Yeah, you can always keep focusing on bad things and use that as an excuse to not teach them what they ought to learn from parents well.
What if they do something at age 18 and die? Will that be okay with you? Your logic fails.
Anything can happen anytime. All you can do is explain and teach them the right things. What part of in home upbringing are you not able to see it as the solution?
If I may, allow me to try and boil your position down to its major points and possibly steelman it.
I think you are saying that there are just some things that we should not allow teenagers to do because they prove to be too dangerous. I think anyone would agree with this.
Running into a house on fire, for example, or talking to adult strangers on the internet, are things that prove to be too dangerous. I don’t think @jonah or @JG is saying that we should allow them to do those kinds of things. Would you agree with me on that? Or is it your position that they are saying that? Clarifications are always helpful.
As for the other “side” or “position”:
I don’t think he said that we should eliminate all hurdles in their lives. He acknowledges that we should give them space, for example.
Would you agree that there are just some things that are too far gone to be a safety net for?
My point in all this is to clarify for the three of you (mainly JG and Bhaelros, since they are the ones duking it out) that you guys may agree on things more than you think, and that focusing on what you agree on may be better than what you disagree on.
Pointing out which things you agree with the other person may actually help you understand what they are trying to say, because you are removed from tribalistic parameters of the discussion that is position X vs. position Y.
Look, everyone has different approaches. My only point I was trying to make in so many words is that there’s a way about managing teenagers. Proper and thorough digital literacy is key. This starts at home (as much as some parents would rather outsource this to schools and the government or their regulations).
Explaining the pitfalls, teaching them about what’s good or bad and right and wrong. And then teaching them to be free people by genuinely not controlling them is likely the best way to go about it.
Of course, this does not mean there should not be any parental controls on their devices. Teenagers will find a way to access what you don’t want them to any way. But teaching what digital habits to form and how to be online and take care of themselves online is what I am referring to above.
This is coming down to a difference in parenting and how we think of “threats” and how we feel they should be mitigated if not eliminated.
Of course there will be differences in parenting styles. But this case is different because there seems to be diametrically opposed views. I think it’s more than just different parenting styles. It’s also about the core beliefs of responsibility and its role in the parent-child relationship. My point is that you guys may not actually be diametrically opposed. You guys may agree on some things more than you disagree, but of course we may never get to that if the discussion is only position X vs. position Y. And once you come to clarify what you guys agree on, you guys can then talk about what you disagree on in a better way, such that we get more out of the conversation.
I think this will lead more into our philosophical bends on different matters and hence may become an off topic discussion. We feel and think the way we do based on our own life experiences and what our value systems are.
Wow, big discussion. Thanks for reading and responding.
The context is that my blog is a diary of my own experiences, good and bad, with digital privacy tools. I also write about parenting in that context. It’s not a scientific blog.
This particular article is written for parents. Most parents I know would think it impossible for a child to self-regulate like this. It’s just an anecdote to show that kids are able to. I was very surprised to discover this about my own child.
@Bhaelros I’ve written a lot about not giving kids admin rights. In fact, I wrote about that earlier this month. I was a high school teacher for many years and was always shocked by how uninvolved parents were in the admin of their kids’ devices. Having said that, I don’t think the specific tool ‘parental controls’ works at all. At least it did not work with my kids. So seeing my kid choose to download a parental control type tool and use it to self-manage time on screens feels wonderful.
Thank you for all your comments on the article.