[alembic_fumes]

This pervasive desire to block, protect, monitor, and control your children's online activities through nebulous supervision tools seems like a particularly American solution to a particularly American problem. Much like how little Timmy simply can't go out to play without a GPS anklet and an air tag behind each ear, so too can't he go online without a supervised account on a supervised device on a supervised connection.

Take an earnest interest in your child's activities, both online and offline. Guide them how to behave in strange, even weird and scary situations with strangers. Be the reliable adult in their life to whom they can tell when they encounter something unpleasant, online or offline. Under the guidance of a parent your children will be safer than behind any amount of protective layers that these so called child-safety apps provide, and they will also know how to help their friends to navigate risk and avoid danger.

Or put another way, if your child must eventually swim in the sea, would rather that they know how to swim, or strap a fifth flotation device onto their back?

[BeetleB]

Because I want a device for my kids to play games.

Not communicate.

Not buy stuff.

Just play (local) games.

Stuff like online communications will come at a later age. Absolutely no reason to start explaining that to a 5 year old.

And absolutely no reason to have all 3 bundled in one.

> Take an earnest interest in your child's activities, both online and offline. Guide them how to behave in strange, even weird and scary situations with strangers. Be the reliable adult in their life to whom they can tell when they encounter something unpleasant, online or offline. Under the guidance of a parent your children will be safer than behind any amount of protective layers that these so called child-safety apps provide, and they will also know how to help their friends to navigate risk and avoid danger.

Everything you just said is true for gun ownership as well!

[squibonpig]

Gun ownership isn't a terrible example honestly. I would have been probably 8 or so when I was allowed to traipse around in the woods near my dad's house with a BB gun, following extensive safety teaching of course. We would go out in the yard and shoot a shotgun and a rifle around that same age. People are probably not careful enough with guns right now in America given the stats, but it's not at all unreasonable in a rural context for a relatively young kid to be trusted with use of a firearm, even for short unsupervised periods. The real thing that a parent has to do (beyond still waiting until an appropriate age) is to extensively drill in the safety habits and proper use and know their kid well enough to determine whether they're ready for that responsibility.

[ip26]

Maybe the analogy here is you can buy only one kind of gun. That gun can load any ammunition. It’s easy for children to get their hands on anything from bb’s to BMG50. The gun has parental controls to allow selecting which ammunition the gun will accept. It’s up to the parents to decipher the difference between all the types, and the out-of-box default is all types are allowed.

Some commenters admonish parents for trying to use these parental controls at all. “Just be good parents and instruct your 6 year old not to use hollow point, 7.62mm, or fmj”

[wojciii]

I think a car analogy would work better. I live in a civilised country and nether I nor my kids have access to guns ..

For example Nintendo:

The kids have access to the family car. It will allow anyone to drive it when they select a destination by speaking while sitting in the car. The car is unlocked by default.

No way exists to limit destinations to their friends or relatives. "Drugs" takes the kids to the nearest drug dealer. "Alcohol" drives the kid to the nearest store and allows the kid to buy alcohol without any ID check.

[BeetleB]

Sure, but do you understand that it's perfectly reasonable to be able to buy a toy gun and not have to explain gun safety to them?

Or would you recommend that all toy guns have the ability to be dangerous and all parents should train them because of the prevalence of guns in society?

[sojsurf]

A few thoughts:

- Perhaps we have different ideas of the appropriate age to wean kids off of toys and teach them to use real (and sometimes dangerous) things. Today's discussion is about guns, but the same could be said for boats, motorcycles, woodworking equipment, etc. I would like my children to be well rounded and well equipped when they become adults. However, I acknowledge that this may not be normal anymore: Many families seem to be content with their teenagers playing games all day long (ironically, games with guns!)

- It sounds like you have the gun in a "toy" category. For my kids, guns are absolutely not in the toy category. They are tools, used for hunting and protection, and access to these tools comes with guard rails and significant responsibility. I would rather my kids never get used to guns as toys.

- This is bigger than just personal decisions: In my state, teenagers used to be allowed to work on construction sites in the summers. By the time they graduated, many of these guys had real skills they could support their family with. In our rush to protect kids, this kind of work is no longer taught in classes or available as summer work for young people. We have made it increasingly hard for young people to "grow up"!

[BeetleB]

> For my kids, guns are absolutely not in the toy category. They are tools, used for hunting and protection, and access to these tools comes with guard rails and significant responsibility.

The same is true for cars. Are you also against toy cars?

> By the time they graduated, many of these guys had real skills they could support their family with. In our rush to protect kids, this kind of work is no longer taught in classes or available as summer work for young people. We have made it increasingly hard for young people to "grow up"!

This is a totally different issue from access to games. Why couple the two? Are you implying one cannot be taught those skills if they have access to games?

[sojsurf]

> Are you implying one cannot be taught those skills if they have access to games?

Nah, I think games can be very valuable, especially communal, in-person games. I don't mind access to games at all... I think I look at the various forces around children and teens today, and it feels like we've taken away a lot of the things that were very valuable for development because they might be dangerous, and replaced them with replicas that are safe but lack some of the value and experience that came with the dangerous thing.

As an example, hunting games are safer than hunting, but hunting games do not teach you to be patient and still for hours, they do not teach gun safety, they do not teach you to stick it out when things get cold and uncomfortable. They do not teach you how to do something useful with the animal after you shot it, and there is no real cost to being sloppy and injuring but not killing an animal that is now suffering in the woods.

I'm sure you've heard people talk about the "infantilization" of young adults. What factors do you see behind this? How would you suggest we teach young people how to do hard things?

[Dylan16807]

Unsupervised access to most dangerous tools can wait until they're teenagers. Dangerous tools shouldn't be the only option.

[crusty]

How big are your feet? Because the shoe horn you just used to squeeze your barely veiled disdain for parentting "choices" that aren't like yours into this thread about user-adversarial parental settings by major game system manufacturers was massive.

[sojsurf]

This thread was a follow-up to squibonpig's comment about the parental responsibility and the value of giving young people access to things that are dangerous when it's done with proper guidance. I agree with him, with the caveat that "the internet" is dangerous more like a city at night than a gun.

[elros]

On a certain level, it’s also a question of different parenting philosophy.

> Stuff like online communications will come at a later age. Absolutely no reason to start explaining that to a 5 year old.

I agree, but I also see absolutely no reason why 5 years old children would have access to a gaming device. Pretty much any other activity I can imagine is better for them.

[krupan]

We got an Atari computer when I was 5. I was allowed to play Pac-Man and Donkey Kong for as long as I wanted. Turns out, those games were not designed by the same people who make slot machines, and they got frustrating pretty quickly and I chose to go do other things. This scenario not even being an option today is what most people are complaining about here.

[BeetleB]

> I agree, but I also see absolutely no reason why 5 years old children would have access to a gaming device. Pretty much any other activity I can imagine is better for them.

I suggest expanding your imagination skills. There are definitely worse activities, like watching TV.

And there's physical limit to how much physical activity one can be doing. There's definitely a point of diminishing returns there.

And the skills one can develop with carefully curated games are hard to reproduce in any entertaining manner.

I mean, sure, I could have him do math but it's a lot more boring.

Playing games is definitely an "and", not an "exclusive or" proposition.

I was given access to computer games at that age and I'm definitely appreciative for it. I only realized the value when I was well into my 30s.

[soperj]

> And there's physical limit to how much physical activity one can be doing

Do you hang out with many 5 year olds? They're made of energy.

> I could have him do math but it's a lot more boring

I did Math all the time with my 5 year old and he loved it, but then I also love math, and it's easy to make fun.

[aidenn0]

> I did Math all the time with my 5 year old and he loved it, but then I also love math, and it's easy to make fun.

I have 4 kids; two of them also found math fun at age 5, the other two did not. I do not believe my ability to make math fun differed significantly between the attempts.

[BeetleB]

Fair points, but understand that this is a multidimensional issue, with each dimension being a continuum.

I know plenty of people using the exact same arguments to argue that kids should not waste time with Lego. There are better physical activities.

[soperj]

people are definitely crazy.

[oblio]

The could play physical games such as board games or card games or...

Computer games aren't really needed for anything special at 5 years old.

Digital skills can be developed much later and they can be developed really fast, plus if the parents are very computer literate, their kids will be waaay ahead of the average kid in the world, so this isn't a real concern.

[chrismatheson]

90's Consoles are available on eBay or most video games shops :)

Turns out what was fun for you at age 5 will be fun for your kids at age 5. Just the same as The Cat In The Hat is still a beloved book.

I personally have found this to be the absolute winner of a solution.

[nine_k]

Honest question: are you a parent?

My daughter, when she was 6 or 7, was terrified by certain things she accidentally found on YouTube, and asked me to have them filtered out. At 13, she already didn't need that, of course, but the notion of "kids" includes "small kids", who definitely should not be exposed to everything the Internet has to offer, or let to go out unsupervised.

[locallost]

I'm a parent of a 12 and a 6 year old and agree with what was written completely. "I do not feel in control" is to me a strange thing to say. Running after kids trying to save them is a losing battle. Instead they need to be equipped to make decisions on their own. If they are not ready for something, they should not use it. I cannot prepare them to drive a car, so I will certainly not buy them a Tesla self driving car and then complain it's inadequate.

[senordevnyc]

Honest question (from a parent): why was your six year old using YouTube unrestricted and unsupervised?

[nine_k]

Mostly because restriction was hard to implement before YouTube Kids was introduced, and I could not revise and download every cat video, or similar. There are limits to supervision.

[cameldrv]

You shouldn't constantly be hovering over your kids. Still, you don't want them to get in serious trouble. As a parent, you can curate the options they have without knowing exactly what they are doing. You can fill bookshelves with appropriate books, and if you see them reading on the couch, you don't need to know exactly what they're reading. Some people also are able to control where they live, what schools their kids go to, what friends you invite over to your house, etc.

One day your kid might have the friend over that you suspect might be trouble. You check in a little more often. Online is harder. You see them with the device, and without controls, what's going on could be almost anything.

[armchairhacker]

Some kids only need the honor system, but others, especially younger ones, need hard restrictions. If the parent is reasonable and the kid grows up smart, they’ll be thankful later, which is why kids also get restricted offline.

Rough analogies:

- Not letting kids buy unlimited candy ~ not giving them unlimited screen time

- Preventing your kid from interacting with “bad” kids or going into unsafe neighborhoods ~ blocking “bad” websites

- Not letting your kid watch adult shows or go to adult places ~ automatically hiding NSWF content

On the last point: if you’re not careful and your kid is unlucky, they may find shocking and traumatizing content accidentally. This is true in real life but the internet moreso (vs safe neighborhoods), even today. e.g. I regularly hear reports about Instagram recommending gore seemingly out of nowhere, such as https://www.cbsnews.com/news/instagram-violence/ (Instagram seems particularly notorious for some reason).

[senordevnyc]

Why on earth would you let your kid use instagram??

[ip26]

You know where my child learned how to swim? A small pool, progressing from a hands-on adult to an arms-reach adult to lifeguards nearby. They may eventually swim in the sea, but they will have countless hours practice by then - most of them in a pool where they can stand up if they use their tiptoes.

I didn’t start by giving my kindergartener a lecture about the dangers of riptides and then let them navigate the risk of the ocean themselves as they learn to keep their head above water.

Granular parental controls are a way to create that kind of progression, allowing them gradually increasing autonomy within a managed environment.

[amtamt]

While this is a sound theoritical advice, the real world has changed a lot. Parents and elder siblings are not the only people kids interact with. For every parent mindful of dangers of unsupervised internet access, there are many parents who give unrestricted access to tiktok (and rest of the internet) because everyone other person does that, and then kids share.

Businesses don't care for the careful minority when they know such advices will be shared, silencing those who really care.

Even the feature name "parental control" is chosen to induce guilt in parents.

[ares623]

Because the situation is not symmetrical. The corporations and strangers have direct access to the child’s online presence and are constantly monitoring and hovering over them. If the corporations don’t want to lose that constant access then the parents react by being vigilant on their end. It _is_ the social contract set by the corporations.

[Groxx]

Meanwhile in the EU: growing effort to simply outright ban social media for under-16s.

It's really not unique. America might be high on the list and a bit weird about it, but it is most definitely not alone.

[Aurornis]

> to a particularly American problem

The Internet and mobile phones are not a particularly American problem. They’re literally everywhere.

[fpauser]

Young kids exposed to overly attracting games cannot limit these activities by themselves. This has nothing to do with a lack of explanation, but rather with how the brains of young kids function. Thus, accessible parental controls with a simple mechanism that limits the access to games, blocks ads, disables marketplace access and sets a maximum gaming time per day are a much-needed tool that parents should have in their hands.

[trinix912]

Young kids are usually also too young to get a phone or buy games themselves, so it's mostly the parents who let them play on their devices. By this I mean parents who hand their 3 year old a phone with YouTube at the dinner table.

It's also parents who get them their first phone and choose what kind of a phone to get them (it's not all that unusual to see kids with dumbphones anymore).

Of course there should be a way to limit things like transactions and screen time but it doesn't have to be this whole surveillance tech with GPS tracking, granular permissions, and revealing what the kid texted his friends on a given day.

[pixl97]

>My generation grew up to be generally fine people,

Correct, because the devices are powerful and cheap.

The devices that tend to be made for kids directly are normally extremely underpowered and expensive for their capabilities and anything you want to add to it is expensive. Most people have an extra phone that still works

[guelo]

Particularly American? What does that mean? That parents in other countries are better than us? That they have more time, more know how, more wisdom? Sorry but that's stupid and insulting, which I suspect was your intent.

[oytis]

Not necessarily better, just less controlling. E.g. in Germany there exists an imperative to give children freedom despite dangers. Parents don't expect from themselves to be able to shield their chidren from all possible dangers either. Not sure if it's better, but it's a different parenting culture for sure.

It mostly extends to interactions in the physical world though - restricting children's use of digital devices is socially acceptable and expected

[mjh2539]

In Germany, the state intentionally put children in the custody of pedophiles: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/26/the-german-exp...

I have absolutely no faith in German intuitions regarding what is appropriate or inappropriate about the care of children. Ask me again in a century and I will reevaluate my opinion.

[silisili]

America is a huge place. You can't sample some professional city full of helicopter parents.

More nights than not, I have random neighborhood kids playing in my yard and eating dinner with us. Their parents don't seem to care, and neither do I. But I don't live in SF or NY, either. I don't mean to insinuate those cities are worse, I don't know, but cannot figure out where else that trope would come from.

[TimTheTinker]

Europeans have trouble understanding in part because social trust is still high in many parts of Europe due to regional monoculturalism.

[carlosjobim]

"Horrific betrayal..."

Online grooming happens on a gigantic scale in Europe. It just doesn't get the headlines it should. And parents don't care to protect their children. They're busy.

[TimTheTinker]

> parents don't care to protect their children. They're busy.

That is horrifying. Dictatorial takeovers feed on vulnerable and naive kids. Mao's Red Guard, Hitler Youth, the Bolsheviks, the Komsomol ... the spread of communism and other evil forms of government has always been fueled in large part by youth organizations and organizing efforts.

[TimTheTinker]

Relevant paper: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1950882

[denkmoon]

Do you reject bicycle helmets and other safety apparatus because you take an interest in your child’s activities? They’re gonna have to learn to ride without falling off eventually anyway

[americantrash]

I made the mistake of giving my child access to Roblox when he was 7, assuming that they did some sort of moderation. Luckily, the worst thing he found was a game that told him he was going to die that night. It scared the hell out of him. After doing a bit more research on Roblox, I decided to ban it from the household. I'm happy that I did, considering it seems that it's just a cesspool of predators.

It's fine and well to say the solution is to just be around more or take an interest in what they're doing, but that is hard to do with full time jobs, multiple kids, etc. Parental controls are supposed to exist to let the parents let their kids explore in a safe space. It's not about constant supervision or tracking, its more akin to hiring a babysitter rather than leave your children home alone.

[expedition32]

Don't let people guilt trip you. It's not your job to patrol the streets for pedos. We as a society have created the police and a justice system for that.

It takes a village to raise a child. And it's about damn time that Silicon Valley takes some responsibility for this creature that they have created.

[ball_of_lint]

Yes, people should be good parents.

But still, there's going to be many who are not. I would rather good parental controls existed to make it easier for people to be better parents. Yes, maybe parental controls don't make the difference from bad to good, but they do make a positive difference for many.

[danaris]

This is good advice.

However, it doesn't work for families where both parents have to work 2-3 jobs just to keep food on the table and the heat on all winter.

And no; poor families neither do nor should "just keep the kids from getting cellphones" or something (not that you would necessarily make that argument, but I've seen its like too many times on HN...).

Poor parents can certainly still "take an earnest interest", but they're much less likely to be able to be there...and, frankly, due to the stresses and pressures of Living While Poor, they're less likely to have the emotional bandwidth to communicate clearly and productively about these things, too.

Now, what is the answer? ...hell if I know. Being poor sucks, and there aren't always good ways around that.