> I will not be letting my children near discord.
Isn't this kind of a whack-a-mole approach to things? The internet is full of hazards... are you going to ban everything that comes up?
Isn't this kind of a whack-a-mole approach to things? The internet is full of hazards... are you going to ban everything that comes up?
Probably not as necessary once they're like 15 or so, but up that age do not let them be on there on their own. And, of course, make sure they know critical thinking and discuss everything that they see online with them instead of heavy-handedly barring them from it.
Teach them about the satanic panics of the 1970s. Teach them about social pressure, teach them about rationalism, show them some good old James randii.
I've seen some of this trend on discord. It is genuinely nasty and you should be keeping tabs on your kids.
Wouldn't it damage the trust between you and your child? I think even monitoring internet usage in-person or outright restricting access to potentially dangerous websites would be less intrusive. If your kid discovers you can access their messages at any time, it would make them more inclined to make other accounts and not discuss about any dangerous interactions on them out of fear of being discovered.
Eventually you have to stop doing this, they have to grow up, but especially when they're very young it is very important that you're actually on their account because they don't know enough to see and report when something harmful is going on.
I'm not a parent, so I didn't want to say that, but it is certainly what I was thinking. =)
But I was also a kid, and I know that if I was barred from doing something I would 100% go behind my parents back and do it anyway, so that's not going to work.
You have to try something else.
That said, my parents always told me that if I wanted to try drugs (like weed), let them buy it for me so that they could at least know I was getting good stuff.
Honestly, that just made it more awkward... but it did instill in me that I should at least make sure that I was not just taking random shitty drugs. It also made me wait until I could find stuff I could trust before trying it.
I don't have the answer, I think OPs solution is the only practical one: constant and even-handed-as-possible vigilance and rules and hopefully a bit of curation too.
Honestly, the internet really isn't a good place for a child and their mental health. I'm in my 30s and have been an internet native for my entire conscious memory, having seen the early 4chan, gore, etc. on the unfiltered internet. Saying all that I think it is somehow even worse today. I'm not sure how I would navigate this if I were to have children.
They use Discord to figure out what other things they’re going to do either in person or in an online game. So this rule hasn’t been hard to follow for them.