Experienced Parents: Advice For Parental Controls?

[s0me0nesmind1]

Hello ATOT,

I have a little one coming up to those ages where they want to see and use everything that is tech related. I also know what the interwebz is and I know the content that kids can run into - or stupid apps they can download loaded with malware

So I'm looking for some inside adviceon what the best practices are for keeping my kids from doing the things I did... errrr, I mean, from finding... bad websites...

My thoughts:
Trying to police at the device level sounds wrong to me. Mostly because kids these days have 20 different devices (Phone, Tablet, Laptop, Gaming device, etc..). So I'm thinking this: Fight it at the router level is the most important, cell-phone provider might also allow parental controls for the device as well... After both those 2, THEN maybe at the device itself

 

[ctbaars]

There is nothing you can do.
If you teach by example and you keep yourself readily available, you will not have any problems. Limit the device availability. And remember. If they don't see it at home, they will see it at a friends house or in school or on the bus. It is unavoidable. It's about teaching good moral practices yourself that they will likely emulate.

 

[vi edit]

Disney circle. Can block at device level(well MAC of device) and also offers a cell product to monitor on the go devices. You can block app specific things (like instagram app) or certain websites (like youtube). And you can set time limits on access and availability hours.

I put one in after my 11 year old would just turn into a drooling moron bingeing on the dumbest shit on YouTube. She was taking devices to bed and running them dead overnight.

Done. Circle killed that.

 

[vi edit]

There is nothing you can do.
If you teach by example and you keep yourself readily available, you will not have any problems. Limit the device availability. And remember. If they don't see it at home, they will see it at a friends house or in school or on the bus. It is unavoidable. It's about teaching good moral practices yourself that they will likely emulate.

All and well, but all kids do anymore is open youtube and watch stupid shit until they run a device battery dead.

I grew up on console gaming for hours on end but that at least requires some cognitive functioning or engagement with others.

Now they just huddle in a pile watching people try and do stupid challenges.

Not on my watch.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

There is nothing you can do.
If you teach by example and you keep yourself readily available, you will not have any problems. Limit the device availability. And remember. If they don't see it at home, they will see it at a friends house or in school or on the bus. It is unavoidable. It's about teaching good moral practices yourself that they will likely emulate.

I can TRY to teach by example - but...

1) Kid's and their puberty will overrule any and all reasoning (in regards to pr0n)

2) As far as malware, trojans, etc... when kids are young and stupid, they will run into malware... Hell, even I still run into every now and then... The difference is that I KNOW when it does happen and I know the proper steps to take.



I do agree with limiting the device availability.... I knew some coworkers that collected cell-phones every night before going to bed. I'm definitely planning on that as well.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

All and well, but all kids do anymore is open youtube and watch stupid shit until they run a device battery dead.

I grew up on console gaming for hours on end but that at least requires some cognitive functioning or engagement with others.

Now they just huddle in a pile watching people try and do stupid challenges.

Not on my watch.

Yeah but they also install all types of shit.

Personally, I don't want to limit my kids to just "app stores" and actually teach them you do more than just what the manufacturer approves of. I'm one of those odd weird people that still have this device called a "desktop"

But yeah, overall agree with what you're saying. I'm hoping to have my kids branch out more and teach them better.

 

[RPD]

With Apple you can review approve/decline any and all purchases and requests and get screen time reports on what apps they are spending their time on but that doesn't tell you what they are doing on a given app.

I recently took away tablets (well iPhone 6+'s) away from my two sons as they are just entirely unhealthy consumption devices. They watch videos, play games surf and repeat until the thing is dead. At least when I was younger, screen time was limited to video games and eventually you got bored with that and went outside. With tablets they keep cycling, it's not a healthy pattern. But the concession was they have Nintendo Switches to play now.

 

[local]

Free reign with set expectations, if they get caught they get in trouble. Teaches resourcefulness.
/s

In all honesty the above is what you really get no matter what you do. Kids are not idiots and will get to what you are trying to block. I prefer education rather than brute force parenting. Besides, using my own experience, nothing my parents could do stopped me from getting to whatever I wanted and that was in the 90's.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Free reign with set expectations, if they get caught they get in trouble. Teaches resourcefulness.
/s

In all honesty the above is what you really get no matter what you do. Kids are not idiots and will get to what you are trying to block. I prefer education rather than brute force parenting. Besides, using my own experience, nothing my parents could do stopped me from getting to whatever I wanted and that was in the 90's.

Totally get exactly what you're talking about and (overall) agree -0 as far as the "kids are not idiots and will get to what you are trying to block" message.

Overall, you need to teach them right.

HOWEVER, the one thing I will say - is that for the majority of parents, I suspect that they enact their controls and then presume it all works. I'm the type of person that has no issue with doing some like occasionally (weekly, monthly, etc...) taking a quick glance at a log file.

Since I was born in 88' things like YouTube weren't big, and most people didn't understanding what "downloading from the interwebz" was at the time. My parents weren't as tech-advanced, so I was always ahead of them...

 

[vi edit]

Lol. The Disney circle spoofs your wifi signal. All traffic has to pass through it unless they hardwire. Mine is hidden in a rafter that they will never find. We don't have any cellular devices for kids. All are wifi. To get wifi you have to join the circle access point. As soon as a device hits the network you get a pop up asking what group to put it in. It's pretty solid.

 

[local]

Totally get exactly what you're talking about and (overall) agree -0 as far as the "kids are not idiots and will get to what you are trying to block" message.

Overall, you need to teach them right.

HOWEVER, the one thing I will say - is that for the majority of parents, I suspect that they enact their controls and then presume it all works. I'm the type of person that has no issue with doing some like occasionally (weekly, monthly, etc...) taking a quick glance at a log file.

Since I was born in 88' things like YouTube weren't big, and most people didn't understanding what "downloading from the interwebz" was at the time. My parents weren't as tech-advanced, so I was always ahead of them...

The best we can do is set a good example and try to give them the knowledge to grow into productive adults while trying top protect them from the worst mistakes.

I will most likely keep a tracking log just to make sure they aren't diving into something terrible but mostly to educate myself on what they are digging into.

Born in '82 here, the internet arrived in my house around '95 and the race was on. Video streaming wasn't even an option until '05 for me when I finally got off of dial-up. Before that it was download for an hour to get 5 minutes of pixelated video.

Everyone grew up with some new thing that their parents considered scary, this is no different. For me I guess it was probably computers and cell phones, my parents had no control or oversight of who I contacted or who contacted me. Thankfully they did a good job of teaching me and I didn't get into too much trouble but oh the possibility was there.

 

[vi edit]

Do you have kids? If not, I think you under estimate the addictiveness of modern electronics.

 

[local]

Do you have kids? If not, I think you under estimate the addictiveness of modern electronics.

Three. I have thousands upon thousands of hours gaming on my PC. I have never bought furniture other than that needed to sit at my computer. If it wasn't for my wife and kids I would skip eating more than once a day, been there done that. I will watch YouTube videos for hours on end, educational or otherwise. When my parents grounded me their only punishment was to take away my computer and consoles, I built another computer at night in secret to play in my room. I get on average 5 hours sleep when I finally pry myself off this thing. I am perfectly aware of the addictiveness of modern electronics.

 

[Kaido]

Disney circle. Can block at device level(well MAC of device) and also offers a cell product to monitor on the go devices. You can block app specific things (like instagram app) or certain websites (like youtube). And you can set time limits on access and availability hours.

Yup. My advice:


1. Disney Circle: Annual subscription free (includes one year of service, after that it's either $4.99/month or $49.99/year for Circle Premium). Check out the Premium features:

https://meetcircle.com/buy

Looks like Amazon has it on sale for $40: ($130 on Disney's site, same device?)

https://www.amazon.com/Circle-Disney-Parental-Controls-Connected/dp/B019RC1EI8

You can also get it integrated with certain routers from Netgear: (scroll all the way down)

https://www.netgear.com/landings/circle/default.aspx


2. Pihole: Network sinkhole for ads.

https://pi-hole.net/


3. Location: No TV's or computers in the bedrooms.


4. Timing: Mobile devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones, and other Internet-connected gadgets like iPod Touches & Nintendo Switches) get handed in at bedtime & all Internet access for kids gets cutoff.


It's not just an issue with adult content...it's various addictions (online gambling, general Internet addiction, adult content, gaming, etc.) & perhaps most importantly, imo, it can lead to sleep deprivation. I heard the Internet & mobile devices referred to as "dopamine casinos" for kid's brains one time & really like that description. Go & watch any kid or teenager for more than 5 minutes & see if they can avoid playing on a mobile device during that time. Based on my own experience, I think sleep deprivation is one of the most serious problems plaguing the nation right now. People are tired because they stay up too late, and when you're tired, you get cranky, everything is a chore, nothing is really that fun, and so you just look for the next online distraction. When I'm fatigued, I can literally spend hours on youtube, imgur, slither.io, etc. just coasting in braindead mode, just because of a combination of being bored, too tired to do anything else, but also fighting going to sleep.

Granted, not every kid is like that, but we all tend to respond & react to the environments we're placed in. Mount a TV in your kid's room, give them a laptop, a smartphone, and a portable gaming device, don't enforce any time limits or website restrictions, especially at night, and chances are, they're not going to be super productive in their free time. Or any of us, for that matter. I'm a big fan of environmental design for success, because you kind of default to whatever is the easiest & lowest-energy behavior in a given space. I do a great job binging on Netflix because I have a big-screen TV with a nice set of speakers, a super-comfy couch, and a wireless remote control...I can literally walk in the door, flop in my seat, and zone out for hours, hahaha.

 

[Kaido]

Three. I have thousands upon thousands of hours gaming on my PC. I have never bought furniture other than that needed to sit at my computer. If it wasn't for my wife and kids I would skip eating more than once a day, been there done that. I will watch YouTube videos for hours on end, educational or otherwise. When my parents grounded me their only punishment was to take away my computer and consoles, I built another computer at night in secret to play in my room. I get on average 5 hours sleep when I finally pry myself off this thing. I am perfectly aware of the addictiveness of modern electronics.

If they ever start selling Soylent IV's, we're all doomed

 

[LikeLinus]

Some of you people need to learn about pFsense and scheduling.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Some of you people need to learn about pFsense and scheduling.

Well... I mean... currently I use Open-WRT/DD-WRT on my router along with running through Pi-Hole ad-blocking.... So I'm not entirely out of the loop

Mind explaining pFsense a bit further and how it can work as a parental control?

 

[LikeLinus]

Well... I mean... currently I use Open-WRT/DD-WRT on my router along with running through Pi-Hole ad-blocking.... So I'm not entirely out of the loop

Mind explaining pFsense a bit further and how it can work as a parental control?

Well... I mean... currently I use Open-WRT/DD-WRT on my router along with running through Pi-Hole ad-blocking.... So I'm not entirely out of the loop

Mind explaining pFsense a bit further and how it can work as a parental control?

That wasn't directed towards you, I was messing with the people who are using/paying Disney, yuck.

Basically you just use pFsense as your firewall software. Reserve all of your children's devices with a static IP and MAC Address in the DHCP Server section. Then you create a Firewall Alias which is a list of IP addresses with a group name. Now you create a schedule providing access the internet on scheduled days at a time between, say, "7AM - 9PM". So I have it set Sunday night through Friday morning on that schedule. I have a second schedule on Friday and Saturday where it's on all night. So whenever it is outside of those designated hours during the week, all devices lose internet connectivity. Works like a charm.

That's high level steps and there are better guides out there, but it gives you the general idea.

Every night you use the method Kaido mention. Have them bring their phone, controllers, switch, iPad to you. They get them back in the morning.

 

[LikeLinus]

Past that, you can go down the rabbit hole and install packages to create whitelist/blacklist to block certain content using list that are kept up-to-date on certain web sites.

 

[Kaido]

Every night you use the method Kaido mention. Have them bring their phone, controllers, switch, iPad to you. They get them back in the morning.

We do the same thing at dinner. The one meal I try to have as a family is dinner. We have a basket for phones, so nobody gets distracted. Dinnertime = phone gets in the basket in Do Not Disturb mode (that way if someone is really trying to get through, like for an emergency, you'll still here it). But then that forces people to focus on the food & actually talk to each other. No TV, no portable devices. Otherwise you end up like this lol...

 

[Kaido]

Free reign with set expectations, if they get caught they get in trouble. Teaches resourcefulness.
/s

In all honesty the above is what you really get no matter what you do. Kids are not idiots and will get to what you are trying to block. I prefer education rather than brute force parenting. Besides, using my own experience, nothing my parents could do stopped me from getting to whatever I wanted and that was in the 90's.

That's the difficult thing. Turn off Wi-fi, they'll just turn on cellular. Take away their Internet-connected electronic toys, they'll go to a friend's house. A big part of it is just having an open discussion about the rules you want to have in place, the expected behavior, and the consequences.

I have a friend who has a kid in high school with ADHD, but doesn't manage him. Literally all his free time is on screens, we're talking an hour before school & up to 8 hours after school. Biggest problem is that he's late to school, doesn't do his homework, etc. The rules are there, but there's no real consequences. I have rules setup in my house (no mounted/hardwired Internet stuff in the bedrooms, portables get put in a basket at bed & at dinnertime, etc.). It's so easy to fall into the fog of being connected during all of your waking hours; I think it's really important to have that physical disconnect at different points of the day.

I'm not really one to talk tho (just based on my post count alone, lol), but I also get my work done each day before I goof off. My bedtime, however...still a major issue lol.

 

[Kaido]

That wasn't directed towards you, I was messing with the people who are using/paying Disney, yuck.

Basically you just use pFsense as your firewall software. Reserve all of your children's devices with a static IP and MAC Address in the DHCP Server section. Then you create a Firewall Alias which is a list of IP addresses with a group name. Now you create a schedule providing access the internet on scheduled days at a time between, say, "7AM - 9PM". So I have it set Sunday night through Friday morning on that schedule. I have a second schedule on Friday and Saturday where it's on all night. So whenever it is outside of those designated hours during the week, all devices lose internet connectivity. Works like a charm.

That's high level steps and there are better guides out there, but it gives you the general idea.

See, that's the thing:

1. Build a PFsense setup
2. Integrate it into your network as a firewall only or primary router
3. Setup the networking for all devices
4. Setup rules manually on a schedule
5. Etc. etc. etc.

vs. Disney's Circle: Literally just press the "pause" button on the device...from your smartphone. Sample screenshot from the Circle support site:

I don't like the bedtime feature though, because you can still stay up reading or playing video games in bed on your phone late into the night. Basket for portable device EOD collection FTW!

 

[sdifox]

See, that's the thing:

1. Build a PFsense setup
2. Integrate it into your network as a firewall only or primary router
3. Setup the networking for all devices
4. Setup rules manually on a schedule
5. Etc. etc. etc.

vs. Disney's Circle: Literally just press the "pause" button on the device...from your smartphone. Sample screenshot from the Circle support site:

I don't like the bedtime feature though, because you can still stay up reading or playing video games in bed on your phone late into the night. Basket for portable device EOD collection FTW!

You are apparently unaware you are in a tech forum where not only are you expected to be tech savvy, but also hate Disney.

I run pfsense and do physical device control at night. I wipe device if terms breached.

 

[Kaido]

You are apparently unaware you are in a tech forum where not only are you expected to be tech savvy, but also hate Disney.

Nothing wrong with either approach. pfSense is fantastic, ran it for years until I switched to my current Orbi system! Never heard of hating Disney just because it's a tech forum tho

I run pfsense and do physical device control at night. I wipe device if terms breached.

Bruh Are you Supernanny??

 

[sdifox]

Nothing wrong with either approach. pfSense is fantastic, ran it for years until I switched to my current Orbi system! Never heard of hating Disney just because it's a tech forum tho



Bruh Are you Supernanny??

I am tiger dad. My wife is putty in their hands. I even have pay as you go phone ready to hand out as punishment. No data, just an emergency phone. A few bucks a month is a small price to pay to maintain totalitarian rule.

Disney hate is about neverending copyright.