nonesuch49

I absolutely agree that teaching them is important. But, 13 or 15 year old kids get taught stuff all the time that they completely ignore. Humans in general are bad at understanding possible risks when faced with what seems like easy short term success. Kids are an order of magnitude or two less capable of doing that.

This is a resetting for us and not a permanent state. Teaching often means letting someone fail, correcting that behavior, and then trying again. Teaching is never, "I say it and they do it."

You got what I was saying though I could have explained myself better. Kids do not and perhaps cannot understand the risks involved.

If you read more closely, you'll see that I said "recently" as in, "due to recent events." We did exactly as you say, taught our child as well as we could with full openness and honesty about the reality. It doesn't matter. Some kids will take that to heart and some won't. I'm not willing to risk my child's well-being simply because "they didn't do what I told them to" with something as nefarious as what's found on the Internet. As another commenter said, it's the ease of access and the flattening of risk that's problematic.

We will likely release some of these restrictions as our trust in our child and their recognition of the problem sinks in over the next few weeks. I would never consider an outright ban or prohibition because I agree it does have some of the affects you mention. Instead, this is a resetting of expectations for our child around what level of risk is acceptable.

I thought so too. I hoped I'd never have to be this way. It's not just stolen money from a bank account or a hacked Instagram. It could be life or death.

We recently threw out everything we thought about surveillance, privacy, liberty, and learning through experience when it comes to our kids' access to the Internet. They now have no phone. The computer has a whitelist of sites it can visit and a few ports open for some games. It only gets used with the door open. I disable the Internet completely between the hours of 10pm and 6am. I am looking into even more big brother solutions. It's all theoretical until real stuff goes down. I'll admit to having thrown away my personal principles in regards to freedom and privacy to try to protect my kids.