Ask HN: How to deal with children's online habits?
29 by kqr | 14 comments on Hacker News.
Or, more generally, how to give children freedom and privacy, yet also be there to help them understand the lessons the world is about to teach them? I have this preconceived notion that I don't want to violate my children's privacy. It's very tempting, of course, to passively monitor e.g. their spending or online habits, but I don't want to. (As a concrete example, I know a some people get very detailed reports from the daycare about what their children have been up to. I'm not interested in that -- when I want to know what the daycare experience is like, I personally spend a day at the daycare. This gives me much more nuance than a report ever would, but it also feels more respectful toward my child that they're allowed a part of their life outside of my supervision. But the reason I can do that is because there are other helpful adults at the daycare. That won't be the case everywhere, unfortunately.) So I want them to have privacy, but I would also want to pick up on problems early -- either their own bad behaviour, or if they're victim's of someone else's bad behaviour. Some more concrete questions in the same vein: - What fraction of their online time should I sit with them? - Do I play all video games with them or should they have some of "their own"? - Do I give them the ability to do online purchases? - Do I allow them to use up all of their money even as a mistake, or do I set up a limit? - Do I limit their "screen time" (hate that term) or will that prevent them from interacting with their friends in the way they would want to? This depends on maturity levels, of course, but I'm looking for generalisations. My children are 2 and 0.2 years old now, so this won't be relevant in a while but I like to be prepared and if you have thoughts regarding any maturity level, please share. The reason I ask you HN folks is (a) that you are likely to understand my concern for privacy and personal integrity, and (b) that I've received very useful and thought-out child-related advice here before. ---- I'm also skipping a bunch of privilege-related questions like "who the hell can take a day off to spend it at the daycare?" Or, perhaps more importantly, "what determines how much time you spend online with your children may not be what's appropriate, but how much time you can spare for it?" And yeah, both of those are problems for myself as well -- I'm interested in all creative solutions here, also that help work around such problems.
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