Household Technology Rules for Kids? 136
An anonymous reader asks: "My wife and I are in the process of adopting kids- We're hoping to adopt older boys (8 and up) from within the US. We've gone through the state mandated courses, but those courses don't really cover how to limit the kids with respect to technology (the Internet, TV content filtering, cell phones, MP3 players, etc). The latest strong potential son is a 14 year old child that is computer aware. I do not want to completely shelter the child, but I do want to establish boundaries- for example, I'm not going to install filtering software on his computer, but the computer will be in a public place in the house." How would you control a child's exposure to new technologies, especially when a few of those technologies are bundled with inherent dangers in addition to their great advantages (like the Internet)?
"I want to give him the freedom to learn and be creative, but also try to avoid the nastiness on the net (like the RIAA). I want him to have the freedom not just to play on the computer, but to truly use it. From everything I've been told about the kids in the foster system, they do best with a structured environment- something predictable and stable, so I think a set of rules for him to start with would be good. I'm asking for some ideas for appropriate rules/boundaries for kids, including things to watch for, and appropriate punishments (something akin to 'you broke the server, so you'll have to rebuild it, with dad's help')."
Don't bother. (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, my mother thinks I (who am 23 years old with long term significant other) shouldn't be using the Internet at night in case I find pornography.
Re:Don't bother. (Score:4, Insightful)
No limits (Score:4, Insightful)
Boundaries and limits for kids are like the guardrails or jersey walls on bridges across a deep chasm - they provide security and safety. Perhaps a 14 year old knows a great deal about computers - perhaps not. Setting limits, building relationship with him, and "inspecting what you expect" (aka trust but verify) will be a major boon to him.
Not establishing limits - including protecting him from spyware and pornography - is really stupid.
A 14 year old is a big child. Science tells us that his brain will still grow and develop for about 10 more years. He needs structure, discipline and guidance. I highly recommend the book "It's better to build boys than to mend men" by the founder of Chik-fil-a. He has built and operated foster homes for kids and knows a great deal about how to help them.
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What we don't have, are arbitrary limits, just for the sake of limits.
Structure, discipline, and guidance are not actually required. I mean this really, earnestly, sincerely, factually, observably, empirically.
You can confirm this for yourself by investigating your local Sudbury school. [wikipedia.org] You will observe kids who do not have those three things, and yet are doing very well for themselves. They aren't censored,
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Likewise, a 19-year-old is a big child. Science tells us that his brain will still grow and develop for about 5 more years. How close to completion must the brain development be before we stop treating human beings like babies?
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No hookers, but I was allowed a glass of wine with a meal and during celebrations by the time I was fourteen. It doesn't seem to have affected me too badly; in general I drink less than my peers these days.
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They can look at all of the porn they want, but only on Bea Arther. (See also: The Golden Girls)
The Kid (Score:1)
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"What you taught me was that I was less important to you than people who had been dead for five hundred years in another country."
Rule 1: no PCs in bedrooms! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Rule 2: (Score:1, Funny)
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The policy makes sense on paper and a lot of kids will be fine with this. The majority will end up with an overgrown sense of curiosity.
The real world is way, way less structured / just once you get there. Becoming a parent makes a person acutely aware of this. Parenting isn't about right and wrong. It's way more of a head game than that. Not to say it's all about psychology, I'm just
Re:Rule 1: no PCs in bedrooms! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Rule 1: no PCs in bedrooms! (Score:5, Insightful)
So was I.
I had to overcome issues with women and the degrading light that some of those images portrayed combined with my naive mind.
I haven't.
Being raised by a single parent father without much of a female influence may have had some to do with this, but I did have issues in my view of women when it came to sex later on in my late teens and early twenties.
I was raised by a single mother, without much male influence. Perhaps the issues you had was because of your father and the way he relates to women, rather than the porn?
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I've known people that have allowed kids to have their o
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Meanwhile...
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I password protected the startup so they couldn't get past BIOS, put a security screw in the case so they couldn't get the side open, and pull the ethernet cable from the switch as I only get that PC on the web when I download patches and updates.
I let them surf on the "common" computer.
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I know that masturbation as a teen is a somewhat necessary thing, but to have to have it in the middle of a family room? Please.
Go to the bathroom and lock the door. At least there you can be guaranteed privacy - and use that imagination to keep the staff solid, so to speak.
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Re:Setting your son up for sexual immaturity (Score:4, Insightful)
no, but close (Score:2)
Ideally you'd just get married. (the more wives the better, so that you don't have to pester a sick or very pregnant wife) Masturbation is a lame substitute for the real thing.
This works out well for the women too. Childbirth and breastfeeding greatly reduce the risk of breast cancer.
Breed early, breed often. It's good for you.
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Please provide a citation. The first study I found claims the opposite: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd
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Plus, it looks like that study assumes complete celebacy on the part of the priests (i.e. no ejaculations except n
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Don't do anything. (Score:1, Insightful)
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Ha, ha, only serious.
KFG
Most important rule! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Most important rule! (Score:5, Funny)
KID(startled): Dad, it's uhh... it's not what it looks like. I clicked on a link by accident, I didn't mean to go there.
FATHER: I'm not talking about the site; I don't care about that. I'm talking about your browser. How could you? How could you use IE? I thought I had raised you properly to surf porn with a secure browser, but I see where I've failed. This is the last straw; I'm putting Linux on the machine.
KID: But, what about my video games?
FATHER: You'll just have to spend all your time signing petitions for Linux ports or sacrifice a virgin to get them to run with Wine.
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(Ironically, the catchpa for this message posting was "boners")
One hard and fast rule... (Score:2)
Its called parenting (Score:3, Informative)
It's called parenting. It involves spending lots of time with your kids. Every day. Talking to them. Listening to them. And enforcing and adjusting the limits and boundaries based on that.
There is no other solution.
--MarkusQ
Read my post (Score:2)
I did not say "be a good parent", I said to spend time with your kids on an ongoing basis and base your
Real Geekoid Approach (Score:3, Insightful)
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Twice in four years I've had to sit him down and say "x" is not OK and no - normal people don't do "a", "b" or "c" - especially with barnyard animals.
Agreed with the other AC poster, it's pretty 1984-esque, by doing this you're creating a mini-dictature of the right-thought. When I hear stuff like this I feel glad that my father couldn't even turn a computer on.
Once I spent three weeks in America in a host family, and one night the father of the family who just came back from the computer right after I le
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Talk to Dan... (Score:2)
I think it is easier than you make it out to be (Score:2, Insightful)
Operating system? (Score:2)
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Non-standard parenting (Score:5, Insightful)
Since you aren't starting with a child from birth, you have to go through a period of actually getting to know them before you can really decide what kind of rules there need to be. Talk to them, and find out what they know already, and what they're used to, and work from there. A 14 year old new to your family isn't going to react well to arbitrary rules, especially if they're radically different from what he's used to. Anything that's much different from his normal should be explained. You don't have to explain everything, obviously, but you need to be open with them on the reasons for things that they may not agree with.
I recommend keeping the electronic entertainment in common areas, but that's more of a spending time together thing. The last thing you want to do with a newly adopted kid is to encourage them to spend time away from the rest of the family. Give them space, but make sure that they've got some draw to be out and about with everyone else.
A few sijmple rules about technology... (Score:5, Funny)
2. Don't stand behind a car when it's backing down the driveway.
3. Don't use my electric razor on the cat (or dog, or gerbils, or
4. When the stove has that jumpy stuff coming out of the cooking part, don't stick your hand in it.
5. Do not put the cat in the freezer because it seems warm. THe cat likes it warm.
6. Even if the cat likes it warm, don't put it in the microwave.
7. Don't put your little brother in the dryer to give him a ride.
8. Even if they're called *safety* pins, you still can't stick them in electrical sockets.
9. Do not take pictures of mommy or daddy in the shower.
10. Television will kill you. Really.
Remove X from the machine (Score:1)
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The parent is joking-- but that's not a bad idea. I mean, how many of us learned to use computers by slogging through the command lines of our C64/Apple IIe/XT-PCs?
Two things (Score:1)
buy them the Columbine game (Score:2)
My 3 year old loves Doom II (Score:4, Interesting)
(he'll ask, "can I bad guys")
I know I'll burn in bad parent hell, but he can type iddqd and idkfa by rote, and has a jolly good time.
he launches it, randomly selects a level, and starts it from the windows wrapper..
his favorite really is the chainsaw, he laughs and laughs..
I don't intend to set limits, but his only computer where he plays is two feet to the right of my main computer & rig
I watch what he does, and he watches what I do- and he hates to play deathmatch mode with me.... he dies a lot...
he can finish the first three levels all on his own..
the little bugger is three... so- my tolerance is probabbly too high, and not at all helpful...
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he hates to play deathmatch mode with me.... he dies a lot...
For that, if for nothing else, you deserve to burn. Let the kid win some, already!
Don't Give Restictions (Score:4, Insightful)
By putting restrictions or limitations on computer/internet/etc usage, you will accomplish nothing. It will signify your lack of trust, which is a bad way to start. Additionally, with even a small amount of computer knowledge, such restrictions are generally easily bypassed.
The same applies to TV filtering. By doing so, right off the bat, you are basically saying there is _no_ trust, and that is a very bad way to go.
That said, it would be a good idea to make sure that he understands what you allow and what you don't, however, long discussions are a bad idea, especially on topics he probably isn't comfortable discussing with you. Remember that he probably knows you won't be happy to catch him downloading illegal music, so repeating it is just annoying. Short and sweet is your best friend.
As for rules/boundaries, several things should be kept in mind. If he spends a lot of time on the computer, so be it. Remind him and encourage him to do other things, but forcing him to not use the computer will just piss him off, and who knows, maybe he'll end up as a computer science major. If he seems to be switching windows every time you walk by, he's probably doing something he shouldn't be doing.
As for punishment, remember that there are a lot worse things that he could be doing than illegally downloading music or watching porn. If you see him downloading music, at least you know he isn't out doing drugs. And if you catch him watching porn, the embarrassment he goes through would be far worse than any punishment you could give.
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I definately see where you're coming from here, and honestly, it makes sense. There are few gotchas around though
For example, while you as a slashdot reader are probably slightly more understanding of the technological world than the average, a lot of teens are flat out retarded when it comes to it (like older folks, really).
That causes an issue, where the things thay you tell them are out of bounds, simply don't compute. Remember a large amount (the majority?) of teen
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Monitoring is probably wasting your time. A 16 year old will always find a way...if you set up a proxy and monitor everything coming in through the net, he'll find another way...get a mate to burn him a few DVD's a week, perhaps. In my opinion, this leaves protection and education as your options.
Education isn't easy.
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So what? No parent with a smidgen of sense trusts kids. (Except with in an extremely limited domain.) I wouldn't trust a kid with matches, power tools... or unfettered acess to the internet. Using all these things takes experience and judgement - which children lack, and must be taught.
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Ignore 90% of the advice here. (Score:3, Insightful)
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In almost any situation in a young person's life.. (Score:1)
Use technology to manage technology (Score:1)
1) The TV is plugged into an ordinary lamp timer (7-day programmable). It kicks in at 35 minutes after curfew, so that she can not watch TV late into the evening. If she finds the timer, my next step will be to lock the timer in a box.
2) I bought commputers for everyone in the house (that is old enough to use one).
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When I was 15 (I think - maybe 14), I got a 'phone line installed in my room. This was my parents' idea, so I could use the Internet while
Why did I not think of this? (Score:3, Funny)
Public (Score:1, Redundant)
This eliminates 90% of the problems you're likely to face.
My approach (Score:2, Interesting)
What this comes down to is randomly sniffing traffic to see w
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Using WireShark, and originally Ethereal, I can see who she's talking to without taking the extra step of seeing what's being said
Without seing what's being said? You must look away from what's being said then, because no matter whether she's using MSN or AIM, you'll see her messages in clear in WireShark.
Anyways, I can tell from my personnal experience, the worst part about having a computer in your bedroom when you're a teen is not to watch porn or to have paedophiles who might cyber-rape you (lol, seri
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There are different levels of detail that are plainly visible. Some of them are collapsed by default. It takes only a single click of the mouse to read them, but unless I have a reason to, I don't.
LK
My Experiance... (Score:1)
Public place is a good idea (Score:2)
What dangers? (Score:2)
especially when a few of those technologies have are bundled with inherent dangers in addition to their great advantages (like the Internet)?
I don't mean to sound like a troll, but where on internet is the danger for a 14 year old boy? I can understand that we consider it's not safe for an 8-year old because the sight of porn could disturb him, but not a 14 year old I mean, when you're 14 usually the porn you see is what you want to see, so where's the danger? Chatting with "predators"? Again, I fail to g
From my non-biassed view: (Score:2)
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Bah (Score:2)
I'm 21 now. The generation gap worked in my favor so that I had no effective supervision on my computering, and I had access to the Net since I was... 9, i think. Maybe 10. Point is: it didn't harm me. "Oh teh noes, my son/daughter might talk to just about anyone!" "Oh teh noes, he/she might look at dirty pictures!" I think most people really need to sit down for a moment and consider why these things seem so damaging to them.
(Side note: a whole generation - mine - is growing up with access to
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Neither did I - and my first experience on the net was getting information on how to brew a high alcohol beer and looking up some information on a high explosive. It's hardly relevant though, I was on gopher looking up the MSDN on picric acid because I did not wish to blow my head off with the stuff in the lab.
Trust him (Score:1)
Set him up with a really low-end computer and firefox in his room and stick a badass machine out in the family room. If he wants to have a private convo he can do it in his room, otherwise 90% of his time will be spent outside with you.
Just tell him tha
Other things (Score:1)
first rule LOG EVERYTHING (Score:1)
cell phone get him a prepaid phone and chip in a base amount every month he chips in for the "extra"
technology rules (Score:1)
My situation (Score:1)
Parent-Child Relationship (Score:1)
Internet Parenting Observations and Guidelines (Score:2, Informative)
1) The entire range of human behavior, from the most inspired to the most depraved, is available on the Internet.
2) Two fundamentals of your job as a parent are to:
Many of the preceding responses reflect on the range of issues - privacy, restrictions, freedom, trust, etc.
I offer some simple questions:
No teacher like experience (Score:1)
There's no teacher like experience, and as long as you keep control on a few things (ie, don't turn him loose with both the Internet and a credit
Re:Limited Access (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Limited Access (Score:4, Insightful)
(I don't know wether this deserves a sarcasm tag. I want to go for it, but right now I have a little pessimistic voice inside me saying "Maybe... just maybe.")
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If your kid is normal, on the other hand, expect nightly screaming matches, much sneaking off to use the 'net at libraries or at friends' houses, and probably a serious bid for emancipated minor status at the age of sixteen.
You sound like the sort of parent who gives his kids rigid boundaries, while givin
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I agree with the parent poster, and actually, that's why often teenage is often punctuated by conflicts between the teenagers and his parents, it's because parents are too slow to give the teenager the freedoms he will get sooner or later.
In my case, the only difference between when I was 14 and when I was 17 was that when I was 17 I could do anything I would have gotten in trouble for doing at 14 without getting yelled at or anything. Parents just need to adapt themselves faster or get ready to lose their
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I would say you could go about this two ways:
One:
- Let him have his own account on the computer, his own email address,
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Option 1 provides freedom, but a limited time - it provides a structure which the OP says was desirable. The last thing you want is a teenager BORED in front of a computer. That's when they start going to look for the dubious stuff.
Tell me about it. Every time I get bored in front of the computer I always end up here. On Slashdot. And I don't even have the excuse of being a teenager.
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