[vkazanov]

Same problem. Tried to balance some kind of freedom with limitations but it just didn't work. Then I found discord, read through some chats...

Now it's just outright forbidden to have anything with a chat. And no Internet.

The problem is that other 10 year old have mobiles, free PC access, etc, so there constant peer pressure.

[Woodi]

Some peoples are funny :) And there are parents ;)

Kids go to school, have lessons, right ? And few minutes breaks between lessons ? How that parents want to censorship what kids talk about ? Not to mention phones use. And why exactly ?

Thing is as it always is: parents make fundamens in culture/world view eg via their views and religion they subscribe. And then society and reality takes over. What society you have ?

[anal_reactor]

Not exactly. Before smartphones, sure, you weren't able to police the kid 24/7. The kid gets out of the house, comes back in the evening, god knows what happened in the meantime. But nowadays parents actually do have the means to exercise absolute control over their kids. That's a huge game-changer. First, most of interaction happens online. If you ban the kid from the internet, your kid won't have friends, problem solved. And it's not like kids nowadays rush to gather outside.

[mkesper]

Adults grooming children in chats is absolutely a thing, this is completely different from talking any way they feel like to their peers face to face.

[vkazanov]

Grooming is exactly what scared the shit out of me in my kid's Discord. Teenagers promoting sex to children. Well these idiots at least have a hormonal excuse. But adults hanging out online with children and teenagers...

I don't remember this in my late 90s LAN chats.

[simmerup]

I remember it in late 90s neopets forums and habbo hotel

[Cthulhu_]

Exactly, plus there's free, mostly unrestricted wifi everywhere. If your child has some pocket or birthday money they can freely spend, they can walk into an electronics store, buy a cheap smartphone or tablet and have unrestricted access.

At home measures are at best a delay, not a fix. What you also have to do is actually communicate with your child. If you're strict about what they can and cannot do on the internet, they will feel shame for doing it anyway, which may also mean they would be too ashamed to talk to their parents if for example they are getting groomed online.

[cdfsdsadsa]

That was originally going to be my plan - my kids can have a smartphone when they can afford to buy one themselves. I figured that by this point they would be old and experienced enough to deal with it. As I pointed out above, some of their peers at ages 5-7 already have parentally-supplied smartphones. It sucks that I'm probably going to have to talk to my currently 5-year-old girl very soon about what the internet has to offer.

[array_key_first]

You don't need a perfect fix.

I'm sorry, but if you're threat model is your kid getting a fucking burner phone, I don't know what to tell you.

Even this law won't fix it! Why, couldnt your kid just save up and buy a plane ticket to the US?? Oh no .. we need a global law don't we?

Or, maybe, we throw away that thinking and acknowledge that the problem is not that big and solving 99% of it is MORE than good enough.

Your kid is way more likely to die in a car wreck. Focus on that or something.