Either parent your kid, or don’t, but it is not my job to make sure your kid is coddled on the internet.
As a recently new parent myself, your post is great. And as a IT nerd, your post is also infuriating.
It is so beyond easy nowadays to monitor and restrict your child’s access to online content. Seeing the post you’re replying to just reminds me of everyone I’ve ever talked to that had X issue and their only response is “throw hands up in the air after trying nothing”.
My kids are still too young to be reasoned with, but my wife and I agreed that:
- No dedicated personal phone until middle school, and it ain’t gonna be some top of the line iphone
- No “tablet kid” bullshit
- No unfettered YouTube access
So far our oldest loves finding our phones and can open the camera app from the lockscreen and she runs around taking photos. So we’ve been letting that slide…but we don’t unlock the phone, so it’s a compromise we’ve made as she LOVES taking photos and seeing photos, which I want to encourage. As for content watching we have a TV with Plex and if there’s something we approve of on YouTube and we want our kids to watch it(Ms. Rachel), then I download the YouTube video and put it on my Plex server. No ads, no algorithm auto played videos, just pure approved content. And we have classic cartoons(Rolie Polie Olie) and disney/pixar/ghibli movies, etc.
Of course if your kid is at school with no phone but its recess and their friend has a phone with zero limits…yeah I can’t control that. But I can at least parent my kid to know that I don’t like that and I don’t want them to participate it.
Also when they’re a bit older(5 or 6 years old) I plan on teaching them internet safety. Don’t post PII, don’t visit certain websites, always use an adblocker/ublock, only talk to people online that you know in real life, etc. I do plan on playing video games with them(if they have an interest) and I know that will eventually lead to online lobbies, but I am hoping to teach them in private Minecraft servers certain etiquette first and go from there.
I’m both excited and terrified, but this is my job as a parent!
Bytemeister@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It sounds like you are doing the right things.
Long ago, I had a co-worker ask me if fortnite was okay for their kid to play, and I said “I don’t know. Why don’t you go play fortnight with your kid this weekend and see for yourself” and it was like a switch flipped in their head. Playing games online with your kids is something you can do, both to see how people are interacting with them, and to see how they are interacting with other people. I think it is really important too, that kids (especially only-childs) see other people gaming online first hand, so they can see that the person on the other end could just as easily be their mom, or grandpa, or another human being, and not just a bot that they can antagonize without consequence.