Comment on 30% of Children Ages 5-7 Are on TikTok
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 months agoI doubt it, parents will just move them to YouTube or some other platform. The TikTok ban is intended to limit misinformation by the CCP, and that doesn’t really matter for this age of kids.
GladiusB@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I’m a parent. YouTube is watched but you can see what they are watching.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
The more important thing to me is building habits. I care less about how much they’re watching vs how they’re spending their time generally.
We have a rule where our kids need to read to be able to watch/play games, and we cap at 2hr/day. If they read 1hr, they can watch/play for 30min. My kids seem to have a pretty good mix of reading, watching/playing, and playing outside w/ friends, so I think it works.
GladiusB@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Yea. We do something similar. It’s an electronic allowance. If you use it it’s done for the day. I change it for rainy days and vacations if we are traveling in the car or whatever. But it’s easy to set up with Google family. And then you can see what they are doing. Not to be snoopy. Just to teach them the right way to protect themselves online. I don’t want them to turn 18 and be completely lost.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I give my kids 30 min “free” on Saturdays, which gets doubled if they spend it in a game with a sibling. For trips, I make my kids all do the same thing, so either watch the same show, listen to the same audiobook, etc.
I personally don’t digitally track what my kids do at all, I instead rely on trust and keeping devices in a public space. I tell them what’s acceptable, and occasionally hang out with them while they’re doing whatever. As they follow the rules, I give them more autonomy (e.g. my oldest may get their own PC soon-ish), but if they break the rules, they lose access. The only parental controls I use is for my 4yo, because she keeps getting into my Steam Deck and Switch w/o asking, but my other kids know the passcode on the Switch (not my Steam Deck, that’s mine).
It’s a bit bumpy, but I’m hopeful that having rules but no walls teaches them to learn to self-regulate and will help them in the long-run.