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Comment by zaphar | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if this works for anyone other than our family but when we were raising our kids we solved this by the simple of expedient that gaming and computer use was done with us as parents present. Full stop.

It was not a solo activity for our kids. We could directly view everything they were doing online the entire time.

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Advice like this only works for specific age ranges.

When I was a kid I had a friend whose parents, or mom rather, went to similar lengths to ensure all gaming was monitored closely by her. She would turn the game console off if she saw anything she decided was not to her liking.

This was all fair when we were 7-8, but she insisted on doing it well into his teenage years. This level of extreme control and micromanagement was not good for their relationship or his personal development, to put it mildly.

Every time I read HN comments from parents declaring their child will not have a phone until they turn 16 (another comment in this thread) or how they’ll lock their kids out of games and social media completely I think back to my friend whose mom was extremely controlling in the same way.

Young kids need tight controls, but this needs to be loosened as they age. Parenting discussions really need to come with age ranges because what’s appropriate changes so fast from year to year.

I agree, the point of making usage monitored early on is so that you can train your child in what to do when they encounter stuff online. As that training has occured then you can begin to loosen the restriction and give them more freedom. This is the job of parenting. You are teaching your child how to safely and productively engage with the world and the younger they are the more of your time and attention this requires. If you don't teach them someone else might and that lesson may haunt them for the rest of their life.

I frankly would prefer just not gaming at all, than being ashamed in front of all my friends.

Also you have to consider the ramifications of such behavior if that gets public, I mean could possibly be the source of bullying and what not.

As a child we were de incentivized to playing games with the computer. The schema was:

A) computer you can have, because is useful beyond playing, consoles, no way. Forget it “that is stupidizing BS”

B) No money for games. Other SW would be bought, but rarely games.

That moved us to start spending time with other things in the computer, like programming our own games.

Of course today that is all difficult to impossible, by design, without ostracizing the kids.

Congratulations that you had that luxury.

Sounds barely realistic, when school are using iPads, education is one URL away from entertainment crack and parental controls on iOS are a joke.

I'm sorry you feel like it's out of reach of so many. We definitely had to sacrifice a number of things to make it happen. It's not like it was necessarily easy. Unless you are in the unfortunate position of being an only parent this can be an area where you have choice. You can:

1. Ask your school to change their policies. Coordinate with other parents. Make it clear to the school that if they don't start to enforce these policies then you will hold the school directly responsible for any harm that comes to your child in the environment they create.

2. Pick different schools. (Home School, Private school) if you can afford it. Charter schools may be an option.

Both of these require sacrifice on your part and neither are easy. But no one should ever think parenting is easy.

When I was a kid, my Sega Genesis was connected to the TV in my parents bedroom. It made it impossible to play without their knowledge or when they were asleep.

That's essentially the rule in our house. No screens not visible to other members of the family.

In US, we restrict alcohol kids until they're 21. Pornography is poison.

It's so bizarre to me that in "The Land of the Free", 18 year olds, who are considered old enough to go to war, are not allowed to drink. Especially because this isn't some archaic law from the 18th or 19th centuries but instead from 1984 and only came about after the federal government withheld funds to force the states' hands over a period of 4 years.

It's not a federal law, you can buy and drink alcohol at 18 in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico for instance, so definitely possible to drinking at 18 legally in the USA. I don't know if there is a federal drinking age but it's definitely not above 18.

Also in I want to say about half the states (could be wrong here, but at least a few), it is legal to drink well below 18 in a private home.

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Example, wisconsin:

>Can an underage person possess and consume alcohol beverages on licensed premises? Yes. Persons under age 21 may possess and consume alcohol beverages if they are with their parents, guardians or spouses of legal drinking age; but this is at the discretion of the licensee. The licensed premises may choose to prohibit consumption and possession of alcohol beverages by underage persons. (Sec. 125.07(1), Wis. Stats.)

The drinking laws in at least ~half the USA are a lot looser than most people think. If the parents are ok with it the kid can generally drink somehow.

https://www.revenue.wi.gov/Pages/FAQS/ise-atundrg.aspx#undrg...

It’s essentially a federal law - if a state wants to get full federal funding for highways, they have to have a law restricting alcohol purchase and public consumption to 21+. It’s from the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.

The issue isn't drinking; if the motor vehicle operator age was 21, then the drinking age could be 16. But it isn't.

Drinking is an archaic caveman activity that newer generations dont really care about, observed on a global trend. GenX and older millennials ring this bell continuously for a crowd that doesn't care. Shouldn't you focus on issues that actually impact and hurt people instead of trying to point out some "inconsistency" about the usage of the land of the free slogan that no one ever brings up in any conversation about america?

Drinking is taking a nosedive because larger segments of society are shut-in losers, who are not engaging in real-world social spaces which are lubricated with alcohol. That's 95% of the reason, the rest is people smoking when they would have been drinking.

The fall in alcohol consumption is directly tied to a fall in socialization writ-large. That isn't a win, it's a tragedy.

Yes, your entire post screams "older generation knows better, newer generation stupid losers" in unifying accompaniment with my initial caveman comparison. It's always interesting seeing the divide of generational vs cultural values from the point of view of people in the country, and the absolute insistence that their values represent one side vs representing the other. If you're observant, you get to witness in real time the cold and deafening silence of society moving on and losing interest with whatever hill-of-the-week people want to dramatically die on through over performant thrashing about. I mentally frame this timeline and context to be the equivalent of a child tantrumming in a grocery store while everyone else is just focused on shopping and going home, except I get to stop and point and laugh every once and a while in moments like this one. The death of stoner culture and commercialization of THC as a product instead of a lifestyle was pretty similar.

I thought you could go into a store on post and buy alcohol at 18.

And they can have sex legally when they are 16. But oh noes if 2 16 year olds send nudes to each other. Then, somehow, is "child" sexual assault images.

Frankly, these half-assed laws disenfranchise an already not-permitted-to-vote populace. But somehow these "kids" can be declared as adults if they are 16 and having sex or courts deem them 'adults', but simultaneously find them to be parental property.

Glad I dont have children. The situation is a toxic cesspool.

So no smartphones?

Neutered smartphone with zero internet access and apps locked down like North Korea.

We also lock up our alcohol, as many parents have chosen to do for generations.

Nope. More people should be like this.

And then, we pretend we are surprised why the majority of adults don't care about privacy.

Why would they? They grew up being 100% controlled with 0 privacy. They don't even know it doesn't have to be like that. Then, it was their parents violating their privacy, now it's government and corporations.

Privacy is a privilege granted relative to age and maturity.

Most 5-year olds should be allowed to close the bathroom door while doing their business, they should not be permitted to access the internet privately.

A five year old is not prepared to engage online with privacy. They have not had the necessary training yet. They will not get that training unless you are there to show them how to negotiate that world. They will not magically learn how to protect themselves if you just leave them to figure it out themselves.

That description of "100%" means the lack of privacy they're objecting to is one going a lot lot past five years old.

Your first comment didn't mention age, so they made a comment about a broader interpretation of the idea.

I was never controlled in any way that may remotely violate my privacy. In fact, glad that nothing ever happened to me, because it could have. But for a long time I was not worried about my online visibility…

I do not agree at all with this conclusion.

Encourage voice chat, so you can hear what they are saying too :)

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