> The thing is, what are the parents to do beyond restricting things?

Well, I can't speak for parents (as in all parents). I can, however, tell you what we did.

When two of my kids were young we gave them iPods. The idea was to load a few fun educational applications (I had written and published around 10 at the time). Very soon they asked for Clash of Clans to play for a couple of hours on Saturdays. We said that was OK provided they stuck to that rule.

Fast forward to maybe a couple of months later. After repeated warnings that they were not sticking to the plan and promises to do so, I found them playing CoC under the blankets at 11 PM, when they were supposed to be sleeping and had school the next day.

I did not react and gave no indication of having witnessed that.

A couple of days later I asked each of them to their room and asked them to place their top ten favorite toys on the floor.

I then produced a pair of huge garbage bags and we put the toys in them, one bag for each of the kids.

I also asked for their iPods.

No anger, no scolding, just a conversation at a normal tone.

I asked them to grab the bags and follow me.

We went outside, I opened the garbage bin and told them to throw away their toys. It got emotional very quickly. I also gave them the iPods and told them to toss them into the bin.

After the crying subsided I explained that trust is one of the most delicate things in the world and that this was a consequence of them attempting to deceive us by secretly playing CoC when they knew the rules. This was followed by daily talks around the dinner table to explain just how harmful and addictive this stuff could be, how it made them behave and how important it was to honor promises.

Another week later I asked them to come into the garage with me and showed them that I had rescued their favorite toys from the garbage bin. The iPods were gone forever. And now there was a new rule: They could earn one toy per month by bringing top grades from school, helping around the house, keeping their rooms clean and organized and, in general, being well behaved.

That was followed by ten months of absolutely perfect kids learning about earning something they cherished every month. Of course, the behavior and dedication to their school work persisted well beyond having earned their last toy. Lots of talks, going out to do things and positive feedback of course.

They never got the iPods back. They never got social media accounts. They did not get smart phones until much older.

To this day, now well into university, they thank me for having taken away their iPods.

So, again, I don't know about parents in the aggregate, but I don't think being a good parent is difficult.

You are not there to be an all-enabling friend, you are there to guide a new human through life and into adulthood. You are there to teach them everything and, as I still tell them all the time, aim for them to be better than you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99j0zLuNhi8

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WorldPeas 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My parents took the same approach and it helped, but I will anecdotally point out that kids have played video games under covers for a while, even when I was young, I remember getting in trouble for playing this spyro game n' watch clone from mcdonalds at night, or gameboy with one of those lamps that plugged into the serial port. When I become a parent, I think I'd feel understanding of something like this, but would likely still only give them access to hardware like cell-enabled apple watches or DSes. The issue I take with modern games like CoC is that they are psychologically engineered to be mentally harmful, and push you to spend real money on fake things. I've seen many peers who were engaged in CoC as kids get into online gambling and sports gambling recently, it doesn't sit right.

	▲	robomartin 44 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> The issue I take with modern games like CoC is that they are psychologically engineered to be mentally harmful Precisely. I am not saying I am perfect as a parent or that this was the best possible approach to the situation we had. Nobody is and perfect parenting is an absolute myth. I knew full well just how addictive gaming could be because I experienced it in my 20's. Needless to say that the "shock and awe" consequence to their deceit was not the result of a single data point. We had been seeing changes in behavior over time (six months or so). The objective was three fold: Take away the device that delivered the addictive behavior. Take away something of value to them. Make them earn it back with positive behavior. The decision was not planned and the consequences were not communicated in advance. Few things in life are like that. Sometimes people discover the consequences of their actions (or understand them) when they are sprung on them because of something they did. Drunk driving being one possible (though not perfect) example of this. In this case, it worked. Perhaps we got lucky. Not sure. I also did highlight that I cannot speak for all parents. I did the best I thought made sense at the time. Based on the outcome, many years later, I can say it worked. To the critics on this thread: Your mileage may vary. Some of the comments sound juvenile, perhaps you'll understand if you ever become a parent and face similar circumstances. Then see what you think of someone who thinks they know better from behind a keyboard than you did in the moment and without having to be responsible for the outcomes (which is a multi-year commitment).

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Sohcahtoa82 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This reads like something I'd find on /r/LinkedInLunatics, all the way down to the one-sentence/thought-per-line formatting.

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robofartin 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I explained that trust is one of the most delicate things in the world

> lies to own children about throwing their toys away

	▲	Terr_ 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I can't tell whether "destroying all your favorite toys" was a clear expectation the kids already had as a possible outcome of their choices. __________ 1. Teach children about consequences... by using clear expectations, timely feedback, and proportional responses. 2. Teach children about consequences... by allowing wrongdoing to become a festering mess until it "justifies" some big punishment that comes as deliberate emotional trauma and surprise. Separately from asking which one is more "effective" at conditioning an immediate behavior, each choice also affects how those kids are going to behave when they are in any position to set and enforce rules. Being a role-model is hard.

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2duct 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The issue with any parent's narrative, including yours, is that it's one-sided. We'd need the story told by the children-turned-adults to make any fair judgement. Some people are going to say what their family wants them to hear and only open up to professionals or a neutral third party.

	▲	robomartin 34 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> We'd need the story told by the children-turned-adults to make any fair judgement. True enough. Of course, you are not going to get that in this case. All I can say is that those commenting here about potentially cataclysmic consequences are likely precisely the kind of people who will practice the kind of soft "friend class" parenting that can result in really troubled kids. If they even have kids at all, because some of the comments by others sound infantile. The other narrative that is utterly false is that of role models in the negative sense. Almost all of you are one or two generations away from a culture and style of parenting where beating the kids was considered normal and even good parenting. An era where teachers beating kids in school was also normal and accepted. And yet, that has largely not survived the generational divide except in some segments of some cultures. Raising kids and being a role model isn't a matter of single events or experiences, it is, like most other things in the human condition, a matter of building a relationship over time and understanding that life usually is a rollercoaster ride, not a straight-and-flat road.