Hacker News Reader

Comment by HL33tibCe7 | Hacker News Reader

I think the reason it feels insincere is that most of the questions are not designed to be asked to get the actual opinion of the teenager, they're designed to try and push the asker's opinion onto the teenager. This is quite obviously the case, and any teenager who isn't a simpleton will find the questions incredibly patronising for this reason

View on HN

What opinion is getting pushed by these extremely open questions?

I can see how many teenagers wouldn't like to openly discuss sex or politics with their parents because they already know what kind of answers their parent want or don't want to hear. But I don't think the article claims that asking a few questions can undo years of bad parenting.

"Your social media and screen use is a problem and you should let me trick you into accepting some restrictions on it" and "you should already have your entire career planned out by now, why don't you, pick something" seem fairly implicit to me from the first three, though you're right about the others. It does seem like they're all kind of pushing the "you should open up to me" angle, though - I feel like that would've been transparent to me and I wouldn't have appreciated it, trying not to talk about these things wasn't an accident of being stuck "in a shell" it was quite a deliberate choice!

That is NOT what that question is about and if you read longer explanation, you would know it. It was not about making them accept new rules.

And majority of questions are not even opinion based.

> If you were a parent, what rules would you set for screens?

> Turn the tables, suggests O’Malley, and let them think about an issue from another angle.

I'm finding it hard to take your interpretation on this one. Even the explanation calls it "turning the tables."

The word "rules" is enough to enforce the power dynamic. The subject of the sentence isn't "screen time," it's "rules."

The accusation of not reading the explanation is unwarranted.

asking kids to set their own rules, and then help them stick to those rules is really a much better way than setting rules as a parent without letting the kids have any input. children do have the ability to think and understand what is reasonable. they know that they need to get enough sleep so they are not tired in the morning, etc. so working with them to work out what is reasonable can really empower them and in particular open up an avenue to renegotiate rules that they themselves have chosen.

Surely. This is why they never drive cars without training, play video games instead of doing homework, and never drink to excess while underage.

that's not a fair comparison, because driving and drinking are not rules made by parents.

and for video games, the kids do know the consequences of not doing their homework in school. so they are able to come up with rules that will allow them to complete their homework.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com