Yeah, this I will seriously never understand. When I was a kid, if my mother didn't want me doing something then she would make sure I couldn't do it. Is nobody parenting their children anymore? Do they just let them do whatever they want these days? I've got a 2 year old of my own and can't imagine just handing him an iPad and ignoring him all day like I see other parents do. I can't tell if it's laziness, or ignorance, or some combination of the two.

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Tade0 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Co-working space coworker went once to a school to teach kids about online safety and such.

One of the exercises was to check out what you can and can't do with a locked-down smartphone. Several minutes later the kids figured out how to bypass parental controls using ChatGPT and the method spread like wildfire.

I recall defying my father's orders regularly. Teenagers who set their mind to something can be amazingly persistent. Most parents don't have the sort of resources required to control every aspect of their child's life like that. It's also harmful in the long run.

	▲	vorpalhex an hour ago \| parent [-]
		"If I see you on social media, I'm grounding you for two weeks with no phone." You can't fix a behavior issue with tech, just like you can't fix your computer by being good.

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jraby3 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My 7 year old came home crying the other day because every single person in her class has a phone except her.

I can't imagine taking it away from my older kids (14,11). They use it to chat with friends and play games with them, do homework together, make plans and share common experiences and videos.

It's not as simple as you think. You have no idea how shitty screentime is how much of a cat and mouse game it is. It's pretty easy with a two year old, you just wait and see though...

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Broken_Hippo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Uh-huh. For me, that meant that I didn't do something At Home, and was pretty much unsupervised other places. My mother was strict at a time when a lot of kids had freedom. I couldn't do much that other kids did. When I could, I had to jump through hoops.

I lied to my mother a lot. My mother still isn't in the loop with my life - I'm in my late 40s now. It would have been much better to have been able to talk to my parents honestly about stuff I went through. It would have been much better to talk to me about things and get honest information about dangers.

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Hugsbox 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I relate to this quite a lot, to be honest. There has to be some happy medium somewhere, though.

	▲	Tade0 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The happy middle is you not using social media, or smartphones for that matter, in front of them. Kids scrutinize everything you say and do and will notice the discrepancy.