Parental Supervision - Digital Edition... (1 Viewer)

[Fat Nick]

I'm curious to get thoughts, tools, tactics, and watch-outs around kids and the world of the internet.

My specific situation - I have a soon-to-be 11 year old son, and an 8 year old daughter. I list both because we need to be equitable here, and they are different kids...I'm specifically starting with my son. He was given an Apple Watch a year or so ago to communicate. First with just us, then with family, and by the middle of the school year, we opened it up to friends. Nothing further. He's been good with it. He currently has a tablet that he can watch shows and play Roblox on. Roblox chat feature is disabled completely. For his birthday, we are getting him a gaming PC. It's partially to use for gaming, but also a hope to expand his interest in CAD and 3D printing. We understand chatting with players is more important as he grows older, and don't want him to miss out on social dynamics that happen online - but also want to be sure we're "in the know." My wife and I are on slightly different ends of the spectrum. She believes the internet is rife with child predators and crazy people looking to ruin children. I understand they are out there, but also recognize that the vast majority of interactions are with other kids or young adults who are far more likely to call your kid a derogatory name than try and get his home address.

What we're looking for is advice on parental monitoring software or other tactics to ensure our son's interactions are safe first and foremost. He's generally a trustworthy kid. Extremely smart - but also easily influenceable and has low social awareness. I don't want to have to directly manage app/website access like we did on the tablets. I want him to learn to use his own judgement on what sites he can/can't go to, but I'd like to be able to review his use history. Similarly, I don't want to restrict his chat activity - but I'd like to be able to review what he's saying, or have something that flags certain words or addresses, etc.

We're moving from the "parents control the device" phase to the "you control the device, but we still want awareness" phase, and I'm not sure how to best bridge that. Any advice? Also open to tactics or things that have worked for others.

 

[MTskibum]

Similar situation with similar aged kids.

The game chat in many games is completely unregulated, I am playing WoW hardcore for nostalgia and many of us here played WoW 20 years ago when it first released. The chat on that game today is nothing like what it was back then. Tons of sexual innuendo, swear words, arguing between players, political/religious trolling, etc. Their is as much bad chat as there is chat to find groups, quests, etc.

We don't allow our kids to play any game with an open chat yet and I am not sure when we will let them.

Minecraft with their friends/cousins is where my kids are at now.

 

[Fat Nick]

Similar situation with similar aged kids.

The game chat in many games is completely unregulated, I am playing WoW hardcore for nostalgia and many of us here played WoW 20 years ago when it first released. The chat on that game today is nothing like what it was back then. Tons of sexual innuendo, swear words, arguing between players, political/religious trolling, etc. Their is as much bad chat as there is chat to find groups, quests, etc.

We don't allow our kids to play any game with an open chat yet and I am not sure when we will let them.

Minecraft with their friends/cousins is where my kids are at now.

Do games have the concept of "friends" in them? Or a way to regulate chat so he can chat with kids he actually knows, but is not able to have open, unregulated chat with any/all kids? Or are they not that smart? Said another way - does chat have some functionality around who they can talk to or is it simply on or off?

 

[MTskibum]

Similar situation with similar aged kids.

The game chat in many games is completely unregulated, I am playing WoW hardcore for nostalgia and many of us here played WoW 20 years ago when it first released. The chat on that game today is nothing like what it was back then. Tons of sexual innuendo, swear words, arguing between players, political/religious trolling, etc. Their is as much bad chat as there is chat to find groups, quests, etc.

We don't allow our kids to play any game with an open chat yet and I am not sure when we will let them.

Minecraft with their friends/cousins is where my kids are at now.

Do games have the concept of "friends" in them? Or a way to regulate chat so he can chat with kids he actually knows, but is not able to have open, unregulated chat with any/all kids? Or are they not that smart? Said another way - does chat have some functionality around who they can talk to or is it simply on or off?

It depends on the game, Fortnite allows you as parent to set chat on a kids account to only be able to communicate with friends.

In many games now people use discord to chat, including my kids playing minecraft with their cousins. This helps a bit because they use my spare discord account. I can login to discord to see what is said at any time and who can join their voice channels.

I think discord is used for many multiplayer steam games as the chat service.

 

[Nick Vermeil]

Consider setting up your own Discord and maintain the admin rights so you can approve who he is chatting with. I'm not 100% sure how all that works, but it's something I've been considering for my kids so I'll be looking into it.

 

[Fat Nick]

Consider setting up your own Discord and maintain the admin rights so you can approve who he is chatting with. I'm not 100% sure how all that works, but it's something I've been considering for my kids so I'll be looking into it.

I literally know nothing about this. Need to get my kid to ask other kids if they do this. If they do, this is a really nice solve.

 

[odin33]

Ahead of you guys by a little bit, currently 17 and 14 both girls, and we didn't have a lot of the tools available today back then.

Started with family ipad, then personal kindles to play whatever small games and get use to tech, then Iphones by 13 for oldest 11 for youngest- (boy did that create a S***storm with my oldest).

Both kids are really good smart kind kids, my 17 year old is just now starting to take interest in dating. My 14 year old wants nothing to do with it so maybe a little behind the curve. We took the approach of talking to them about do's and don'ts, and absolutely not's- this comes with a get your parents involved rider. All under the heading of 'we want to keep you safe, not see if you should get punished'. It was preached regularly and thankfully it sunk in. Not going to lie, it's a scary leap of faith.

The one thing they were both told when given a device was that at any moment for no reason at all, I/we can ask and will receive your phone/device to review. I don't care if it's mid text, mid game, mid snap, mid facetime, it's mine immediately.

I've pulled that card with my oldest a few times, and the last time it was a tougher conversation: 'invasion of privacy', 'not doing anything thing wrong- turn it over then'... The trump card is, 'this was part of the deal was it not?' which ended in a sheepish yet ticked and sending daggers with my eyes 'yes'. (She takes after her mother on that one).