Say you were a guardian or parent and get to decide when a child can get a phone or use a computer and get internet with it. If you wish you can also install software and change router settings to what you see fit.
Some parents decide to forbid the internet completely, others are more relaxed. Some go the helicopter route, and some do not care whatsoever what their kid does online.
What is your policy on letting a child use the internet?
You sit at a desktop in the kitchen to use the computer. If you have shown yourself to be responsible you know your password.
The wifi shuts off at bedtime.
My 11-12-13 year old kids have Apple Watches for communication purposes but no smartphones. These are charged all together in a locked pantry at night.
This is where we keep it more or less. Everything done where I can hear and see it if I want. Network settings adjusted so that it’s not pure unadulterated internet that he can stumble onto.
I do allow an iPad, but same rules. Used in common areas and no screens at night. Being able to FaceTime his friends has been awesome for all of them lately with summer coming up.
That sounds pretty draconian.
A shared computer and no Internet when they are supposed to be sleeping is draconian?
Isn’t this how us kids in the 1990’s and 2000s grew up? (Minus the phone because we didn’t have them, or just a flip phone)
Calling it draconian to not be able to stay up all night on the internet sounds kind of like an iPad kid as a teenager lol
Yep. And even then, our desktop computer was upstairs - which was out of the way, nothing up there except my sister’s bedroom and a living room that wasn’t really used - so arguably that was too isolated lol. We weren’t allowed laptops until we finished high school! Even my friend who did have a laptop wasn’t allowed it in her bedroom.
The internet was also restricted to go off at 9pm because I was staying up on msn and Myspace all night otherwise 😅
Yeah, I don’t want to be like “kids these days” but lol
It only sounds draconian compared to the completely unsupervised access that I think most of us grew up with.
I had porn at 13. Shock videos shortly after. 4chan at 16. Outside of being able to discover my own media tastes through piracy and late night binges, I struggle to identify a lot of good that came of my unfettered access.
This was my exact experience and the exact same reason I won’t be repeating it for my family moving forward.
I totally agree, and I’ve had the same experience. I just don’t think that it needs to be a choice between free roaming Wild West tiktok brainrot and some sort of panopticon. I believe that the internet is a legitimate space for learning, discovery, socialisation. I get the many many dangers, but I don’t think that prison rules will produce good netizens.
I agree, but I think there’s less spaces for that then there used to be, and I don’t think 13 is a particularly unreasonable age for access to still be restricted. It’s probably the older end of when I’d be trying to teach a kid proper online safety and behavior before starting to loosen the reins, but every kid is going to be different. Some would be ready earlier, and others later.
I think we just disagree on where the middle ground might lie, which is probably to be expected on complicated topics like this. Everyone’s going to have their own take.
I definitely wouldn’t be comfortable tossing a hypothetical kid into the deep end, so to speak, at 13.
On top of that, kids are resourceful with a ton of time on their hands. Sufficiently motivated kids will find ways around restrictions (I sure did, locked doors without a deadbolt are not a real lockdown, lol) or friends with less restrictions anyway, and there’s some value to allowing them to think they’re getting away with things and navigating on their own, regardless of whether I as a parent would really be aware of it or not.
It’s not. No devices at night is super normal for kids who haven’t learned to regulate yet. It’s maybe a bit tighter than I would choose, but I still think it’s a fair balance at that age.
Have you been on the internet lately?
You sound very twelve.