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Comment by bjarneh | Hacker News Reader

> I may or may not go as far as putting a custom cert on the phone so I can monitor all the traffic -- that will depend on if I catch them violating my trust.

You are going to spy on you kids if they violate your trust, what does it take to violate your trust; visit a website that you don't like? How will your kids ever trust you again, if they find out you're spying on them for possible trust-violations?

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I made it clear that I would not be spying on them -- that they would have full access to the monitoring and we would review it together.

Knowing that your every move is recorded and semi-public is a problem in itself and not far removed from 'spying'.

He says him and his kids are going to "review it together" until they earn his trust, sure sounds like fun.

> that they would have full access to the monitoring and we would review it together.

Can you imagine your own parents asking you for the same (at any age)?

Perhaps it's not technically spying when they know they are being monitored or spied on, but it's not something better...

We always discuss power abuse in terms of corporate bosses, politicians; but parents seem to abuse their power very frequently. Almost everywhere I've worked most of my coworkers have had exactly this attitude. I.e. that they can spy on their kids (cell phone/iPad/computer), or invade their privacy in all sorts of ways, and they always do this to protect them of course, so nice of them. If it were to happen to me, I'd be leaving home as soon as possible at least - and I don't think I'd come back to visit.

So you'll go over and review your own browsing with them too right?

Of course he will, he will also review it with his own parents in order to win back their trust.

You can land in shady internet places very well also unwillingly, so it's less about "trust" and more about plain "protection". And the OP made it clear it's not a covert operation, the kids know it's the rule of the game.

Helicopter parenting has been shown to be orders of magnitude more damaging than any potential "dangers" out there.

Any sources for this?

> Results showed that higher overall helicopter parenting scores were associated with stronger symptoms of anxiety and depression. According to that study, helicopter parenting “was also associated with poorer functioning in emotional functioning, decision making, and academic functioning.

https://www.gottman.com/blog/helicopter-parenting-good-inten...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27561986/

My note: The process of attempting and failing is the learning experience; children should (imho, based on experience and input from professionals) given the opportunity to learn and fail with grace, while being provided a strong safety net to ensure the failure is inexpensive (from a harm perspective).

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