As a dad of two younger kids (7 and 10), I have been incredibly frustrated with the way age restrictions are handled across various services.

Really, my main complaint comes down to: I completely disagree with what these services choose to restrict for kids and what they allow.

They block my kids from doing things I have no problem with them doing and they allow things I would never want my kids to do in 1000 years. It is incredibly frustrating.

Often times, there is literally no way for me to bypass some stupid restriction they put on my kids, so the only way I can get it to work is to help my kids lie about their age… and at that point, I lose the ability to actually block things I care about.

These laws are just going to make it worse. I don’t want someone else choosing how I control what my kids do. Give me tools to control it myself, and you can choose some presets for parents to use, but don’t force me to use your definition of age appropriate.

▲

big85 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I don’t want someone else choosing how I control what my kids do. Give me tools to control it myself

I agree. Parental controls have been the norm for thirty years. The adult who owns the device should have control over it, not Microsoft or California.

▲

KolmogorovComp an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

maybe at 7 and 10 they shouldn't use device connected to the internet without your active supervision at all? What will they miss?

▲

alpinisme 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What tools would you want?

▲

cortesoft 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Honestly, I don’t have a perfect answer. It really depends on what the service is.

My main thing is I want to be able to opt in or out of various filters. I don’t mind if my kids want to listen to music that has swear words, but I don’t want them watching videos where they give horribly sexist pickup artist advice.

This isn’t just about what I feel is age appropriate, either. It is also about what I know about my kids.

My 10 year old hates scary things, and she gets completely freaked out when they show scary movie previews. I would like to be able to block those for her. On the other hand, my 7 year old is obsessed with scary things and I don’t mind if he plays zombie video games.

	▲	JoshTriplett an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> My 10 year old hates scary things, and she gets completely freaked out when they show scary movie previews. I would like to be able to block those for her. The difference between this and the usual "parental control" mechanisms is that what you're describing here is something the child wants to cooperate with, voluntarily. In which case, you don't need a mechanism that makes it absolutely impossible; you need a mechanism for helping them not see things they don't want to see. That's something some adults also want (e.g. tools for preventing oneself going to Facebook, or going to TVTropes for too long).
	▲	blymphony 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I'm as a big of a horror movie fan as you can find, and I'm completely dumbfounded by the jump scares marketing is allowed to show in trailers nowadays. IMO (coming from someone who is basically unaffected by jump scares), they've gotten more shocking in the past couple years.

▲

themafia 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The internet is too dynamic to build a working filter around. Perhaps just tools which help parents quickly and efficiently monitor their child's device usage would be best.

Do you want to alter behaviors or lock children in a gilded cage?