This only works if I ban my child from having any friends since they all have unlimited mobile access to the internet.

Yes if they do bad things like drunk, have sex and do drugs.

I would start with banning cellphones.

	▲	techblueberry 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My greatest fear for my future young adult children is that they're on their cell phone all day and never have time to get in trouble with their friends, so there's that. Yes, Let's start with banning the cell phones.

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1shooner 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Could your child not just call or text their friends? Or is the real expectation to not have to intervene at all about their preferred platform?

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Gigachad 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Only if all the other kids are not on social media. When I was in school, birthday parties and such were organised on facebook. If you were not on facebook, you weren't invited.

If everyone was banned from facebook we would have organised them via text messages or email. That's the main point of social media age restrictions, individually banning kids is too punishing on those kids so parents and teachers don't try. Doing it across the whole population is much better.

	▲	2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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jlokier 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think the idea is for the child see their friends in person... not call, text, or internet.

So even if their own child has no phone at all, they have access to the internet through other children's unlimited mobile access.

	▲	closeparen 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		When I was growing up, we loved to lend the sheltered kids from the more conservative families media they weren’t supposed to have, like the Harry Potter books.

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Salgat 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm saying they'll use their friend's devices.

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jmye 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sorry, I know it's a hard line for parents to tread and it's really easy to criticize parenting decisions other people are making, but the "everyone else is doing it so I have to" always seems as lazy to me today, as it probably did to my parents when I said it to them as a teenager.

Is it more important to prevent your son from being weaponized and turned into a little ball of hate and anger, and your daughter from spending her teen years depressed and encouraged to develop eating disorders, or to make sure they can binge the same influencers as their "friends"?

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whaleidk 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

We used to teach kids to be themselves and stand up for what they believe in and their own authenticity and uniqueness even in the face of bullying. That having less or other doesn’t mean your value is lesser or that you should be left out. Now we teach them… conform at all costs so you never have to risk being bullied or lonely?

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cgriswald 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The number of times I objected to my parents rules because my friends didn’t have those rules and the response was: “I’m not their parent.”

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friendzis 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is it more important to prevent your child from <...>, or to not be seen as an adversarial monster?

	▲	lurking_swe 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		presumably being a parent is different from being a your child’s friend. There is overlap, but yes, sometimes being a good parent requires “laying down the law”. With that being said, i think explaining _in detail_ why you’re laying down certain rules can go a LONG way toward building some trust and productive dialogue with your child. Maybe you’ll find out they are more mature than you give them credit, can loosen up a bit. Or maybe a reasonable compromise can be found. Or maybe they’ll be bitter for a few months, but they’ll at least understand “why”.

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luxuryballs 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

this is the biggest problem, so many parents are head-in-the-sand when it comes to things that can damage a child’s mind like screen time, yet no matter how much you protect them if it’s not a shared effort it all goes out the window, then the kid becomes incentivized to spend more time with friends just for the access, and can develop a sense that maybe mom and dad are just wrong because why aren’t so-and-so’s parents so strict?

because their parents didn’t read the research or don’t care about the opportunity cost because it can’t be that big of a deal or it would not be allowed or legal right? at least not until their kid gets into a jam or shows behavioral issues, but even then they don’t evaluate, they often just fall prey to the next monthly subscription to cancel out the effects of the first: medication

	▲	closeparen 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Do you believe the research shows that screens in and of themselves are so powerfully damaging that being exposed for, what, a few hours a week at a friend’s house will cause them to require psychiatric medication? So many questions. Are you campaigning against billboards in your city? Do you avoid taking your kids to any business that has digital signage? I assume you completely abstain from all types of movies and TV? What about radio or books? What are you, personally, doing on HN? Fascinating.