Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Unseelie 5465 days ago
No, "Just Lie" is not the correct choice.

The properly examined overprotective option is to use a service that doesn't require such age restrictions.

And I fail to see any situation where teaching a 9 year old that its sometimes ok to lie won't be incredibly confusing to the child: the child cannot differentiate between lieing here, and lieing about homework, or cheating on a test. Their brains can't do that yet. To tell them to lie here, but no where else, is confusing, and in an extension, is cruel.

2 comments

While I disagree with the "just lie" approach here, I think saying "I fail to see any situation where teaching a 9 year old that its sometimes ok to lie won't be incredibly confusing to the child" is pretty silly. Kids are much, much better at compartmentalizing things than most people think they are. After all, we teach them to pretend early on, but they very quickly grasp the difference between pretend and reality. Teaching them to lie in one context won't cause them to grow up to be sociopaths.
The properly examined overprotective option is to use a service that doesn't require such age restrictions.

Any recommendations?