Hacker News Reader

Comment by sangupta | Hacker News Reader

Exactly what I came to say. I need something for my daughter to connect with and/or track her while playing with her friends outside. It is difficult to always be on her lookout, and any other watch tracks them more. I need control to see who they are talking to, chatting with, what apps they use, and controlling screen time. Few kids in her class are already on IG/Tiktok courtesy their elder siblings and I do not want my daughter to be exposed to such crap.

Edit: also to inform her in case I am running late to pick her up from school due to traffic or otherwise.

View on HN

Why do you feel like you “need” this, though? I think that’s exactly what GP is saying – not disagreeing that it might have utility, but that there is a cost associated as well. The world is just statistically not that scary, and it’s good to let our kids make mistakes and get lost and find their way and face adversity and survive.

Me and my wife differ in our perspectives on this. She is more of a “safety at any cost”, whereas I am more of a “free range kids”. I know the world has changed since I was a teenager, but our parents never knew where we were, who we were chatting with on the internet, and we turned out great.

no freedom is removed from the child. It's a failsafe they can chose to contact the parents when they feel overwhelmed and then the decision from the parent can still be made to not help. If anything children will be given more latitude to be independent. Safety at any cost is a very silly phrase. If something happens to your child and $250 could have prevented it the cost seems very small and the statistics very personal

I don't think GP is talking about money when they say "cost". They're talking about the cost to a child's healthy development when it comes to independence, freedom, and learning how to deal with adverse situations without knowing that mom or dad is constantly looking over their shoulder (figuratively, in the tracking case) and can pluck them from said situation at a moment's notice.

The choice on how to act when your child is in trouble is still yours. It's very obvious to me that a lot of people engaging here don't have children. There is a lot of idealistic posturing. Do you really think a child takes developmental damage by feeling cared for and protected?

Did we turn out great or did you turn out great? There are many cases where unsupervised use of the internet or getting lost did not turn out well at all. Why view someone opting into this (my entire family has "find my" enabled on our phones.) Where is the negative? Kids can still be free range while allowing for the parent to know where they are.

That's my point. This has minimal features. I can track my kid without fearing unsupervised internet access to them.

And we can also see ample evidence that overly controlling kids has a detrimental effect on them as they grow older.

I mean, when people bring up unsupervised use of internet, I always remember that my first exposure to porn in the 90s was a site called animal sex farm (there was a list with leaked credentials for porn site that I stumbled into and that was the first site on the list). I was rather shocked by what I saw and let's say it's not something I'd want my son to be exposed to at 12 years old.

"make mistakes, get lost and find their way" does not work for crowded and busy neighborhoods. No one would like their kid to be lost in new york. Add the risk of abduction in high risk communities.

Also, it depends on kids age. I want kids to be safe in elementary, make mistakes and learn in middle/high school.

> I need control to see who they are talking to, chatting with, what apps they use, and controlling screen time.

Sure it's not my right to tell you how to parent. However I ask have you not sat down with your daughter and explained her the dangers and consequences?

Restrictions are what you want. Restrict her from downloading apps, ask her to show you her messages. Limit her screen time when she's done her chores.

Don't hide and sneak controlling her habits in the back scenes because if you loose her trust you won't get it back.

Unless by controlling you do mean restricting which changes the tone completely.

An 8 year old doesn't really have a fully developed mind. You can often talk with them that jumping out of the tree will likely break their arm, but chances are when you're not looking they're still going to jump.

Little kids often struggle understanding and remembering consequences, especially of really big complex ideas.

There's a reason why we don't just let 12 year olds drive.

> I need control to see who they are talking to, chatting with, what apps they use, and controlling screen time.

I'm just some random on the internet, but this rubs me the wrong way. Trust is important in relationships, and this doesn't show any trust. Some of this is perfectly fine, but tracking their chatting is an invasion of privacy unless you have a specific reason to be worried.

Presumably OP is talking about a younger kid, and not his 17 year old. It has nothing to do with trust of your child, and has everything to do with not trusting other people to do what is best for your child and not try to take advantage of them. To put it another way, I doubt OP is concerned that his kid is going to go hunt down a pedophile and then have sex with them. He is probably more concerned that a pedophile might try to hunt down his kid and then have sex with them.

I should have mentioned that I am talking about 8-9 year olds.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com