The problem here is that the systems you have to monitor usage aren’t great, and kids are known for lying or omitting details to their parents.

Giving kids open-ended access to technology doesn’t have to involve giving them access to the Internet without constant guidance. I would rather my kid have less digital access than her peers, than get sexually exploited because they were a child publicly online.

More and more I am seeing that the places kids go online are places I don’t fully understand, but a cursory review reveals is also a hotspot for sexual predators. This seems like the perfect place for a predator to stalk my child. I don’t know enough to stop them, and my kid doesn’t know enough not to get exploited. By the time I find out about it, it’ll probably be too late.

Giving a child an internet-connected camera and screen can become such a horrific nightmare, I think that good parenting actually has to involve being realistic and telling your kids “just because your friends have TikTok and Instagram doesn’t mean you won’t get grounded for it in this house”, and letting kids use technology when I am in the room with them. I have seen what kids are posting online, and it’s easy to assume that their parents don’t care, but it’s a lot more realistic to accept that kids are good at keeping secrets, and their parents don’t know what they’re up to.

If they want to learn about computers on their own, I’ll buy them what they need to learn about all sorts of stuff that doesn’t expose them directly to capitalist or sexual exploitation online. When they are old enough to defend themselves, then they can be given the trust in accessing the Internet on their own, but until then they need to explore under my watchful eye.

Giving a smartphone to a <10 year old child, and trusting that the limited monitoring tools available, and your child’s honesty is enough to keep them safe from vicious exploitation is delusional and irresponsible.