Media study on Gen Alpha kids show ‘purposeful participation’ over ‘mindless consumption’ of media and increased privacy consciousness over previous gen::Gen Alpha kids are protective of their personal data online and enjoy media that allows them to control their experiences with content.
You ever tried to keep a kid from accessing things? My network was parent controlled out the ass, and all it really takes is going over to a friends house, or borrowing a relatives iPad, and he had free rein on the internet.
Not to mention the school had an unrestricted network with a simple 8 character password certain students figured out.
It’s not as simple as “just set up blocks.” 🤦🏻♂️
Edit: I literally went so far as to gain access to my neighbors wifi just to block my kids devices from being able to connect to them.
When they by0ass it they have earned the privalege thats how i earned the privalege.
… So I should keep my 10 year old away from porn, until he goes to a friends house, at which point he has “earned the privilege” to watch porn?
That ain’t how life works. There are things a developing brain should not have access to. One of them being porn, others being gore sites, anonymous chat sites, and more.
Well what one sees when visiting other peoples places is not a reflection of you but a reflection of your childs friend. Its your job to teach your child how to handle said things not how to interpret it if your childs friends shows them something you dont want them to see you should have taught them how to handle it. Yes deny them viewing said things bit ensure they can handle it when they invenitably see it. Prepare them to make decisions themselves not what decicions to make.
As a kid who had a dad that religiously blocked any and all use of technology, I agree the right step is to allow access to it instead of taking it all away
This kind of made me revere videogames and the internet as a whole, using them whenever I had the chance, only realising I maybe shouldn’t be on them all hours of the day after I moved out
Even then, it was a hard habit to break
Restriction is a hard line to balance, and I wish you luck with it
Oh these days are long past now. XD but thank you.
That said, I agree with you. The restrictions I had in place weren’t a full lock down of all devices or no internet, he had access to most devices most of the time, and general access to the internet. Blocking only really took place on porn, gore, or “mature” sites like 4chan.
I did have internet shutdown at bedtime, because he proved unable to keep himself from using his phone into the wee hours. And I did keep him from installing any app he wanted, because a) it was tied to my credit card and b) we wanted to know what social sites he was on. Games were fine.
I suppose we could have taken his phone from him each night but honestly that was such a grueling process and if I forgot one night he’d be awake till 4 am on it.
You’ve done nothing wrong but FYI you can block things at a device level in most cases. My little kid currently has device level restrictions as well as NextDNS restrictions. As she gets older I’ll probably look at something more strict like a provisioned profile to make it harder for her to work around those restrictions. Nothings perfect and as you said kids will find a way.
Back when this took place, dns level stuff wasn’t very prevalent in the consumer market. Hell, even parental control on devices was non-existent. I had to MDM his phone just to gain the control I needed, and even then it wasn’t everything I needed without paying out the ass for what was essentially corporate level management of devices.
These days I’m running a whole slew of things that could handle it easily, but at this point he’s out of the house living on his own.
Fair enough :)
I’m opposite and just now have a 4 year old dabbling with electronics.