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Comment by Desafinado | Hacker News Reader

They're very young now, so in the beginning my hope is to have any type of device locked down to essentially just educational games and content. As they get older I'd expect to be less restrictive, for now I just want to make sure that their access is limited when they're young, but they do still have access to a keyboard.

My thinking was whitelisting in the beginning, but I'm not sure what I actually want to allow access to.

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I started out with this idea. Unfortunately whitelisting quickly gets out-of-hand. Try shutting off everything and then start whitelisting addresses to get Minecraft working.

It's better to have DNS policies: NextDNS, Pihole, Adguard, etc.

If you go with a DNS filter, make sure the browser they will have access to does not use DoH (Firefox does conditionally by default now).

I don't know what "very young" is, but I'd assume "Under 8" or so.

At which point, they don't need digital devices. Take the time and effort you'd spend on that and buy them legos or something age-suitable, and keep them in the physical world as long as you possibly can.

Hard agree; there is no reason anyone under ten even needs to know the internet exists. It’s a disservice to their development as well.

You make it sound like it's all-or-nothing. IMO electronic literacy is also valuable. I don't want my 6yo spending all day on minecraft and youtube, but I also don't want him spending all day playing with legos. I want him to get outside some too. And do his homework. And help in the kitchen. And... the list is long.

My kid has a tablet, but we limit the amount of time he spends on it. Seems healthy to me.

What is "electronic literacy"?

If it's anything with touch screens, it's designed to be so easy that you don't have to worry about it. They'll pick it up trivially later in life.

If it's how to use a keyboard, mouse, and Linux shell? Have at it. I've met more than a few 8-10 year olds who literally don't know how to use a mouse, because everything they've ever interacted with is touch screen.

But I'll take "a kid who played with legos and outside a lot" over "a kid who was electronically literate" any day.

It doesn't have to be either/or; I'm making sure my kid has a broad range of experience. But you're free to raise your kids how you see fit.

I hear you. We're doing exactly that and keeping them in the real world. Absolutely no tablets or devices not connected to a keyboard. I even have an SNES on standby to ease them into consoles.

But I do want to build some level of digital literacy, and most importantly just make sure they learn how to type properly when the time comes. Hence the question, I want to introduce them to tech with extreme caution.

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