I am in my late 30's with 3 kids between 9 and 14. I honestly can't tell if I'm doing the right thing anymore on this front, but I have outright refused to let my kids have smartphones. I'm not looking to this crowd for affirmation or vindication, but I hope to share my experience for those who find themselves in similar circumstance. Maybe you can give me some perspective.
I know the nonsense I got up to when I was a teen...and I was a "good" kid who barely had a healthy dose of trouble. The mistakes that accompanied learning were unavoidable...but the repercussions were likely temporary and surviveable. And you had to kinda seek out the truly permanent or mortally dangerous risks.
I'm not a prude. I stopped forcing my kids to wear helmets once they had ridden their bikes for a year. The only hovering I do around my kids is making sure the boys don't bloody each other.
The one thing I am adamant about is them not having the internet in their pockets. The thought of them plowing through 4chan or sending/receiving nude texts...or unwittimgly talking to paedophiles...nightmares.
Kids are supposed to disobey and get into trouble. But for Pete'ssake make them work for it! Don't hand them all the gory details on an iPlatter in never-ending full motion HD! There's no effort to type in a search term or click a link compared to procuring and hiding a skin mag. Even in the early internet days on a desktop, you still had a fair risk of getting caught since you were in the living room in plain view!
The whole sexting thing is pretty much a given...if the first MMS ever wasn't someone's ass, then the 2nd or 3rd probably was. It was inevitable from there. And then to blindly whitelist all senders by default...terribly risky to give to a child.
And don't get me started on addiction. I don't do Facebook, and my wife gave it up 8 years ago. She doesn't want a smartphone after breaking 3 of them in a year back in 2014. I have 1, but pretty much use it for email and news feeds only.
I love my kids, and they tell me I'm the best Dad ever. They still ask every few months about iPhones, even though I've largely explained my reasoning to them. They're pretty much the only ones in their public schools without the latest iPhone. I bought all 3 of them simple durable flip phones and disabled all MMS.
For context, I've been a programmer since '97 and started tooling around on BBS's in the early 90s. It gets harder and harder every time they ask to say "no", but I think they are truly better individuals without smartphones...at least not this young. And honestly, even if the parental controls are improved to a point where I could limit everything I wanted to limit, I'd spend so much time administering the controls, I'd burn out and get lazy.
I am in my late 30's with 3 kids between 9 and 14. I honestly can't tell if I'm doing the right thing anymore on this front, but I have outright refused to let my kids have smartphones. I'm not looking to this crowd for affirmation or vindication, but I hope to share my experience for those who find themselves in similar circumstance. Maybe you can give me some perspective.
I know the nonsense I got up to when I was a teen...and I was a "good" kid who barely had a healthy dose of trouble. The mistakes that accompanied learning were unavoidable...but the repercussions were likely temporary and surviveable. And you had to kinda seek out the truly permanent or mortally dangerous risks.
I'm not a prude. I stopped forcing my kids to wear helmets once they had ridden their bikes for a year. The only hovering I do around my kids is making sure the boys don't bloody each other.
The one thing I am adamant about is them not having the internet in their pockets. The thought of them plowing through 4chan or sending/receiving nude texts...or unwittimgly talking to paedophiles...nightmares.
Kids are supposed to disobey and get into trouble. But for Pete'ssake make t
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I am in my late 30's with 3 kids between 9 and 14. I honestly can't tell if I'm doing the right thing anymore on this front, but I have outright refused to let my kids have smartphones. I'm not looking to this crowd for affirmation or vindication, but I hope to share my experience for those who find themselves in similar circumstance. Maybe you can give me some perspective.
I know the nonsense I got up to when I was a teen...and I was a "good" kid who barely had a healthy dose of trouble. The mistakes that accompanied learning were unavoidable...but the repercussions were likely temporary and surviveable. And you had to kinda seek out the truly permanent or mortally dangerous risks.
I'm not a prude. I stopped forcing my kids to wear helmets once they had ridden their bikes for a year. The only hovering I do around my kids is making sure the boys don't bloody each other.
The one thing I am adamant about is them not having the internet in their pockets. The thought of them plowing through 4chan or sending/receiving nude texts...or unwittimgly talking to paedophiles...nightmares.
Kids are supposed to disobey and get into trouble. But for Pete'ssake make them work for it! Don't hand them all the gory details on an iPlatter in never-ending full motion HD! There's no effort to type in a search term or click a link compared to procuring and hiding a skin mag. Even in the early internet days on a desktop, you still had a fair risk of getting caught since you were in the living room in plain view!
The whole sexting thing is pretty much a given...if the first MMS ever wasn't someone's ass, then the 2nd or 3rd probably was. It was inevitable from there. And then to blindly whitelist all senders by default...terribly risky to give to a child.
And don't get me started on addiction. I don't do Facebook, and my wife gave it up 8 years ago. She doesn't want a smartphone after breaking 3 of them in a year back in 2014. I have 1, but pretty much use it for email and news feeds only.
I love my kids, and they tell me I'm the best Dad ever. They still ask every few months about iPhones, even though I've largely explained my reasoning to them. They're pretty much the only ones in their public schools without the latest iPhone. I bought all 3 of them simple durable flip phones and disabled all MMS.
For context, I've been a programmer since '97 and started tooling around on BBS's in the early 90s. It gets harder and harder every time they ask to say "no", but I think they are truly better individuals without smartphones...at least not this young. And honestly, even if the parental controls are improved to a point where I could limit everything I wanted to limit, I'd spend so much time administering the controls, I'd burn out and get lazy.
I am in my late 30's with 3 kids between 9 and 14. I honestly can't tell if I'm doing the right thing anymore on this front, but I have outright refused to let my kids have smartphones. I'm not looking to this crowd for affirmation or vindication, but I hope to share my experience for those who find themselves in similar circumstance. Maybe you can give me some perspective.
I know the nonsense I got up to when I was a teen...and I was a "good" kid who barely had a healthy dose of trouble. The mistakes that accompanied learning were unavoidable...but the repercussions were likely temporary and surviveable. And you had to kinda seek out the truly permanent or mortally dangerous risks.
I'm not a prude. I stopped forcing my kids to wear helmets once they had ridden their bikes for a year. The only hovering I do around my kids is making sure the boys don't bloody each other.
The one thing I am adamant about is them not having the internet in their pockets. The thought of them plowing through 4chan or sending/receiving nude texts...or unwittimgly talking to paedophiles...nightmares.
Kids are supposed to disobey and get into trouble. But for Pete'ssake make t