Not being a luddite, neither a “what’s the problem?” parent

I’m probably as far as you can be from a luddite. As I’ve grown, tech was growing around me and I always was fascinated by sci-fi.

Matrix, Star Trek, Space Odyssey , Back to the Future, Independence Day, Ghostbusters, Total Recall, Terminator, ET, Starship Troopers and my others would easily grab my full attention and enthusiasm.

And of course, I grew playing, console…

… and later deep dived into a computer with games like

And later on… the world wide web

and IRC — at Dalnet then PTnet — which was where I ended up creating my username neteinstein since Einstein (a hero at that time) was occupied.

This small intro is just a context that I’m far from anyone that sees technology as a bad thing, or that avoids it.

I had the luck to go through all this together with my cousin, so we would be playing WWF and the other minute playing tennis, or climbing trees. We of course always wanted to use the console or the computer or even see tv, but had limited games, rules and 2 grandmothers that said when it was enough (also having limited kids’ tv shows, and games would make it boring to just keep doing it).

Time has passed I now have kids that love tech, which is great and I would find it strange it was any other way. Still I clearly acknoledge the conditions are different. We now have mobile phones any and everywhere. There are TV channels just for kids 24/7 and the list of games is never ending and “free” (ads).

As the dopamine levels are always feed by the flood of techie stuff, it’s hard to jump into other topics, so Parental Control automations are now essential.

I don’t want them to be tech-excluded on a world that is moving more into tech every day.. also because tech is fun! But I don’t also want them to become addicted to something beyond their capacity to control…

That balance is something we have struggled but have found some strategies to help.

Strategies we use:

I rarely let my kids use my phone, we have old phones with their own profile and account created ( How to create Google Account for minors ). That allows us to:

• Use Family Link to have their phone with rules. They are only unblocked at certain times of the day / days of the week. To install any app it needs parental approval and there is monitoring of the app usage/times.

The recommended age to start looking at screens is above 6 years. There are several studies detailing why, and although I believe them, I also believe we don’t live in utopias, kids are exposed to screens much earlier (just look around, unless you go and live in the wild), but what they are exposed to is much more concerning.

YouTube has a lot of good but even more stupid/scary content for a kid, why not using Youtube Kids instead? It can even be defined for a specific age group.

One of the interesting expectation of parents when I speak about this topic is that kids should just read virtual books or keep learning math and use these kinds of learning contents when using the phone… I always ask if they have that behaviour also?

Why should you expect a behaviour from your kid contrary to what they see you behave every day?

Using the phone at dinner table, replying without looking into your eyes but keeping the eyes at phone level, ignoring when you speak etc etc.

So besides trying to police myself on my behaviors that I don’t want them to have I also try to incentivise them to pick up gamified experiences that are useful: Duolingo, Khan Academy are two exemples that have always more time of the phone usage available than any other.

But also, letting them play, finding games that are fun and playing with them.

Want them to go outside, read or do anything else? Lead by example. Try to not expect from them something even you can’t uphold.

Find nice boardgames, go and play football with them, take them to climb or even just read a book if just a few sentences with them calling you all the time…

Too long, didn’t read?

List of useful things we use:

• Creating Netflix / Disney Plus / … account for Kids with the specific age restriction and only allowing them to use that (password protect the others)
• Console account for minors
• Google account for minors + Family Link (for Android device management — Define devices usage, time when it’s possible to use, which apps…)
• Microsoft or Apple accounts for Laptop usage (recommended to always be close by when using the internet)
• Youtube Kids (Keep Youtube for when they are older..)
• Ads Guard DNS ( set your device DNS to dns.adguard.com to avoid ads on kids’ phone.. or even yours)
• Duolingo — Learning languages gamified
• Khan Academy — Learning all sorts of topics gamified
• Scratch — Help them structure their logic behavior
• Browser with parental control — To make sure contents are filters and added blocked sites beyond the ones on the predefined list.