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If your kids are accessing things they know they shouldn’t, and you know they’re doing it anyway, is that it? We’re at an impasse? I really don’t want to tell anyone how to parent, but I’ll say that if I did what you described I would have been punished and/or grounded, because I knew the rules, and I knew I was breaking them.

Unfortunately, that’s not how addiction works. It’s hard to punish addiction out of anyone. Different kids have different nature and nurture, and for some kids, consequences don’t matter. I would have judged parent’s in this situation before becoming one. It’s humbling and builds empathy.

What do you do when punishment doesn’t work? When therapy doesn’t work? When strict control doesn’t work? When there is no remorse, shame, fear of repercussion, or ability to anticipate consequences or risk? When the kid has the highest IQ in the house but fails tests and doesn’t turn in homework because they don’t care about anything but their vice? When they literally spend 2 hours a day _at school_ on YouTube and games (among other things) on a device the district mandates they have?

Do you punish a child for years because they can’t function with access most people consider normal? When their siblings have all of the same access and devices and don’t have the same issues and would respond to rules and who would punishment in exactly the way you would describe?

Maybe it’s a parenting issue, but I’d like to think we’ve done far more than most parents could imagine for over a decade and come up short for one of our kids. Meanwhile 3 others are just fine.

It sounds like you should exercise your right as a parent to choose a different school that is more in line with your values, instead of attempting to force your values on everyone.

Fortunately many states are experimenting with school vouchers and other programs to help parents choose alternatives. It has some downsides (some public schools are having trouble adapting and special ed is an issue) but it may help with situations like yours.

Serious question: how do you get your kid(s) to another school? Add an hour of travel time every day?

Vote for school choice.

ok, probably age verification and strict access control from the state solve your problem.. for some time.

But what will you do when this one will grow? There will be no restrictions - not from you, not from the state. Does restriction really solved the root problem?

Honestly, I don’t know. My hope is that as executive function matures, logic and consequences become more apparent in decision making. Children haven’t developed that yet. I completely get that in a few years, the training wheels are off and the floodgate is open. I’ve had family members, before internet was what it has become, that had similar problem, albeit in different areas. By their mid-20s they had figured things out, but lost several years.

What I do know is that we have an epidemic of mental illness affecting children and adults are crying about how it affects them. Privacy is important. Protecting children it’s important. Let’s have both.

What you're describing, combined with the sort of state provided access being described, seems like it would incentivize the child learning how to lie and hide things more effectively. It's absurd that the school would facilitate such broad and directionless access to the internet outside of the parent's supervision. It's directly undermining them.

And how's the parent punishing them not incentivizing the same behaviour of lying and hiding more effectively? If you want something done on all levels, you need regulation on all levels - any hole will be exploited, and kids don't have such a thing as "responsibility" developed yet.

You mean the parent enforcing the rules? What are you even trying to argue here?

are the school laptops locked down at all? work laptops are locked down at most corporations and that’s for adults!

They are but middle school and high school kids are more creative, have less to lose, and have no concept of long term consequences compared to employees. School district IT is no match for kids with unlimited time, creativity, and access. Bypasses spread faster than memes. AI chatbots are blocked, one of my son’s friends ran a local proxy to his unblocked domain and other kids get local network access to AI. Installers blocked? Get a hacked game loader that looks like an approved binary.

You have a class with 30 kids with gaming (or social media or or porn) devices and a teacher whose just as internet addicted behind their own computer at the front expecting the kids to work on their own through the lesson while they do who knows what.

How much YouTube do you think you can you watch in a a high school PE class? About 50 minutes at today’s public schools. The teacher doesn’t care, the principal doesn’t care, the superintendent doesn’t care, and the school board doesn’t care. As long as the PE teacher’s baseball team does well, who cares, right? (Hi Scottsdale Unified School District! I’m talking about you!)

> Hi Scottsdale Unified School District! I’m talking about you!

Oh, I guess you’re not my neighbor. You had me going there for a long time.

Stories like this are everywhere. Parents don’t share them because they perceive it is an individual problem, and a shameful problem.

We don’t even have a good way to talk about the problems, never mind their solutions.

I don't know why you think I'm not a parent. What did I say that made you think that?

> they just need to watch what their kids use devices for, and keep the devices in public areas of the house

How do you monitor what a child is using a device for when you don’t have access to the device and they’re at a school that doesn’t care? What device is safe to use, even when in a public area? You’re able to see the screen of all devices I your house at all times? You’re awake at all hours monitoring public areas of the house? Would you think an elementary schooler could get into trouble with an eink Kindle? With an Xbox (beyond gaming to long)? With a school issued Chromebook? What happens when Screen Time fails and the whitelist of allowed sites and limits on time no longer work (as happens several times a year)? What happens when the locked down Chromebook allows arbitrary web access through a log in screen buried deep in help that all the kids know about and despite layers and layers of controls out in place the school device happily ignores them all and lets children do whatever they want?

The idea that a child can be given a device and that they could be monitored 24/7 suggests you don’t have kids, they don’t have any technology in their life, you don’t know what they and/or their friends are actually doing, or you only have children like my daughter. I suppose if everyone was like her I’d be naive to what most kids are doing as well.

I don't need to see things all the time - it's just a general communal thing that helps limit behaviours.

I do have kids, and they don't have much technology in their lives, but they are both preteens. They have a Yoto and we have a family Xbox that's very locked down with PINs.

As for the school laptop situation, I already said this:

> The main thing the state can do is stop requiring kids to have portable internet-connected devices for state schooling.