Back in the dial up days, my dad installed a switch in the phone socket in his room (which was wired before the phone socket in the computer room) so he could disable the internet at night. I used to sneak in while he was snoring and crawl around the bed to switch it back on.
Point being, there’s only so much you can do to prevent kids from accessing things they shouldn’t. The right way to parent is to try and direct your kids towards the right things, but also offer age-appropriate yet honest explanations for the things they do find. But it’s a difficult balance, as kids get older they deserve more privacy, and it’s difficult enough for an individual to stay ahead of the tech curve than to keep your whole family on top of it.
As a nerdy kid growing up, I was in charge of implementing the household safety features for our internet. I explained what features there were, how they work, and they were active.
May have forgotten to mention/block VPN though. That always seemed to work perfectly every week.
That argument is getting weaker every year. Let’s assume that the parents were 18 when they had her, that means the parents were born in 1985. That makes them millennials, who probably had the internet from at least 5 years old. So they aren’t some ignorant boomers who have no idea what the internet is, and they can take steps to moderate the experience.
Born in 93, my home had internet when I was like 5-6, but that was only for my mother to play virtual cards with friends and for research for her college. Didn’t really have regular internet access until early 2000’s.
You are not accounting for how lately average tech knowledge and skills have been declining rather than increasing, and that internet access is so ubiquitous that even given the best attempts at monitoring and restricting, there is no lack of alternate ways to access whatever one wants to.
Legitimately, it was much easier to control what kids accessed when the only place they could do that was the single family computer the household had.
Lol you’re assuming that everyone had the internet in 1990? Most households didn’t get it until the 00’s. I was in the early group, and I didn’t get it until around '95 (I still have dodgeball.exe downloaded from the Cartoon Network website in 1996). Most people I went to school with didn’t have internet at all, many didn’t even have a computer.
Even if you were clued up, is it really appropriate for parents to snoop on everything their child does? As they get older, it’s expected that they have a little privacy to themselves, and arguably not giving them some privacy could be considered abuse.
Is it really appropriate for parents to snoop on everything their child does?
When did I say they need to be a helicopter parent? I am simply saying kids in the 90s had parents who did not grow up with this computer thing, and were not aware of what they could be doing. So kids could do whatever. This person obviously had this type of parent.
These days, if you’re not at least taking an interest in what websites and communities they are participating in, you are not parenting.
All of them? The only restrictions my parents gave were about the amount of time I spent there and it’s the same story with all my friends.
Back in the dial up days, my dad installed a switch in the phone socket in his room (which was wired before the phone socket in the computer room) so he could disable the internet at night. I used to sneak in while he was snoring and crawl around the bed to switch it back on.
Point being, there’s only so much you can do to prevent kids from accessing things they shouldn’t. The right way to parent is to try and direct your kids towards the right things, but also offer age-appropriate yet honest explanations for the things they do find. But it’s a difficult balance, as kids get older they deserve more privacy, and it’s difficult enough for an individual to stay ahead of the tech curve than to keep your whole family on top of it.
As a nerdy kid growing up, I was in charge of implementing the household safety features for our internet. I explained what features there were, how they work, and they were active.
May have forgotten to mention/block VPN though. That always seemed to work perfectly every week.
Please don’t lump me in with your irresponsible parents please and thank you.
That argument is getting weaker every year. Let’s assume that the parents were 18 when they had her, that means the parents were born in 1985. That makes them millennials, who probably had the internet from at least 5 years old. So they aren’t some ignorant boomers who have no idea what the internet is, and they can take steps to moderate the experience.
the internet wasn’t actually that available til 1994 or so, and the dot-com boom was late 90s.
Born in 93, my home had internet when I was like 5-6, but that was only for my mother to play virtual cards with friends and for research for her college. Didn’t really have regular internet access until early 2000’s.
You are not accounting for how lately average tech knowledge and skills have been declining rather than increasing, and that internet access is so ubiquitous that even given the best attempts at monitoring and restricting, there is no lack of alternate ways to access whatever one wants to.
Legitimately, it was much easier to control what kids accessed when the only place they could do that was the single family computer the household had.
Lol you’re assuming that everyone had the internet in 1990? Most households didn’t get it until the 00’s. I was in the early group, and I didn’t get it until around '95 (I still have dodgeball.exe downloaded from the Cartoon Network website in 1996). Most people I went to school with didn’t have internet at all, many didn’t even have a computer.
Even if you were clued up, is it really appropriate for parents to snoop on everything their child does? As they get older, it’s expected that they have a little privacy to themselves, and arguably not giving them some privacy could be considered abuse.
When did I say they need to be a helicopter parent? I am simply saying kids in the 90s had parents who did not grow up with this computer thing, and were not aware of what they could be doing. So kids could do whatever. This person obviously had this type of parent.
These days, if you’re not at least taking an interest in what websites and communities they are participating in, you are not parenting.