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How should hacker parents protect their kids online?

7 points by yaniv_aknin ↗ HN
I have a two year old son and bunch of three-to-seven year old niblings. Recently my sister asked me what should she do to protect her seven year old online, and I realised I don't have a good answer. I gave my sister the typical sensible advice (talk to him about his online experiences, don't let him use Internet devices in an overly private setting like a closed room, etc), but I wasn't happy with the answer I gave. I realised that like so many other things about parenting, I don't know the answer.

I'm not overly conservative, I don't think I'm overly porn-protective or predator-hysteric or whatever, heck, I might've leeched a naked lady or two myself as a teen (at 2400 baud!) and don't think I became a Fox newsesque freak. That said, I don't think it's a good idea to let a seven year old roam the Internet freely (I cringe just thinking about my niblings reddit.com/r/wtf , and I know there's much much worse online). I think it's probably a very bad idea to let the government/an ISP protect the said seven year old, but I don't think s/he should be left alone on the Internet. I'm not even sure what are reasonable cutoff parameters by which to decide when and how give your child more freedom as they approach online adulthood.

What should a sensible, liberal and caring parent do to protect a child online over various ages? I'm interested in answers protecting toddlers to late teenagers, in answers targeting the whole range of tech-savvy to tech-clueless parents, including 'tech clueless but with a tech savvy friend/sibling who'll help set things up' and finally I'd definitely appreciate pointers to good, techie-oriented, not tawdry and not disgustingly commercialised information/opinion sources.

5 comments

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zachlatta
Talk to them about browsing responsibly. The last thing you want to do is create a relationship of distrust between the parent and child. Once you cut off a communication channel, chances you aren't going to get it back.

I don't think censoring the internet or preventing the child from browsing in private is the way to go. It's going to happen, so might as well embrace it.

tptacek
This is a good question. We have the same problem at my house, with a 14 year old and a 12 year old. A couple years ago we thought about doing a product around it, controlling and monitoring access to our wifi in an unobtrusive and (reasonably) privacy- respecting way.

Our biggest problem is how engrossing the network is. It competes with homework and invariably wins. The only thing that works for us here are rigid rules that keep the computer unavailable during any time in which it is even possible that they might theoretically have homework that they could have forgotten about.

What clearly doesn't work is the "net nanny" stuff; it turns you into an (obnoxious) sysadmin for your kids. And, honestly: I don't want to know.

My general belief here is that the approach that will work here is to create the understanding that Internet usage is watched, that the kids are accountable for how they use it, but that in "the normal course of business" that capability isn't used; we don't actually want to see their chats or read their history.

I won't let my kids near Reddit. Not because I hate Reddit (Reddit's highs are higher than HN's highs), but because, like high-proof alcohol or cannabis, I think it's something you need a degree of emotional maturity and self-awareness to properly metabolize.

EllaMentry
I have had an internet connection since I was 11, and a computer a few year prior to that. Int he beginning the only way my parents let me use the internet/computer was in a public room (in our case it was the study)...as I got older my parents bought me my own laptop and allowed me more privacy to browse...as long as I did my homework, and didn't spend all day on the computer all was well.

No automated parental controls at all...being realistic I was always better at using the computer than my parents, I would have got around them anyway.

These days I would go one step further and say make sure the browser they are using has a good ad blocker etc. Begin with a public setting so you can keep an eye on them, then as they get older, just leave them be.

GuiA
A while ago, I read a comment by a parent who said they only let their child use the internet on the Wii. The advantage is that the content is displayed on a large screen in a shared family space, so they can keep a tab on it without restricting internet access.
bluedevmonkey
First: I'm a teenager, if that matters.

I agree with you that ISP protection wouldn't be a good way, I secretly think Cameron just uses this as an excuse for something else (who knows).

- I think the parents should decide what is good and bad for their children. My parents are very liberal at this because they know that I have more knowledge about that field than they would ever acquire (voluntary ;).

It's clear that nowadays you're not able to forbid the online world to a socially normal teenager or even some kids. So you have to show them what the risks are and you should escort your kid while playing online games, introducing them to the www.

You should also be aware that teenagers are able to evaluate the situation properly (most of the time). if your children are well-bred they know how to behave, even in the online world. You should just remind them sometimes that the online world is not a extralegal or completely mindless room, they have to maintain their manners.

If you cannot escort your kids (I'm not talking about the teenagers yet) it's better to install some blocking mechanisms, so the kids won't accidentally view 4chan's wired subsites or the like, but there's the thing with parenting: you cannot prevent it 100%, so your children should learn how to handle that stuff, too.

The WWW is a great invention, but it contains some dangerous things for kids. You cannot prevent that your kid will see porn or other nasty things, so the only way to handle this is to prepare your child. - it's hard to do good parenting in the 21st century, everything's changing so fast.

hope your kids turn to lovely parents :)