
Teen monitoring apps don't work, and drive a wedge between teens and parents - paulpauper
https://gizmodo.com/teen-monitoring-apps-dont-work-and-just-make-teens-hate-1824706829
======
moate
When I was coming up in the early 2000's, I met a girl at a concert that I
liked. We started talking online, and she told me at the beginning that her
parents had a keystroke monitor on her computer. Being a little baby hacker, I
went online to find the best ways to circumvent the software she had. I told
her how to do it, and one saturday while I was still in bed I got a phone call
from her dad about how she was no longer allowed to talk to me.

Turning from Dad into Big Brother probably didn't help this girl develop
proper social skills. She chaffed under the yoke of this monitoring, and
seemed like she had an antagonistic relationship with her parents. They
weren't pushing her towards becoming an inherently good person, just towards
hiding her bad behavior from them. Your goal as a parent should be to create
and foster good behavior from your children, not teaching them to hide the
choices they know you won't agree with.

FWIW, my parents put 0 effort into monitoring my online behavior, I made TONS
of mistakes/did bad things online until my mid-20s, and I'm now happily
married, well employed and generally well liked by people I know.

~~~
existencebox
Nearly identical experience.

Met a girl at a Rocky Horror, we were maybe 17 at the time. I didn't even show
her how to break her parental controls, only found out that her parents were
monitoring everything she did when they called my cell phone and threatened to
call the police on me if I ever talked to her again.

I was still close with some other friends of hers, so over the next few years
I could say with conviction "this didn't turn out well/the way her parents
want."

My own parents were oddly contradictory as well. Huge amounts of parental
controls at home, despite being very supportive in getting me into novel
social experiences. I got into computers largely to find ways around the "AOL
for Kids", and got my first tastes of "social engineering" by working around
the passwords they'd set on anything from the TV to the PC to cell phone apps.

Given TFA (and all research I've seen about porn blocking outcomes in the
past) aligning with my own experiences, the most surprising thing about this
thread is the amount of "yes, BUT <I still severely monitor and limit my
kids>" responses. I'd go so far as to say that from among my (very large
public highschool) peergroup, over the last 20~ years, the correlation has
been _stark_ between those who grew up more sheltered vs those with less, that
the former group often gained some very strange pathologies with respect to
social interactions or "adult" content (even as an adult later in life).

I honestly wonder if my experiences were unique, and others saw large numbers
of kids "heavily impacted" by lack-of-oversight? (To try and explain how many
parents support more restrictive parenting) Or if parents "forget" or
"Reassess" the rebellion they may have felt as a kid when it becomes their
turn to parent? Obviously I can't judge, since I haven't had a child yet, but
having had long conversations about the hypothetical with the wife, both of us
still have our stances well-crystallized from our own upbringings, after a
good handful of decades.

Restriction made porn fascinating to me. Restriction made video games so much
more valuable(So much that I'd sell contraband at school and bike to an inner-
city target to re-buy the ones my parents confiscated). Restriction only meant
that I binged harder when I was finally could, or went through more risky
channels to circumvent it.

~~~
moate
I understand why parental controls exist (8 year-olds think that butts are
funny, but I really do not want them searching for butts on the internet) but
treating teenagers like stupid babies is...stupid.

We, the people on HN, represent a uniquely tech-savy segment of the
population, and can (probably? usually?) say that we're better with software
than our kids so we actually COULD put restrictions in place that they
wouldn't be able to circumvent. But why? You're going to creating a security
battle with your kids. Isn't one possible, logical conclusion that your smart
and annoyed teenager who hates you (justly or unjustly) just SWATS you at
work? Or finds a way to cancel your internet entirely so NOBODY can search for
things?

You're going to have plenty of conflicts with your kids already. They're going
to think you're stupid and annoying and trying to make their decisions for
them based on your stupid old brain that doesn't understand their life. Don't
you think it's better to build a relationship of trust where they're willing
to listen to you is better than trying to build a relationship where they're
FORCED to listen to you in the long term?

~~~
Zak
It seems to me that parental controls might be useful for preventing young
kids from encountering content they're not ready to handle _by accident_ , but
become useless at the point where the child actively wants to bypass them.

~~~
moate
100% this.

------
nickthegreek
When I was a young boy in the 90s, my libertarian aligned father let me use
the computer and access the internet. He explained to me that I shouldn't
visit certain type of sites, I should never give out my name or address and
that he had software installed to monitor what happened on the computer. He
explained that this wasn't a breach of trust between us as I was using his
equipment and that I had to abide by his rules. He stated that at any time I
was free to get a job or find a way to earn my own cash and purchase my own
computer.

~~~
erispoe
It's not so much about the breach of trust than about raising independent,
well-functioning individuals. There's good evidence than sheltering kids and
not allowing them to experiment on their own terms, including by experiencing
the consequences of their own actions, does not create well adapted adults.

Parents who install monitoring systems are prioritizing their own short-term
well-being and peace of mind at the expense of their child's future. They're
eating their marshmallow right away.

"My house, my rules" arguments are absurd when it comes to raising kids, and
totally disregards the end goal of raising independent individuals.

~~~
sathackr
What consequences could you imagine a parent should allow a 10 year old to
experience?

The consequences of an abnormal sexual development or an unhealthy attitude
towards females due to stumbling across hardcore porn and becoming addicted to
it at a young age?

The consequences of mistaking someone on the internet as a friend and giving
them your full address and name so they could bring you ice cream?

There are things on the internet that a young mind is not sufficiently
developed to handle, and the consequences of exposure can last a lifetime.
Hell, there are things on the internet that most adult minds are not capable
of handling. Some things cannot be 'unseen'.

By installing a monitoring and filtering system and informing my child of this
and developing in him an idea of what is acceptable and appropriate and what
is not and protecting him from potentially life-altering harm.

~~~
malnourish
>The consequences of an abnormal sexual development or an unhealthy attitude
towards females due to stumbling across hardcore porn and becoming addicted to
it at a young age?

Do you have evidence/sources to back this claim?

~~~
Veelox
Would you really let your 10 year old watch porn?

~~~
ceejayoz
Would your 10 year old really _watch_ porn?

~~~
circlefavshape
+1

To someone without a sex drive, porn is yucky and boring

------
OscarCunningham
>Both studies, which haven’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal, are
set to be presented later this month at the Association for Computing
Machinery’s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems held in Montreal,
Canada. Wisniewski says that the research was peer reviewed prior to its
acceptance into the conference, though.

In CS, conferences are considered just as good as journals.

~~~
currymj
this is probably the most infuriating thing about academic CS, is
condescension from people in every other field about this fact.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
It's even more infuriating to work in a country where the rules for decisions
(tenure, periodical assessments, etc) are common between disciplines, so non-
journal papers are worth around zero, and your whole subfield pivots around
conferences...

Common decision in my career: what do I prefer for this paper? That people
actually read and cite it, or that it counts for tenure and other career
stuff?

Many colleagues I know just change subfield, or pivot toward multidisciplinary
work (e.g. with doctors, to be able to send it to medicine journals) just to
avoid this.

~~~
madcaptenor
Former academic mathematician here.

The American Mathematical Society has made periodic statements (2004:
[http://www.ams.org/profession/leaders/culture/CultureStateme...](http://www.ams.org/profession/leaders/culture/CultureStatement04.pdf)
. 2009:
[https://www.ams.org/profession/leaders/culture/CultureStatem...](https://www.ams.org/profession/leaders/culture/CultureStatement09.pdf))
basically saying that in math, author order is generally alphabetical, as
opposed to the lab sciences where lots of information is encoded in the order
of the authors. (I'm not sure how author order works in CS.) I believe the
purpose of this statement is to submit it with cases for hiring, promotion,
tenure, etc. where non-mathematicians will be evaluating mathematicians.

I wonder if some professional society has made an equivalent "conferences
count like journals in CS" statement.

~~~
madcaptenor
Maybe see for example
[https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/advice/conferences-v...](https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/advice/conferences-
vs-journals.html) and the links therein.

------
cleanbrowsing
Some parents don't realize that after certain age, you have to start treating
teens are pre-adults and not kids anymore. This depends on the kids maturity,
but is generally around 13, 14 or 15.

It is not about do as I say, but do as I do. Lead by example and not by
strength.

I build parenting-control systems (via DNS) and I often see parents trying to
force it on older kids (and even college students) to try to control them. My
response is that strict restrictions only work for younger kids that are not
mature enough to make good decisions. As they get older, they will find a way
to bypass them and will hate their parents for it.

I don't blame them as they generally want the best for their kids. Being a
parent is not easy.

------
bearcherian
> researchers then looked at 736 online reviews left by parents and kids (ages
> 8 to 19) of 37 parental control apps available on Google Play

Wait, so their source of data is Google Play reviews?!

The title of the article makes it seem that there is a one-to-one correlation
between the app and the impact on the relationship, but the author herself
says "The takeaway here is that parents should not treat parental control apps
as a magic bullet to keep their teens safe online". So, this is really about
parents who use these apps as the sole parenting device without doing any
parenting and interacting with their child themselves. I mean, if you don't
try to have a relationship with your kid, you're not going to have a good
relationship with your kid.

------
martin1b
Speaking as a father of a large family ranging from 1 year to 14 years, to
understand the child and their weaknesses and exposing them to the child at
the appropriate time is paramount.

When a toddler looks in the cabinet for toys and finds poison, we find that as
an issue. So, we put the poison up, and/or install a lock. The same goes for
the dangers of teens. They aren't ready for some things of internet, including
porn and cyber bulling. As parents, we use parental controls to limit access
to xrated channels on our tv. It makes sense to limit content to internet
connected devices that do the same. We don't need a formalized study to see
what access to porn can do to a person. It's been documented many times.

My experience has been, at this point in a childs life, you need to have, or
establish a good relationship with your child and help them understand that
you are protecting them from harm that they don't fully understand yet. They
need to understand this protection is a joint effort between you and them for
their best interest.

Some may say this is overprotected parenting. Let's not go overboard here.
I've seen so many uninvolved parents, which is far worse than overprotected.
I've found the middle ground is the most effective. Add controls to obvious
problem sites and apps. Watch remotely from time to time (as sathackr said,
trust but verify). Then, periodically, sit down with your child to see how
they are doing and how you can help do the right thing online.

~~~
kristofferR
> We don't need a formalized study to see what access to porn can do to a
> person. It's been documented many times.

That's extremely dubious. Teenagers aren't being harmed by seing people having
sex, they're mostly being harmed from being sheltered from it.

~~~
martin1b
Explain to me why they are harmed by not seeing people having sex?

Also, explain to me what benefit do they gain by seeing people having sex?

~~~
mercutio2
Making sex into an illicit thing, rather than just a private thing, frequently
leaves teens with damaging relationships to their sexuality and others.

The idea that a teen or pre-teen who’s interested isn’t finding porn through
someone else’s computer is very likely mistaken.

By forbidding access, you are losing your child’s trust, which likely
forecloses on the opportunity to honestly and openly discuss healthy body
image, respect, mutual pleasure, and the fact that porn star bodies are
(often) to normal human bodies as toy soldiers are to human soldiers.

Finally, forbidding access to something humans have an innate drive for is
liable to make it into forbidden fruit, over-emphasizing, rather than de-
emphasizing, the target.

~~~
martin1b
So you're suggesting the solution is to encourage watching porn or others
while they have sex?

How does watching others have sex enable more discussion on healthy body
image? Why can't this conversation be started with images seen anywhere that
have been altered?

Let's discuss the negatives. Porn is anti-woman. It turns the woman into an
object. You mention 'damaging relationships' by not watching sex. It is
exactly the opposite. Porn damages current and future relationships by turning
the woman (or man in some cases) into an object for personal pleasure, similar
to a toy. A relationship founded on using each other for personal reasons, and
not mutual respect and love, will only fail, and fail painfully. Not to
mention any 'baggage' such as STDs, pregnancies, etc.

These are the mistakes are what we aim to prevent our children from making
until they reach a point of maturity to where they can reliably prevent them
on their own.

~~~
mercutio2
I am certainly not suggesting that you push porn on your child.

Rather, you seem to be suggesting you have to prevent your child from watching
porn. I am suggesting forbidding porn, in private, is very likely to be
counterproductive, because it is unlikely to succeed, it makes a reasonable
human desire into something illicit, and is likely to instead result in a loss
of trust + cause porn to be seen as forbidden (and thus attractive) fruit.

Separately, I am suggesting that when a child is interested in porn, that’s an
opportunity for a conversation about the problematic aspects of porn, respect,
and fantasy vs. reality. Loss of trust makes that conversation less likely to
be accessible, or at least less likely for that conversation to involve your
child actually listening to you.

------
kristianc
Monitoring Apps attack the symptom and not the cause. I used to argue a lot
with my parents when I was growing up because I wanted to code websites and
teach myself to code.

This came at the expense of my IT homework and schoolwork, which wanted to
teach me how to use Word, Access and PowerPoint. Like a lot of people my age,
my first exposure to code was hacking at a MySpace profile and a Geocities
page.

I ended up getting a good degree but owe much more of my current career to
that early tinkering than anyone forcing me to learn Word Processing software.
I wonder if the same mistakes are being made now trying to keep kids from
using Minecraft.

------
YCode
It strikes me that the parents who install these apps are likely to be parents
who are raising more challenging children.

That's not to imply they are bad parents, just that the kid went through a
divorce, intense bullying, a change in schools, etc. and that trauma caused
them to engage in activities that led to their parents installing the app.

I guess in a phrase have they shown causation?

~~~
frostwhale
Its also possible the parents are installing these monitoring apps after other
more "natural" (non-tech) ways to limit the child's access failed. This could
also explain why these kids exhibit the behaviors in the study, as it adds a
bias to the sample.

------
sathackr
Trust. But verify.

Step-father of a 12 year old boy here.

We started monitoring his internet after we caught him looking at
inappropriate videos on youtube.

He knows he is being monitored and I only block actual porn sites. Neither of
us like it but until he has earned our trust back, the situation will not
change.

I'm his parent, not his friend. My job isn't to make him like me, it's to
raise him with proper values and protect him from the dangers he doesn't yet
know exist or may not yet understand.

If I do it right, he will thank me later.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
When I was growing up, I delighted in breaking all of the layers of security
my parents loaded up the computers in the house with. I never relented when
they tried to block something and they only escalated things, including
physically locking away electronics (which also didn't work, I learned how to
pick locks and gained access to electronics in other ways), then even further
escalations ensued. The main effect of this was not that I couldn't access
content they didn't like, but that our relationship soured to the point where
I moved out two days after turning 18 and none of us spoke for a few years.

Blocking things will only encourage your son to try harder to get at them and
to become more secretive with you, and will have lasting damage on your
relationship, especially if you double down when he inevitably works around
your blocks. You _cannot_ control him, and he is not yours to control.
Remember, your son is an entirely independent person who is growing up much
faster than you realize.

~~~
sathackr
My intent is protection, not control.

Each situation is different. Even though things turned out the way they did
for you, can you say they would have been different if they had just allowed
you to blatantly disregard their rules? Can you say with certainty that none
of the stuff they blocked that you accessed regardless did not harm you? Could
they have had the foresight to know for sure if you would or would not have
been harmed?

I won't get into a discussion on whether things such as nudity or pornography
are truly harmful, that's a can of worms. But they are not accepted in the
society we live in, and my son has to be able to function in that society,
with its rules, controls, and monitors. We have collectively decided on these
and I would be failing as a parent if I didn't try to give my child the tools
to function in this environment.

Would you care to elaborate on these things that your parents didn't like that
were blocked? Did they explain to you and try to get you to understand why
they didn't like them? And why you didn't respect them enough to abide by
their rules(not saying that you should have respected them, they may have not
deserved it)? It sounds like there may have been some deeper issues there.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
>Could they have had the foresight to know for sure if you would or would not
have been harmed?

There are endless things in this world that can harm your child. It's natural
to be scared of these things, but folly to try and address them all. Each one
you address adds another layer of restrictions to your child's psyche, but
barely moves the dail on how dangerous this world is. The tradeoff is steep.

>I didn't try to give my child the tools to function in this environment

You didn't give your kid the tools to function around pornography, you did the
opposite. You futily attempted to remove pornography from the equation
entirely without giving your kid any tools with which to face it. He _will_
seek it out and he _will_ find it, you've only made that fact certain. Only
now, you have become the adversary, and when your son does seek these things
out he won't ask you for help in understanding them for fear of retribution
for breaking your rules.

Remember this axiom: you cannot stop your kid from viewing this content. He is
smarter than you. If you cannot block this content but try to anyway, all
you're left with is the negative effects.

>can you say they would have been different if they had just allowed you to
blatantly disregard their rules?

You don't respect your child's autonomy by setting these rules. You can make
endless excuses for your rules being just, but step into your son's shoes.
"Dad says 'my house, my rules' but it's not like I can move out." What is your
kid's recourse in this situation? Again, if you think your filters are
effective you're delusional. All you do is disrespect your child by doing
this.

>Would you care to elaborate on these things that your parents didn't like
that were blocked? Did they explain to you and try to get you to understand
why they didn't like them? And why you didn't respect them enough to abide by
their rules(not saying that you should have respected them, they may have not
deserved it)? It sounds like there may have been some deeper issues there.

I would be happy to discuss this privately, my email is in my profile.

------
creep
I think the most important thing a parent can do for a child is develop a
strong bond of trust. Be consistent in what you say and do and be honest about
any questions they ask. If you're going to make a rule, stick to it, but also
show them at an early age that you think they can be trusted. If they trust
you and you tell them that going to x site is bad, they will be much more
likely to believe you and avoid the site. If they _do_ go to x site and
discover that it's bad, they'll tell you about it as long as you don't have a
track record of punishing your kid for telling the truth, and you have the
opportunity to talk it out and make sure your kid is okay.

If your kid just doesn't want to listen, then maybe install a
monitoring/blocking program. Also, especially do that when they are very
young. You don't really need to do it above age 8 or so, as hopefully by then
they will have developed a rhythm with the Internet that suits them.

------
briandear
As a parent of four little kids, my biggest concern is really that they
understand consequences of online activity (sharing data for example.) An app
generally doesn’t teach that — it’s called “parenting.”

“Find my Friends” on iPhone is also nice, just for safety but not as a tool
for helicopter parenting. My wife and I have it enabled on our devices for
each other, but it’s rarely used — it’s just an additional layer of safety.
It’s especialy great if I am out in the hills climbing — if I get hurt, at
least she has my last known location.

------
Simulacra
Well, yes, of course. Teens want independence from their parents, and they
have a natural predisposition to push boundaries.

~~~
headsoup
But that really has not much to do with it. It's a trust issue. Build a
foundation of trust and _mutual_ respect and you _shouldn 't_ need to monitor
them, because they'll be asking you for guidance or respecting what is
provided.

Unconditional love and all that, rather than discipline or else. If kids don't
trust their parents and rely on them being there, they'll turn to friends, and
well, other kids aren't generally the best role models or advisers...

------
marsrover
I'm having a daughter soon and plan on white listing websites through the
router. I don't plan to monitor anything but I do know there are things out
there that would be detrimental for her to see.

We will add sites to the white list as we go.

Just to be clear, at a certain age I will give her full access.

~~~
erispoe
I'm curious, what do you think is the right age to give full access?

~~~
Someone1234
After they've gone through puberty and we've talked about difficult topics
like safe sex. A lot of filters cannot help but block access to USEFUL sex ed
information while aggressively trying to limit pornography access.

While I'd prefer they limit their porn access as a teenager, plenty of well
adjusted people didn't and came out fine. I am far more concerned about
"sexting" (and having it shared around at school/used to bully), and
authorities trying to prosecute underage kids for having pictures of their own
(and their love interest's) bodies on a device they own.

The whole "porn is a public health emergency" thing is largely bullshit.
Unhealthy attitudes to sex and an overreaction by authority figures might be a
"health emergency" though.

Particularly as a lot of parents will happily let teenagers watch people get
blown apart in movies and on TV, but suddenly two people lovingly touching
each other naked is just a step too far! It is hypocritical. Particularly with
shows like GoT that they're going to watch because everyone else is (and we
are).

~~~
mercutio2
You should have ongoing talks with your daughter about sex long, long before
puberty.

Contraception should be a conversation you have with, approximately, a six
year old, when they ask you how babies are made _exactly_ , and why they were
born (it’s not just “your parents had sex”, it’s “your parents stopped using
contraception” that caused you to be born).

Safe sex, as in, “STIs exist, be cautious but not terrified”, and “intimate
partner violence exists, don’t stand for or create cruelty or boundary
crossing in intimate relationships” is a conversation for eight or nine year
olds.

Young children aren’t yet embarrassed about their bodies or your body, it is
much easier (and healthier for all concerned) to get open, loving, accurate
information about sex and relationships at the moment it’s requested, well
before puberty. Before and during puberty, when the urge to separate from
parents is beginning and body shame frequently begins to set in, is a much
worse time to have such conversations.

------
Rotdhizon
You have to strike a balance between being a worried parent, and letting your
child experience individual freedom. Parents who go out of their to make sure
their kids know every single action they make is monitored will absolutely
drive a wedge between them. It's not a bad idea to install location monitoring
apps, but going as far as reading every communication your child makes to
peers or knowing every single website they visit can be crossing the line.
Granted this is more of a problem with modern generation teens and children,
teens and children born in the early to mid 90s didn't really need this level
of restriction. It seems as the new generations come about, the level of
irresponsibility and poor decision increase. Kids learn from experience,
negative experiences do teach lessons and shape decision making. If you go out
of your way to block every potentially negatives interaction a child can have
on the internet or amongst friends, they won't know how to deal with those
harsh reality situations come time when their parents aren't around to protect
them anymore. I'd imagine most of us had experiences as a child/teen where we
typed in the wrong URL in the early days of the internet and bam, breasts
suddenly all over the screen. That's a learning experience. My experience with
this was in the middle of a 6th grade history class, mistyped 1 letter and the
teacher about had a heart attack from what popped up.

Parent's who block porn websites for their teens for example, why? You know
very well that at 13,14,15 your child is going to start getting curious, and
outright blocking their access to that content online is only going to make
them look for it elsewhere. I'm not saying don't, but casting an iron curtain
over their activities and making them feel like they have to constantly look
over their shoulder for your monitoring is going to build distrust and
disdain. It's all about balance. Older parents that were born in the mid 1900s
didn't place many restrictions on their kids because I believe they knew kids
had to learn how to experience life for what it had to offer. Modern
generation parents who were born just in the late 80s/early90s are getting too
heavy handed with moderation and restriction.

~~~
XorNot
I would genuinely pay Pornhub to provide a curated selection. The value in
having the type of pornography teenagers find being biased slightly towards
say, the X-Rated sex ed content and dropping a lot of the outright sexist
stuff way down the list, would probably be one of the most effective sex ed
tools that could be provided.

------
kristofferR
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Helicopter parenting doesn't
create well-adapted adults.

------
beiller
Ah no mention of Black Mirror’s “Arkangel” yet? Haha go watch it.

------
bitxbitxbitcoin
It is even worse when schools try to make these mandatory “on behalf of the
parents.”

~~~
sevensor
It's tricky -- teachers are _in loco parentis_ , so does that also apply to
equipment distributed by the school system? At any rate, I know it annoys the
kids, but it gets them off to a good start circumventing technological
lockdowns. So at least they're learning a valuable computer skill.

~~~
RandallBrown
One of my coworkers had a bit of battle going on with his son where the son
would figure out how to disable/circumvent the device tracking and he would
have to figure out some way of doing it.

I'm not sure how it turned out, but at one point he installed an app on the
phone that would let him text his son a certain message and it would silently
respond with his location.

~~~
headsoup
Perhaps he should have sat down with his son and asked what important things
he was after that kept being blocked, show some understanding and then have
some open discussion about the implications.

Or just double-down and play 'how far will he push it...'

------
dredmorbius
The notion that's recently occurred to me is that advances in communications
(not just monitoring) ultimately _reduce_ overall societal trust.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6jqakv/communi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6jqakv/communications_advances_undermine_trust/)

------
SomeHacker44
Apple doesn't make it possible to have reasonable controls on an iOS device,
unfortunately.

There is no fine-grained way to say what apps can be used when, what web sites
can be used or not used, etc. Even things that seem like they should work
(e.g., "Allow the Amazon Kindle app but not Safari") don't, because of hidden
features that breaks Kindle when Safari isn't enabled.

I've tried many apps, including Qustodio. I can't do MDM or any of the
enterprise-level stuff because guess what, I can't get Apple to give me an
Apple ID account that Apple Configurator 2 will accept - despite being a 25+
year industry veteran - and I'm not about to use my company credentials on my
personal devices.

Not all kids need these features, and not all parents want them, but for those
of us who want our kids to have iOS devices for communication purposes, plus
also occasionally allow them for other purposes, we have no choices here. We
can lock it all down to near uselessness or leave it open, but there is no in-
between.

~~~
dvdhnt
> There is no fine-grained way to say what apps can be used when, what web
> sites can be used or not used, etc.

I'm surprised to hear that. We've had the smaller model iPod for a couple of
years now. I have parental restrictions on and my daughter can't install
(thus, not use) apps that I do not approve, nor can she visit any websites
that I do not whitelist. Both features are stock, no third party app needed.
The former only required adding the device to my family sharing group and
ticking a box requiring her to ask permission before downloading an app.

My opinion is that there is definitely an in-between, but you're correct in
saying that time limit enforcement would be quite useful.

~~~
SomeHacker44
You're right about how iOS restrictions work. My statement about an in-between
is that there is no way for me to say "allow this app from time X to Y, for at
most Z minutes" \- it's all or nothing. You can have this app, or not have
this app.

Additionally, there is no way for me to remotely manage it. If a child refuses
to turn the phone off, I cannot hit a management tool and lock it down (at
least, not without using an MDM profile, as Qustodio and other solutions can
be trivially defeated by deleting their management profile which requires no
permissions). If I want to monitor where they go and how much time they spend
on each app, there is no way to do it.

So, I can do super-basic things, but nothing fine-grained or interesting from
my parenting perspective.

So, it all gets turned off and is basically a Find-my-Friends, phone/FaceTime
and iMessage tool for $700. Not exactly a good value and not something I will
be sending any more money to Apple for.

------
ryandrake
The article (and some comments here) seems to not be distinguishing between
monitoring and blocking. The title says “monitoring” which is kind of a solved
problem. I monitor my family's network regularly, looking for bandwidth
spikes, evidence of viruses & malware, outages, etc. I’m not going to sit
there monitoring content or where my wife and kids are at all times.

Blocking content, on the other hand, is destined to fail. Whitelisting will
always be too strict, blacklists will never cover everything you might find
objectionable, and heuristics will be inexact. If you want to block out the
world from your kids my advice (as a parent myself) is don’t—instead invest
the time and effort into establishing a trusting and understanding
relationship and instilling the right values. Values drive motivation which
drives actions.

As a parent I’m not my kid’s friend but I’m also not house dictator.

------
throwaway84742
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.

~~~
asaph
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.

~~~
creep
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.

~~~
throwaway84742
>> 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.

------
monochromatic
Kids don’t like the apps. Shocker.

------
theandrewbailey
Every smartphone activity is monitored to make a tech company's -I mean- your
experience better. Is there some way to tap into that so the monitoring is
transparent, and no one's the wiser?

------
ausjke
At home the router could be a better place to "filter" contents for kids,
especially they may use both cellphone and PC at home.

When they're out on 4G network, then you do need those apps to help, unless
the 4G operator has a safe-filtering-for-kid-phone-numbers

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DINKDINK
Sample size of 200 with no baseline. Ignore the study.

------
efdee
If it makes them study, why not!

Edit: This was a lame joke based on the original, broken title of this
submission. I do not condone teen monitoring apps in any way.

~~~
bottled_poe
That’s a pretty big if

------
nirav72
Only if they know about it. That's why my kids only get Android phones. Easy
to install hidden services.

