Hacker News Reader

Comment by thermodynthrway | Hacker News Reader

You would think a teenager with a job could just get their own phone plan. I'm kinda thankful helicopter parenting is being undermined by technology (internet+Uber), maybe one day we will get back to reasonable parenting practices they had back in the 60's-70's.

We don't let our kids roam the neighborhood anymore even though it's a magnitude safer than it was decades ago. I don't understand how we expect kids to start acting like grown ups between 18-20 when they've been treated like babies until then.

I was working at 14 and driving wherever by 16. By the time I was in college I was completely independent. Maybe 50% of my friends never even had a job and had no idea how to do laundry or take care of themselves.

If my parents said they were limiting my internet I would've laughed in their face

View on HN

Robert Epstein has written two fantastic books on this exact topic, "The Case Against Adolescence" and "Teen 2.0" - the heart of both revolves around the artificial extension of childhood modern society has developed into this period we call "adolescence".

I'm a 90's kid, by the time I was 10 years old I stayed at home by myself and my 18 month younger sister after school and during the summer. We would stop by the store after school, visit friends, take the bus to the pool, etc, we just called our mother at work and left a message so she knew where we were. Hell, I had unfiltered access to the internet - and it's not like online predators were some foreign concept in the early 00's.

I can't say my daughter is going to have completely unmonitored internet access at 10 years old like I did, she's five years old right now and I've got network-wide content filtering deployed to give myself a little safety net in case she stumbles off the beaten path while playing a game or something. I intend to keep this deployed until she's old enough to properly police her own activity, but at a certain point I'll need to trust her to do the right thing and teach instead of restrict. I hope more parents can learn to do the same, and this extends into the physical world as well as the virtual one - we absolutely cannot treat teenagers like children that need to be coddled, they are adults in training and deserve an appropriate level of trust and respect.

Completely agree. Back in the day, children began to be treated as adults around 12-13 as long as they proved themselves responsible enough.

I remember riding my bike 10-20 miles when I was 12-14 before cell phones, visiting distant friends and buying random stuff with my $20 allowance. Running errands for my parents too. By 18 my parents were more like mentors than protectors. Just some people I really liked to look up to and help out when things got real gnarly.

Life stuff happened. Flat tires, sketchy situations, talked to the police a few times. Even broke some bones once in a bike accident. Every time I learned how to deal with life situations and make it home alright. Young enough that strangers and the justice system are still ready to give you some slack cuz you're figuring things out, a gift that many kids these days don't get.

It makes you grow up fast. I was babysitting for multiple days at 14, responsibly as any adult. Starting working real jobs soon after, not disclosing because I don't want to dox myself... But I was doing "real adult" jobs where the consequences for mistakes we're so bad that people could die. My boss got several complaints that it was illegal or irresponsible to let a "child" do such work. It wasn't.

I have a couple of points. For the most point I agree with you but here they are.

1) People are people and what works for some kids doesn't work for others. While we're way past what I'd call ok as a society, kids still should have to prove they deserve independence at a younger age. If (for example) I were your parent and you didn't have a job at 16 and wouldn't get one but were on your phone all the time I might use something like this to motivate you to get out and get a job. If your sibling had a job and were on their own plan etc. then I wouldn't do it there.

2) It sounds like Sophie was in on the experiment and would have been able to opt out of it. I did not get the impression that she was forced into anything by her parents or the author. Especially factoring in the last comment about adding in Netflix.

3) My parents did not do well teaching me basic life skills in preparation for college. I learned most of it on my own. They taught me a lot and limited my independence as I proved or disproved my ability to be independent.

Any I just wanted to put some thoughts out there. 50% of your friends couldn't do laundry by the time they started college. What % could by the time they were done? What % can now? I would have been in the 50% at the beginning, but now I'm not. I didn't know how to tile a wall, but now I do. My eldest sister on the other hand was 100% like you and we have the exact same parents.

Just some food for thought.

True, thread below talks a lot more about how not all kids are ready. All of them can take care of life issues now. Best thing about early freedom was ability to learn the ropes before society judged you for it.

The world is a lot harsher when you turn 17-18. Better to learn your way when you're young and most people are willing to accommodate

I think it's worth considering that the HN crowd probably is a selection of the population that skews heavily toward being self motivated and reasonably well adjusted. My siblings and I, too, had very unsupervised upbringings. We all would have done better with more structure. Not helicopter parenting, but some happy medium.

WRT unrestricted internet/device usage: porn addiction is a thing. So is gaming addiction. Adolescent girls being pressured to send nude photos to their classmates is also a thing. IMO parents should take reasonable measures to protect their children from the worst that is out there.

Admittedly, you're probably right. I had some trouble finding friends to hang out between 14-18 because I was too "serious". Not everyone likes hanging out with someone who acts like an adult at that age. Definitely considered uncool haha

As a parent of a 14-year-old, I would far prefer she be roaming about than on her phone. These devices are addictive, and limiting them is important.

I don't see it being any worse than the TV shows and consoles of years past. Or the arcade and bowling alleys of years before that. It's just the newest big time killer. All of those mediums are designed to be addictive and I don't think increased convenience makes it much worse

They are solitary activities like TV and gaming consoles. Bowling isn’t. And arcades weren’t when I was growing up, and you’re still out there possibly interacting with people.

Further, they are idle consumption far and beyond books. I’d question anyone who sees someone sitting on a phone/TV/game all day and think it’s doing anything good for them.

Your characterization as “idle consumption devices“ makes no sense at all.

They aren’t exclusively solitary activities. A lot of usage has a social component (it’s communicating with friends). I don’t think you can seriously suggest that relationships forged across a distance are somehow not real or necessarily worse than social relationships you tend to in person.

You can’t just equivocate phones, games and TV – and with phones it‘s really all about the particular usage.

In particular this important social component (uses which allow for communication with other people are some of the most popular) leads me to always be baffled when people automatically connect phone use to being lonely or alone. It can be, but it not necessarily is.

You can't play consoles on the bus, in the street, at the table, on the toilet, in class, in the playground, at the library, in the cafe etc.

You haven't seen Nintendo's latest offering then, have you?

Or Sony's PS Vita.

How's instagram on the switch?

Handheld consoles have been around for over three decades.

Yeah I definitely played Pokemon in all of those places at least as far back as 2003 (when I was in the third grade).

They are significantly worse. There is absolutely no comparison. 1) Phones combine actual essential features with “time killers”. With a TV or arcade games, there was no illusion of those activities being essential in any sense. So the easy response for both of those was to limit access time. You cannot do that as easily with modern phones (these features are an attempt to do so).

2) Availability. Your phone is with you all the time. Because it is portable and it is personal. A TV was usually shared and rarely portable like the phone. Same is true of other major time killers.

3) Variety. Phones have a much greater variety of addicting behaviors. It’s like taking a super charger TV, arcade games, and a whole host of other new addicting features (e.g. social media which in addition to the dopamine hits has built in fun peer pressure aspects necessitating their use amongst kids), throwing them in the same device, making it extremely portable and available, and then throwing in some essential features (messaging/phones) so parents have to make them available to kids, and until recently providing no decent ways of limiting the usage. 4) Data and dopamine hits. Almost every other “time killer” until now has had to target a fairly broad demographic but today’s apps and social media sites, etc have the smartest brains in the world sitting around plotting how to get adults and teenagers hooked onto their service based on their individual usage. I’ve quit FB but noticed that the app spent the next month spamming me with a variety of notifications trying to figure out what would get me to open it (a birthday reminder did the trick) and then spammed me with birthday notifications until that stopped working and went back to a variety of notifications again. TV never had the ability to target individuals to this degree.

- Surveillance

- Documentation of mistakes

If you have time, please give our free iOS app studycity a test. It will block fun sites after 1 hour. In order to get access back the user has to earn 5+ points on khan, duolingo, code combat, prodigy, Tynker etc. Our servers will log in as the child or make an API call on the learning site to verify.

It works by using a dual mode DNS (learn and play modes). Note the app requires vpn approval, but we only control the DNS. If you want to avoid that you can manually set up the phone after a free signup on our studycity org website.

This is our twitter account. This link has a few tweets that explain more about it.

https://twitter.com/DnsLearningOrg/with_replies

I never have asked this in 10 years on this site. Can the downvoter(s) clarify the reason? I have spokenwith 1,000+ parents and teachers individually. Easily 90% are very excited about it. It is simply a tool. I don't think every child should use it. In fact, I hope children that use it eventually stop because they have developed better study and time management habits.

I doubt the downvotes have anything to do with your product itself (which seems superficially similar to that in the linked article?), but more with the fact that self-promotion outside of a [ShowHN] is generally frowned upon.

I thought it was an appropriate post that’s sufficiently on topic to not really qualify and shameless self promotion.

A thousand times this.

At 14 my parents were like “you're sick? You know where the Dr. is, don't you?”. It helped me – introvert – tremendously functioning in the world.

An important factor to consider is that the teenager in the article actually wanted the limits in place.

I'm kinda thankful helicopter parenting is being undermined by technology

I wish. I know people in their late 30's who are on their parent's cell phone plan, and have tried (unsuccessfully) to get on their health insurance.

I know tons of people here in Germany who have had their cars officially running with their parents' insurance well into their late 20s (basically as long as possible because it was simply like half the price), at least until some years ago.

We also have this health insurance thing where you can be insured with your parents up until 25 I guess, if you're still going to school or university.

Maybe your point is "people should stand on their own feet at some point" and maybe I'm not weighing 20s vs 30s enough.. but to me that simply sounds like saving money. Hell, if I had had my parents living close to me in my late 20s and being able to save money just by having some contracts in common, I would've done it.

If you have a car on your parents insurance, you are not building up your "damage free years". So it's better to just pay for the high insurance at a young age so you will enjoy low insurance later on in life. At 26 I was already at the maximum of 80% discount on my car and motorcycle insurance.

It depends on the country I suppose. In Denmark most insurance companies offer "elite" status as long as you're 30 with no prior accidents to your name.

It's cheaper for my younger brother to be on my parents insurance until he's ~25, and _then_ start building a no claims bonus than it is to start building the NCB now. Paying €1200/year for 4 years and then taking out his own policy starting from fresh is cheaper than paying €3000+ for his own policy and it gradually decreasing over the next 4 years.

I guess it depends on the country and insurer. I insured my moped by myself at the age of 16. Paid €150 per year which was a lot of money for me. When I bought my first car at the age of 22 I only had to pay €300 per year for liability because my no-claims bonus was almost at the maximum amount.

Yeah it absolutely depends, I've seen a lot of calculation models so please don't take anything I wrote above as advice, was just trying to show a different side.

FWIW, for me it was: car insured with parents until I was like 23 I think, and those first 4-5 years were cheaper by A LOT. And then I could still claim my "no accident/damages in 5 years" fee reduction, although maybe not as much as I could've gotten. But money was a bit tight, so it wasn't really a question of "will this save me something in 10 years" more like "I prefer to have a car (first own, cheap one)" over "nope, no car".

To be honest, I share my Netflix account with my parents. Saves me a bit of money.

I know lots of people who do this - but in most cases it’s about frugality - for a family of four with two grown children paying ~$100/month (4pp family plan) vs. $220/month (2pp family plan, and two individual plans) it just makes sense

how much parenting expierence do you have?

I have a ton and agree with him.

Obviously I don't have a dog in the race of how other people raise their own kids, so I'm a little hesitant to wade in to you guys' discussion.

That said, I mean:

"...If my parents said they were limiting my internet I would've laughed in their face..."

???

If I had witnessed an exchange between parents and their child where the child "...laughed in their face...", I'm certain I would not have characterize whatever parenting style those parents were using as "good".

It would have rediculous for my parents to suggest it. They trusted me to drive around pretty much anywhere and hold a job without getting in much trouble. How much more dangerous could the internet be than driving through a sketchy area.

Their trust made me far more responsible than I would have been if they tried to treat me like a child when I was in my mid-late teens. I knew if I screwed up it was on me and would've felt bad that they misplaced their trust. Kids loooovvveee being treated like adults, I wish more people would use that as leverage.

I think many parents these days make the transition from guardian to mentor years too late

I think you raise a good point that children grow into the responsibility they’re given.

While I can't speak to 'all parents', I can say that as a parent of five, kids develop significantly differently. We've been treating our oldest daughter as basically an adult since she was 13 or 14; the next-oldest is getting there, at 15. Next couple down the line we have to monitor more closely.

Indeed.

Secondly, lowest common denominator often creates difficult scenarios.

What I was capable of, at say age 14, was not the norm.

Fortunately, I lived in a time and place where that was accepted and there were few issues.

I once spent a few months writing assembly language. I heard get outside a few times, but that was it.

Later, spent another one fixing an old car, to be my first.

Then, out alone in the deep woods with a friend for a few days.

It was like that growing up. A wide range of experiences. Some easy, others not so easy. Danger was present. One paid attention, or faced it.

So pay attention. Rough, but valuable.

When I parented, I faced similar. Ran it about the same way. Some of my kids could handle it. Others could not, or did later.

The one who really could, a lor like me in that, currently travels the world.

Good.

Other comment here correctly clarifies point of agreement.

I'd definitely agree: -Buy your kids a simple dumbphone for emergencies (Nokia et al) -Let them work part time for their own smartphone

Reply on news.ycombinator.com