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Comment by throwaway84742 | Hacker News Reader

Here are my results so far:

1. MS Family Safety: can be easily turned off by the child 2. Kaspersky Safe Kids: doesn’t really work at all. 3. Qustodio: doesn’t block apps, so kinda useless. It blocks some, but not others.

I would pay good money for something that does work. As things are now, my 14 yo can only use his computer under adult supervision to do his homework. Otherwise he doesn’t do it at all. I don’t even care what sites he goes to as long as homework is done on time, but he totally lacks any self control, and left to his own devices he will spend all his time playing Minecraft and watching bullshit on YouTube. If he hates me for not letting him do that, so be it.

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If you're lucky, you'll accidentally turn your child into a hacker.

I’m ok with that. At least it’s better than “YouTube watcher”, or “Minecraft player”.

A proactive approach might get better results than a prohibitive one. Minecraft modding and making Minecraft videos seems like an obvious route for this given the interest.

I take it you are not a parent. Or at least a parent of a more compliant child.

>> I take it you are not a parent. Or at least a parent of a more compliant child.

There are too many awful parents out there for me to believe having kids makes one uniquely qualified to make suggestions. Dismissing ideas with a variation on "you must not have kids" is a huge red flag. It's usually done by people who see kids as things to be controlled and made subservient instead of as adults in progress.

We were all kids once. We all had friends whose parents had different styles, and often we got to see how that turned out. We all have a set of relevant experiences to pull from on the subject. Maybe it won't work for you. That's fine, but maybe you could actually say something about what's wrong with the suggestion instead of issuing a blanket dismissal. Or do the polite thing and ignore it.

You can spare me the condescending "so you don't have kids" that always follows this and just move on if you have nothing better to say.

>> having kids [does not make] one uniquely qualified

That is true. But the reverse is not. NOT having kids pretty much guarantees you have mostly romanticized notions about how things should be, and vastly underestimate the issues that parents have to face on a daily basis. Non-parents also seem to universally think that all kids are the same and merely talking to them is enough discipline. It will be enough for a small minority of kids, and nowhere near enough for most. Left to their own devices (if you pardon the pun) most kids will totally veg out and they will be unprepared to face the challenges of adulthood. The goal of a good parent is to make sure it doesn’t happen, even if the kid hates everything you do to make sure of it. Good parents don’t play “friends” with their kids. They’re more of a mix between a close confidant and a demanding manager who is totally prepared to make their kids lives unpleasant if it helps them in the long run.

You will be very quickly disabused of your romanticized notions when you have a child of your own. Until then you should probably refrain from giving parenting advice.

How is suggesting your kid might get into programming by modding a game a romanticized notion? That's one of the most common "how I got into programming" stories. It's completely non-controversial.

But that's not what you suggested. You suggested a "proactive" approach by which I take you mean letting the kid hack on this stuff at least partly on his own.

That _is_ a romanticized notion in our particular case. On his own, he quickly runs into obstacles, gets bored, and then fires up YouTube after about 5 minutes, in order to veg out.

I do teach him programming, though. He also does some more with his math tutor that comes in on weekends. He is kind of frustrated with our efforts at educating him. He thinks he should be writing grade-A 3D games right away, even though he utterly lacks both the programming and the math skills to do so. My advice to start with something much simpler has been falling on deaf ears so far.

Without structure, this particular 14 year old would not bathe, would not brush his teeth, would not do homework, would not properly eat, would not go outside or exercise, would not properly sleep, and would substitute all of the above with watching YouTube and playing Minecraft. So you can see why this is a concern.

I think we just had a misunderstanding. Had my parents listened to all the advice given to them about me, I'd have ended up in conversion therapy, so I do understand. When it comes to advice, some people (maybe most) just want to bloviate, not elucidate.

It sounds like you are being proactive (acting in anticipation of future problems, needs, or changes).

The reason I suggested Minecraft modding and video-making in particular is:

1: It turns his current passive engagement with it into an active, creator role. Most Minecraft mods and media seem to be made by kids, or at least people who started when they were kids. I've read more than a few accounts from people who ended up in CS careers because of Minecraft.

2: Java and A/V are great skills to learn for a variety of possible career paths. Java also translates easily enough to C# and .NET, which also has plenty of career paths.

I don't have kids, but I know enough parents to know how insecure they get when they realize how woefully unprepared their parents and society left them for it, and how often people give lots of useless unsolicited advice. I tried not to do that, but I can see how it might come off that way if you're constantly fending off useless, unwelcome advice and criticisms.

Sounds like we did misunderstand each other then. But still, regarding #1: in order to meaningfully, actively engage with something non-trivial like programming, it is necessary to overcome the initial learning curve. Most kids naturally have problems with that. Those problems are vastly exacerbated by having access to unlimited supply of bullshit online, which doesn't require any effort to consume. Dopamine response wins 100% of the time.

This goes back to the Suzuki method, sort of. In order for a kid to actually enjoy a complicated endeavor he/she must have some baseline set of skills to not suck at it. Acquiring it is often not a pleasant thing even for adults, with lots of effort needed to get to anywhere near where a complex activity can become "fun", and a source of enjoyment.

This is another one of those things I didn't have any problems with: I naturally started very simple and worked my way up. I was only able to do that because I didn't really have much else to do. My father threw away our TV when I was 10 years old and he never bought another one. :-)

What will you do when your kid is in college?

I might be able to exhale and relax. If I don't do something now he will never get into college in the first place.

What would you have done at his age? Would you have done your homework promptly or played video games first? Did you ever skip your homework altogether? Be honest.

Computers were primitive when I was his age, but I did have one. I never had any problems with homework. The context here is that I did not grow up in the US, and not doing one’s homework and having shitty grades was not “socially acceptable“ in the peer group. My son is not as fortunate.

Heh. I grew up in South Africa, where “didn't do your homework” was met with a choice (if you were lucky) between caning (getting hit with a thin bamboo rod) and essay-writing.

I'm not sure that is a relevant question. What I did might very well have been just the wrong thing. Of course they have urges and preferences they have difficulty controlling. That is the entire point of locking something down.

If I was born just five or so years later, I'd be that guy's kid.

My mother didn't know how to discipline me. She would try and then I would convince her to give up. She never put any controls on anything I did-- consequently, I didn't learn what life could be like with those controls in place.

Parenting is mostly a guessing game, but I honestly believe that no matter what, one has to teach discipline in some form or another. Once you see the kid disciplining him/herself, then you cut down on the discipline you provide. The human brain is not necessarily designed to be naturally disciplined. Your kid will veg out if you don't teach and enforce rules that show them what can happen when rules are in place-- things like graduating high school, for example.

>> Your kid will veg out

That is 100% true. I don’t want my kid living under a bridge when robots take over all the burger flipping jobs.

What about thin clients in the house? I know this is an old concept but with a thin-client the PC can be used only for homework, it's low power for gaming, and kids can not install anything on it, and they can use safe-browser with google...I am facing similar challenges at home.

or maybe just chromeOS on chromebooks? schools are using that, maybe that's a good fit for kids surfing at home (for homework etc)

I would consider getting an android tablet or chrome book or linux laptop for him. They can actually be locked down. My daughter was spending waaay too much time watching some buffoon on youtube, so I explained to her, after numerous warnings, that since she couldn't control herself she was off internet. I leave internet access for her apps, but not the browsers, etc.

We use sophos UTM. It's free for personal use and works about as good as it can work.

It filters based on site category and does SSL interception.

We have a VPN on the mobile devices that funnels all traffic through the home network so that it is monitored and protected no matter where they are.

Are you saying when you're out all your 4G traffic are still re-routed to home network via VPN? what about they just disable VPN app on the mobile device?

yes -- that's what I'm saying.

They could disable the VPN, it's not a bulletproof solution, but good enough, for now.

I agree it wouldn't work for all children in all situations, but it works for us for now.

I'm not trying to 100% block access, I'm just trying to make things a little more difficult.

Kind of like when people put a tiny padlock on their suitcase. It's not going to stop a determined person with wire/bolt cutters, but it's going to stop the curious person who might just take a look and grab something.

Sure, he could go to a friends house and use their computer. I can't stop everything, but I can at least reduce the influence, possibly prevent a pop-up or something from giving that little nudge towards temptation.

An open pile of cash on the ground is far more tempting than a safe full of cash on the ground.

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