in my opinion.
IMHO the key question is: what do you with that fear? If you let it rule you, there is a high risk of becoming such a controlling and overprotective parent that the child never gets the real-world experience that they need in order to survive.
I have seen many real-life cases of parents who were way too overprotective, out of a motivation of love and concern. But it really hurt the children because while they were kept safe, they hadn't developed a lot of street smarts. By the time they then ended up in college, they were a ripe target for predators.
Timeless problem faced by probably every halfway decent parent that ever lived.
They hated us for it. Other parents called us crazy. “They should learn how to handle social media!” And now their kids are unmanageable and ours thank us for shielding them.
They should learn how to handle reality before being inundated with an endless overwhelming deluge of unreality, outright bullshit, and lies. Kudos to you for giving them that chance.
A similar question as the European vs American approach to handling alcohol. In Europe (vast oversimplification incoming, big continent with lots of cultures and jurisdictions) it's normal to drink beer the first time by 14, in the presence of your parents, and are typically able to buy it freely at around 16. In the US (oversimplification incoming) you typically have your first experience with alcohol in secret, or binge-drinking once you are 21 and free from your parents. The European version typically results in more alcohol being consumed, but in healthier habits
One crux is that this only works if the parents are actually using alcohol/social media in a healthy way. A heroin addict can't teach their children how to responsibly use heroin
You did disclaim about this, but my understanding is that most European countries no longer allow you to buy alcohol before you’re 18 (but with some major exceptions like Germany and Belgium). Culturally, you are however quite spot on.
It is a very particular kind of person who gets addicted right away.
Of course, in a social context where consumption is expected, many more may reach the point where they keep consuming in order to stave off withdrawal.
Those were the literal words we used!
At the same time children are exposed to things and if they don't know how to navigate it, it's critical.
I take small people through what the screens and computers are trying to do their brains and then ask them to watch their brain watching the thing that catches their interest.
It could be someone's smart watch, someone's phone, or a tv.
One time a small humanoid self reported to me that sugar makes them want to have more sugar, and some screens seem to do the same thing, but other screens don't make them feel bad.
So we'd sit them down and discuss what Meta et al were doing to them. And why we thought that was a bad idea. They still hated us for haha but a little less I guess. Rephrase: they still thought it was unfair because their friends got to be on tiktok 24/7 and they couldn't even get a phone.
We told them 'life is not fair', and other parents were ignorant of the dangers but that didn't make the dangers any less.
I don't know - maybe we just got lucky with our kids.
The simple proof is how impossible it is to even create a single playlist for children on YouTube. The brands actively create more and more official channels to offset parents who are saying to not show a channel in their feed anymore.
You have a great point about what other children do you or don't do. The Every Family is Different Angle is one that I like and also that people who know how to talk to each other will be more able to lead themselves and others compared to anyone who just listens and watches all the time.
There are so many dangers out there and really especially with AI now able to ramp up everything, those dangers are going to increase and there's going to be something needed because otherwise the entire world directly or indirectly is coming into the little screens and little brains unfiltered and unmanaged.
Life's about boundaries, if you don't set them for your kids they won't grow properly and other people will have to explain them the rules (or they'll be parasites their whole life)
That is not how that works.
When is the last time you wrote a “thanks for not letting get eaten by a shark” card?
Parents don’t get thanked for things that didn’t happen. If you are waiting around for that, you’re in the wrong care taking business!
> And now their kids are unmanageable and ours thank us for shielding them.
I'm not looking for thank-you's, I'm just looking to understand what GP meant when he said his kids thanked him.
And this week they both said how thankfull they had so few advertisements in their lives. Because we block with pi-hole and ublock origin, and showed them how online ads work and how to avoid them.
(Sidenote: If you have kids: talk to your teachers and schools and ask to setup firefox+ublock origin on their classroom computer. Or just install 'brave'. All teachers use youtube during classes. With ads. You will be lifted to instant hero status for blocking those.)
I wish more people would see the value it has in everyday life!
Thanks to the hundreds of people who didn't punch me in the face or ram me with their car today
It has got crazy. I recently read an article by a journalist whose son had just started university who was watching his tracking app and worrying when he did not get out of bed on time. Not as old as the 29 year old in the article, but she said she could not concentrate on her work because she was worried he would missing things. There are Whatsapp groups for parents at some universities - apparently discussing your now adult child with a group of strangers is normal.
I asked my daughter (also at her first term at university right now) what she though of the idea of having a tracking app on her phone, and (as I expected) there was no way to tolerate this. I think children who have been tracked normalise this. IMO is stalking once they are adults.
I think the perception that kids (or adults!) need constant entertainment is also harmful.
I never GPS tracked them even when they were younger. They got cheap Android smartphones in 8th grade, with a talk about what to watch out for. I didn't read their email or text messages, I didn't lurk on their school website checking grades every day. If a teacher or administrator emailed me, I'd deal with that, but otherwise I tried to let them learn to run their lives. They made some mistakes. That's how you grow.
When did this start? And what ages did they start to appreciate the shielding?
Mine are 7 and 10 now and we don't have any complaints... at least not yet. But I feel like parents around us are pretty aware of the dangers here. I'm not seeing their peers getting phones yet; maybe some smart watches. Definitely not social media. We had a principal mention "wait until 8th" at a back-to school meeting and receive enthusiastic applause.
I'm wondering if the culture is catching up, or if they're just a little too young and the pressure is still incoming.
The hardest period was when they were 10-13 I think. Because around that time all other kids got their own phones without any screentime limitations, or app store limitations. We'd hear about their friends being on tiktok and snap until 03:00am on schoolnights. Our kids were really jealous about that. But to us, it was like other parents had forgotten that they could actually... you know... parent.
But: they have phones. Since they were about 12. But with screentime, with us controlling the apps, without tiktok, behind a pi-hole and pivpn. With the initial agreement that we - the grown ups - were _always_ allowed to open their phone and look at any content.
For the past year or so the eldest doesn't have any screentime limitations anymore, but she still does not use insta or tiktok.
What we did was constantly explain our decisions. And showed them how boundaries were there for protection, not holding back. And if they showed us that they could handle lifting of a boundary we would lift a boundary.
Other parents in our neighbourhood just gave phones to their kids at age 11 and never set boundaries. Those kids now take pictures of girls in their classroom, and turn them into nudes. And send them around large groups on snapchat. Police was involved. But I look at the parents. Kids _need_ boundaries.
doubt that ppl care about you or your kids so much that they have feelings of hate towards you.
Banning kids from social media seems to be the present-day equivalent of that and I commend you.
And recently they confessed that they sneakily watched once in a while. :-D
So they got the boundary. Found it to be unjust. Tested it. Crossed it. Got away with it. Grew from that. All without having to steal lipstick, smoke joints, or drink themselves into a coma.
Honestly: wife and I are awesome at parenting.
Maybe you did other things right too. Like listening to them. Spending time with them. Passing your genes. Who knows what else. Maybe you’re "just" great parents.
We decided early on to treat them as inexperienced tiny teammembers. So many little tricks and nuances. Learned a lot from the book "How 2 Talk 2 Kids".
Like: don't refer to yourself as "Mommy" or "Daddy". Instead use "I": "I'm going to cook dinner now", not "Daddy's going to cook dinner now".
Or: don't tell them what to do, but point out the problem: "Oh, look, those shoes are now blocking my way to the kitchen. Could you help me out?"
(Use that last one at work too. ;-))
But yeah - tiny teammembers because we are a team. We are not against them. Therefor they don't need to fight us. Instead we fight alongside them. And they seem to realize that.
But I'll post back in this thread in 15 years and we'll see how it all turned out by then. ;-)
I talk to my kids like I talk to other people. "Go to the bathroom" is the notable example. By no means a pro and many flaws in my process.
Frankly, I think the best thing you teach them is not how to do or not do anything but instead the implications of thoughts and actions and what it means to handle and feel comfortable with their choices.
Mine are 8.5 and 4.5. They watch TV like plenty of kids. Rarely used iPads, and my older kid uses a laptop here and there. I will not let them use my phone casually.
But I don't think that them not using it is teaching them much about the phone. Instead it's about opportunity. Do something else! READ, draw, write, sketch, paint, run, craft, build, talk. I'm working on teaching my oldest how to be, well, bored.
Not talking about physical ailments, just tough personalities (mine)
I’d like to hear more, if you don’t mind, about your kids’ experience:
1. At what age did they start recognizing your rules benefited them (and start tanking you) 2. Was it a daily nonstop fight to keep telling them “no” to these things? 3. Did your kids feel sincerely ostracized and, if so, for how long?
Thanks!
Militant anti-technology parenting guarantees nothing.
Edit: as for tracking I only use findmy to time dinner from time to time (my oldest is driving)
FWIW, I let my boys spend a good chunk of hours on video games because I would be a hypocrite otherwise. But there comes a point when their behavior takes a turn for the worse (I mean after so much video game time) that I end up taking it away for awhile. All things in moderation and such.
I’m glad your kids turned out how you wanted them to, but I’d be careful jumping to conclusions.
It is going to be weird when the next generation of teenagers doesn’t rebel or break any rules at all
The thing is the parents normalizing this kind of intrusion of privacy think they are in the right while creating a very dangerous world. Even things like going through your kids rooms (yes even when they live at home) is a huge privacy violation.
No wonder the "but think of the kids" argument is so effective, we all grew up being propagandized by or own parents and environment.
Privacy is in my opinion one of the most important human rights that exist and the most frequently diminished or ignored, especially around parent/kid relations. Hence why it is a part of the UDHR (universal declaration of human rights).
With regards to kid/parent relation we are often too lenient as a society. One good measurement that you can keep in the back of your head to judge a kids invasion of privacy is the following question "If this kid was suffering from abusive parents, would this allow the parent to intervene the kid reaching out?".
Both of my parents grew up in very small houses with a lot of children, and my wife shared a room with her sister. I'd guess that the vast majority of humanity now, and certainly in the past, had very little individual privacy because there was no room!
It seems like a modern luxury in western suburban living. Nice if if you can get it, I suppose.
It’s like accidentally ending up in the background of someone’s photo at a public park versus someone actively following and taking photos of you. Or sharing a room with a sibling versus that same sibling digging through a personal journal.
Also, after reading the free part of the article, I propose the word "pramopticon".
it is, indeed, "not impossible", but I could also win a Nobel prize or sleep with Sidney Sweeney -- not impossible, but probably never gonna happen.
Nice
I think there will be a nice time window before all hardware is released with some sort of DRM, and while losses from people who reject the surveillance (similar to AdBlock) are small enough, where you will be able to hack this hardware to run for yourself only.
I think the next direction these surveillance companies are going to head into is even more invasive aggregation and processing. Instead of just giving parents a basic rundown of what's happening now, have phones record every spoken word and then mine it for sentiment analysis to reveal hidden thoughts and opinions. Schools could deploy software onto all students that tracks everything they say to each other on school property, which then could be used to build social graphs, identify misbehavior, rank social cohesion and obedience to understand which groups are good and bad influences - with all this data immediately provided to teachers and parents so they can take action. Once this is normalized, it will come for us all, just a bit more covertly.
My daughter is a teenager and I appreciate being able to look at her phone's location when I pick her up from a place. I don't tend to monitor her phone use, occasionally I will check it out but the "deal" I have with her makes sure she understands she is an individual and I respect her individuality. I have a few apps blocked.
https://black-mirror.fandom.com/wiki/Arkangel
Review 001: THE POWER OF THE POWERLESS https://www.metanoia-research.com/review-001-the-power-of-th...
Essay 001: ON WHAT THE PANOPTICON CANNOT SEE https://www.metanoia-research.com/essay-001-on-what-the-pano...
So now they are out in the world, in potentially dangerous situations, without a way to call for help, lookup a map, get a ride, etc.
We were always clear with our kids: We're not tracking you, we trust you, and you can call us for help without getting in trouble.
You can tell them not to do stupid things all day, but life finds a way, and I want them fully equipped when it happens.
Oh, the horror
In the "One Battle After Another" movie there was a (semi)funny subplot about this, except in the other direction, the parent wanted the kid to ditch the phone, and the kid had a secret one.
The general backup plan was to go to the nearest friends’ house.
I wish kids could go out like I used to but the world is just different and some of the failsafes I took for granted like payphones don't exist anymore
Mine's following her uncle's footsteps: he's BJJ black belt (and instructor) and she's into her 4th year of BJJ. She already dislocated another person's arm (another teenager who wanted to "see if BJJ works").
The goal is not to overpower a 25 y/old muscular man: but to win her just enough time to be able to ring an alarm/pass a distress call, grab her pepper spray in her purse, etc.
I trust her and she can do all the crazy shit teenagers do she wants to do: it's some of the others I don't trust.
You mean exactly how every human existed every minute before <20 years ago?
Perfect.
My family spends a large majority of our time out of cell service - downhill and back country sking, canoeing, hiking, camping and everything else.
We love it, and plan to never give our daughter a phone (I don’t have one). Hopefully our town will ban them for kids anyway.
Or trust their parents. Discuss why and how they're tracked and the boundaries the parents will keep as well, and make do with it.
The article paints condescending and alarming portraits, but most people just talk it out and find some convenient balance.
People here seem to completely overlook that parents have been managing the whole life of their kid for more than a decade and teenagers are really bad at hiding things in general. Perhaps it's different if the parents are working three jobs and never talk to their kid, but I don't see that as a general case.
That is decidedly not the way I've seen most people handle the convenience/privacy tradeoffs we all face every hour of every day. So I'll put a question mark on that..
I can't imagine every family setting up the admin features to be in psychological crisis.