
This mom gave her son an 18-point contract with his iPhone - ethnt
http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2012/12/31/mom-presents-18-point-contract-with-rules-of-use-to-teenage-son-would-you-be-tempted
======
eggbrain
I want to admit up front that I am not a parent, nor am I a teenager -- I'm
just a twenty-something caught between the two age groups.

When I wanted something when I was young, my parents treated me somewhat like
an adult -- if I wanted something, I had to either save up money for it, or
ask for it on special occasions (birthday, Christmas, etc). If I owned it,
they also respected my ownership/privacy over it. Because of this, I feel like
I grew up with a good sense of judgement, and a feeling like I could be
trusted.

When I look at this list of rules with my "younger" eyes, I see a leash --
this isn't so much a present for me as much as an additional way to keep
tabs/hold authority over for the mother. Children need to feel like they have
some privacy, and I'm sorry, but knowing your parents can log in and see
everything your doing, along with a laundry list of things you can't do makes
things the kid might find fun suddenly an experience in anxiety.

What I want to know is, if the kid said no, and used his personal
savings/worked a job to get his own phone, would the mom still have this list
of things he would need to do, even if he never asked for a dime of help? My
guess is yes -- which is why I think this isn't so much the mom helping her
son as much as it is her helping herself.

~~~
eshvk
Completely agreed. Things like don't text anything that you wouldn't want the
other person's parent to know about seem ridiculous. Again as another person
in his twenties, I would have refused this silly deal and bought my own damn
cellphone.

~~~
dchichkov
>> Again as another person in his twenties, I would have refused this silly
deal and bought my own damn cellphone.

Oh. That is such a pointless and drastic reaction. Would ruin Christmas. Just
roll your eyes and accept idiotic rules. Idiotic rules tend to dissipate
pretty quick with time anyway.

------
temiri
I think this is terrific.

I was 14 when I joined Facebook, in 2008. My dad, who is no dummy, laid out a
series of rules for my Facebook use (he had been on the site for a year or so
already).

One of those conditions was that he had my password and could look at my
behavior on the site at any time. Occasionally I'd post something that he
thought was inappropriate, and we'd talk about it, and I'd get embarrassed.

But in retrospect, I'm grateful. Everyone needs guidance as a teenager, and
this is especially true for behavior online. Online behavior is at least as
permanent as IRL behavior, and the consequences are often more public or
serious.

I think it's really important to guide your kids online. Though your 13 year
old may not appreciate it at the time, s/he will when s/he's 20 and has only
half as much embarrassing teenage material floating around on their Facebook
timeline (or Twitter account).

~~~
enraged_camel
I think, at least from the sounds of it, the nature of the rules your dad set
for your Facebook use might be a tad different than the ones this woman set
for her kid's iPhone use. It is not so much that she is setting rules, but
rather projecting her own values and pet peeves on the child. I mean, look at
this:

 _Don’t take a zillion pictures and videos. There is no need to document
everything. Live your experiences. They will be stored in your memory for
eternity._

What a crock of horseshit. Yes, I hate it as much as anyone when Miss Lisa
Gorgeous posts on Facebook a photo of the ice cream she is eating just to get
'Likes', but I'm not going to demand that my kid refrain from that. It may be
a bit stupid, but it is ultimately harmless. Not only that, but she is
patently wrong that the child's experiences will be "stored in her memory for
eternity." We are not computers. We forget stuff. And documenting the things
we do is the most reliable way to relive them.

~~~
temiri
Ah, yeah, I agree. There's a fine line between setting good guidelines for
safety and enforcing rules based on highly subjective and personal ideas.

I was mostly impressed by parts like point 18:

>> 18\. You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and
talk about it. We will start over again. You & I, we are always learning. I am
on your team. We are in this together.

That kind of learning is important.

------
jrockway
This seems a little harsh to me. Everyone takes their phones to school.
Everyone sends texts at school. The ship has sailed. If you're the one without
the phone, you're the weirdo that nobody will talk to.

This mom should have gotten her son a leash instead. Then at least the power
play would have been obvious to everyone.

~~~
wib
"No porn."

Thanks mom!

I'm mortified for the kid.

~~~
vy8vWJlco
Boy, am I glad my Mom didn't have a "no porn rule." I'd have been really
confused about my body and people's behaviours. (I also would have been in a
totally different field; turns out optimizing a 386 for fast porn teaches you
everything you'll need for your career.) I might have even turned to religion.

Our society is set up in such a way that porn is one of the few "safe" ways
for young people to figure their junk out. Heaven help us if they do censor
the net.

He probably thought he'd get to play Angry Birds under his superman blanket.
(Remember reading comics with a flashlight?) Instead he got an obligation and
an emasculating letter. "Don't say anything you wouldn't say in public"
probably would have sufficed. He can't even throw it under a bus for what it
represents, because it isn't his. It's hers, and she's loaned it to him... :\

~~~
sp332
_porn is one of the few "safe" ways for young people to figure their junk
out._

I'm not exactly an expert at either porn or in-the-flesh sex but... I've
always been given to understand that they are quite different.

~~~
GuiA
Porn is vast. You can find videos of pornstars exaggeratingly copulating, like
you can find amateur videos of two 20-somethings having perfectly regular sex.

Both, if seeked out by the teenager, are a subset of a perfectly healthy sex-
education (much more so than the very politically correct discourse that
passes for sex-ed in the US these days).

~~~
sp332
But how would an uninitiated teen know which ones are exaggerated and which
are "regular"? It seems like watching porn would,not be,as stimulating as real
sex, so people would seek out exaggerated videos which are not as, um,
"educational".

~~~
jrockway
How do you know the sex you're having with your partner is "regular"?

The answer is intuition, and even teenagers have intuition.

~~~
sp332
"Regular" is strongly influenced, if not completely defined, by what you see
around you. Porn might partly reflect what people want but it also definitely
changes what they want. e.g. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1124922>
People who watch porn are only learning how to make porn.

~~~
vy8vWJlco
> "People who watch porn are only learning how to make porn."

That's a very narrow perspective. I can honestly say I have never felt like a
porn actor (or director) in the bedroom because I watched porn as a teenager
(to which I also attribute my ability to draw, FWIW...).

If there were magically a safe partner for everyone at all times, regardless
or age or circumstance, I have no doubt there would be less porn. But we don't
live in one of those worlds, we live in an emotionally-wrought, often
isolating one. Teenagers feel alone, yet it's also a time when the instincts
and cravings are the strongest, the most out of control, and the least
satiable. The type of flirting and friendships I can take for granted, are not
even on the table for them. Teenagers are still cutting their teeth on their
communication skills. They don't know how to cope with a lot of things, one
being the deeply-rooted drive to procreate. Pursuing those feelings safely can
be difficult. Masturbation is one way for them to explore their feelings in
the _safety_ of their own room - to take control of their feelings - without
resorting to extremely poor decisions (unwanted pregnancies, unhealthy
relationships, getting tattoos that claim they will love someone forever when
all they really wanted was to see them naked...). Would a real partner be
better? Perhaps. Is that always the best option? No, and I think it's harmful
to act as though it were. Everyone has genitals and the feelings that go with
them, but for better or worse, society pretends young people don't. For lack
of a better term, they are screwed; they are on their own: they get to figure
things out, hopefully without ruining their life in other ways.

Some forms of experimentation are more dangerous than others, and watching
porn is one of the least dangerous options available to young people to
explore their feelings. Ignoring that (prohibition, for example) won't help.
Assuming we emphasize the difference between fantasy and reality, porn can
serve a person well over the years. In that spirit, I would much rather see a
"this film is fantasy, and does not necessarily reflect a healthy
realtionship" warning on porn, rather than all those copyright threats... It's
pretty obvious what our priorities are.

------
tikhonj
Maybe it's just me, but I've always found rules this explicit in anything but
a formal setting distasteful, regardless of how reasonable the rules are. This
is one of the main things that pushed me out of university housing after
freshman year. Rules everywhere, for everything!

My favorite living and working conditions are those where there are no rules
simply because they aren't necessary--a very productive sort of anarchy. Now,
this only works on a small scale with the right sort of people. In my mind, a
family certainly qualifies, so I would _really_ dislike a contract like this!

I suppose I just feel that petty rules and regulations just strip away my
dignity. They seem to imply a profound lack of respect. They're also simply
annoying.

On a more startup-related note, this is also one of the reasons I've really
enjoyed my time at tiny (< 10 people) startups. They can, and often do,
operate in essentially this sort of "anarchy" and are all the more productive
for it. No need for pages and pages of company policy simply because everybody
cooperates as-is.

~~~
cheald
The difference being that startups are populated by mature and self-
responsible adults, not 13-year-olds in the middle of getting their asses
kicked by puberty.

------
jdechko
It's called parenting and I, for one, as a parent myself, applaud this mother
for caring enough to be involved.

There are too many parents in the world today, who give their kids a new cell
phone and keys to a car and turn them lose in the world without any sort of
guidance.

Most of these rules just seem common sense (manners, self-respect, etc.), but
they need to be observed and passed down. Some of these rules are good for
adults as well as children (don't live life glued to a screen). A couple of
them expand the responsibility and trust between a parent and child, and
provide a system of checks and balances (trust but verify).

The only 2 that I would state differently are 4 & 5\. If you trust your child
with the phone, also trust that he or she will be responsible enough to
respect time (or location) limits (not only that, but as holders of the
account, you could see whether the device was used after certain times for
certain activities).

I know I see things differently, because I am a parent. And I hate to use this
phrase, but "my house, my rules". That doesn't give my wife or I the right to
be dictators, and we aren't, but it is our right to have certain rules and
expectations for our children. We impose rules based on values we think are
important (manners, self-respect, respect for others, etc.), and when our kids
move out then they can decide what values they think are important. Kids (esp
our 5-yr-old) don't have to like the rules, but they do have to follow them.

------
cracell
I've always thought this approach to parenting results in children that are
ill-equipped to make their own decisions. Teach kids critical thinking and
good judgement not a long list of rules to memorize. The rules you do set
should be for their safety not to control their lives.

~~~
FuzzyDunlop
I wouldn't be surprised if they were confusing to the smart kid who read them
and found contradictory statements. Things like not using your phone in
certain situations but also _never_ ignoring calls from parents.

I wouldn't do it. It feels too authoritarian and there are a lot of things in
there that are best learnt the hard way, or as and when it happens. And as has
been said in other comments, this doesn't exactly seem like a present.

With the kid becoming a teen, it'd probably end up backfiring on the mother
when he buys a burner to do all his sexting and banter.

------
Xero
I really liked the clause about no porn. If this mom wants to run her family
with Victorian-era iron fist then by all means but trying to stop a 13 year
old boy from getting access to porn in 2013 is laughable.

~~~
sp332
In the USA, it's illegal for a porn site to show him porn until he's 18
anyway.

~~~
Xion
And how on Earth is this rule enforced? I'm genuinely curious. Even if it's
something like asking for SSN if IP addresses s from US, it would be bypassed
easily by a simple proxy.

~~~
sp332
Some ask for credit cards, others it's simply a button that says "yes I'm over
18". It's not really about enforcement, it's about assigning liability.

------
biscarch
A few choice items from the contract, and how I would've read them as a 13
year old.

"1. It is my phone. I bought it. I pay for it. I am loaning it to you. Aren’t
I the greatest?"

This phone is not yours. Don't use it for anything important and praise me for
allowing you to even look at it.

"2. I will always know the password."

I don't trust you.

"4. Hand the phone to one of your parents promptly at 7:30pm every school
night & every weekend night at 9:00pm. It will be shut off for the night and
turned on again at 7:30am. If you would not make a call to someone’s land
line, wherein their parents may answer first, then do not call or text. Listen
to those instincts and respect other families like we would like to be
respected."

I don't trust your friends or your opinions.

"5. It does not go to school with you. Have a conversation with the people you
text in person. It’s a life skill. *Half days, field trips and after school
activities will require special consideration."

Once again, I own you.

"18. You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk
about it. We will start over again. You & I, we are always learning. I am on
your team. We are in this together."

You are the only one that can mess up, I am untouchably perfect and this
contract is perfect.

\---------------------------

This contract makes it seem like the kid is a worthless, non-thinking drone
and it glorifies the parents as gods.

#3 taken with #11 creates a situation in which the kid has to decide when to
turn the phone off, but at the same time answer every phone call.

#15 states that the kid's peers' music preferences suck.

#1 directly contradicts #6 in regards to who pays for the phone.

This is insane. I hope someone can show me that this is not as I think it is.

~~~
lawtguy
I'll offer my perspective as a parent of a 10 year-old:

For #1, I see it as trying to preempt the "but it's my iPhone, I don't have to
follow your rules!" argument. The last sentence I read as self-deprecating
humor: read it with ;) at the end.

#2, this is doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Same as I wouldn't allow my son
to have a lock on the door to his room that I didn't have a key to, I need to
have access to his phone as well. Hopefully she'd only use that access in a
serious situation (suspected bullying, suspected drug-use, etc). It could be
she's always going through his things and never allows him any privacy, but
this rule doesn't necessarily mean that.

#4: I see this as setting a strong boundary around when phone calls can be
made. When I was growing up, it was very common to see calling late at night
as being rude. I don't see this as not trusting his opinion but more as saying
don't be on the phone late at night. 7:30 pm doesn't seem very late, but
that's hard to say without knowing when they have to be up in the morning.

#5: Many schools ban phones or disallow their use in school, so not taking the
phone to school seems reasonable.

#18: I don't see anything in here that says the rules are set in stone. In
fact I'd read the last part as saying the opposite. The first part I read as
trying to defuse anxiety around breaking the rules. My son often gets anxious
when we set a new rule and worries that he'll break it. Letting him know that
breaking the rules won't be the end of the world helps.

Presumably #11 trumps number #3. I assume they'd expect a common sense
approach.

#1 and #6 don't contradict each other. If I let you borrow something from me
and it was broken or lost, I'd expect you to pay for it. I think that's pretty
normal.

Finally, 13-17 seem to be more aspirational than actual rules. 13, 14, and 17
could be replaced by: don't become so obsessed with your iPhone you ignore
everything else. I didn't read 15 as an exclusion of the son's peer's music.
More a suggestion to take advantage of the wide range of music available.

I don't see this as insane, but it's very hard to judge from the outside. We
don't know the kid or the mom. It could be she's crazy overbearing or it could
be she's just setting up reasonable rules for he son. Being a parent of a
high-strung 10 year-old, I tend to read it as reasonable rules for a very
smart, very obsessive young teen.

~~~
biscarch
I appreciate the alternative viewpoint.

#1 It would definitely counter the "rules" argument, but that still means the
kid can't use it for important purposes (It could be taken away at any time,
and the data could be deleted).

#2 The purpose of a contract is to protect both parties. This clause helps
give absolute power to the parent. By the logic you've presented, the
government should have access to your email, computer and phone passwords as
well for the same reasons.

#4 It does set up a strong boundary. It also means that the kid's friends have
to remember when the kid is actually in possession of the phone, which will
cause problems with the communication aspect of a phone.

#5 Unless the kid does after school activities, in which case not having a
phone means being less prepared for an emergency.

#18 The use of pronouns here is important. " _The kid_ will mess up. _The
parent_ will take your phone away." It's a forgone conclusion that the kid
_will_ mess up. The parent doesn't think the kid can follow the contract as
given. "We will sit down and talk about it. We will start over again. You & I,
we are always learning." This isn't so bad taken by itself, but when taken
with the context of the first two sentences it calls to mind the classic
authority figure type conversation. Ex: Your boss says "Can I talk to you for
a minute?". Such conversations are typically one-sided and berating of the
non-authority figure.

#3 vs #11: Ambiguity has no place in a contract.

#1 and #6 That makes sense given the lending situation.

#15 is a heavy handed suggestion of music at best. "your peers that listen to
the same exact stuff." The double-confirmation "same exact" is unnecessary and
serves to show the opinions of the parent. The whole sentence is a command
that says downloading music that the kid's peers listen to is off limits.

I'd agree that it is hard to judge from the outside, I'm also not sure it
would be easier on the "inside". My largest concern is that the kid has no
protection in this contract; It just serves as commands from on high.

------
olgeni
This poor kid will definitely have a brilliant career in cryptography. By 14
he'll also have OpenBSD running in VirtualBox running in iOS, out of
frustration. Apple might not approve, but he'll hack iTunes Connect at 15
anyway.

------
citricsquid
Every child is different and family dynamics matter a lot, but for me (when I
was a teenager) this would have seemed insane. An attentive parent is good
regardless of their chosen method of parenting, but freedom and support is
much better than over the top restrictions/policing. Trust is an important
part of a parent <-> child relationship, if he doesn't have the chance to make
mistakes it's going to be detrimental. I had a consequence free childhood and
I don't think it was for the best.

~~~
sp332
To be fair, it doesn't say the mom will look at everything, just that she
could. It looks like she doesn't _want_ him to use the phone in the same way
everyone else uses their phones. Setting hours and encouraging him to leave it
home and take less photos etc. says to me that she intends for him to limit
his use of the device. In other words, she probably isn't policing the rest of
his life the same way she is controlling his phone.

------
dm8
As someone who is in twenties and may have family in near future, I worry that
it'll be hard to deal with teens in this new 'tech' era.

But then I realized; most of people in my generation were teens in late
nineties when Internet was exploding. Our parents didn't know how to use that
thing in majority of cases. But we turned out fine. There was unfettered
access to porn. Then things like FB/Twitter came where we were putting
ourselves (and lot of intimate details) on digital shelves that would never be
cleared. Yet, we all turned okay. Agreed, there were occasional mishaps with
someone we know. But given the reach of Internet, we all turned quite well. I
believe all of us had strong moralistic values that were imbued in us right
from childhood. And those values turned out okay for Internet age too.

As someone who doesn't have kid, it will be stupid to pass judgement/opinion
on her letter. May be I will be doing same thing since I will be older and
worried about safety as well as well being of my child. However, when I was a
kid, I remember whenever parents told us strict no for something, I itched to
do it (unless it was something extreme). Just out of curiosity. And so did all
my friends at that time.

~~~
mindslight
> _Our parents didn't know how to use that thing in majority of cases. But we
> turned out fine_

This is actually one of the changes that worries me most about the direction
of modern culture. Back in our day, we were free to come to our own
conclusions regarding things like hacking, appropriate communication, porn,
copying software, shock images, what OS and software to run, etc. Given that
it's literally just signals on a wire, there's very little trouble a kid can
even get into with just the Internet itself, and most of that is more the
responsibility of whomever hooked up critical systems to an anonymous
communication network. We grew up fine _because_ we had freedom of thought and
exploration.

Now we get ridiculous overbearing lists from this parent and her ilk, treating
the Internet as some kind of walled garden entertainment store that just gets
progressively larger as a child ages. No doubt there's a heavy dose of
moralizing and shakily justified control if the kid installs any software
that's not understandable and condoned by the parent (whether it be a new OS,
utilities for exploring the infrastructure, progressive transfer protocols,
etc). What are the chances of a child brought up within such closed philosophy
becoming a complete self-actualizing adult?

~~~
dm8
> What are the chances of a child brought up within such closed philosophy
> becoming a complete self-actualizing adult?

That's an interesting thought. Or may be kid will be complete opposite. That
would be extreme too.

------
sachingulaya
Let's see what we have here...a gift that can be revoked at any time and an
overbearing contract on how to live your life.

No calls after 7:30pm? Mom reading my emails? Don't say anything to a friend
that you wouldn't say in front of their parents? No porn? Seriously?

Adolescence is a period of growth and discovery. Let the kid grow up with his
generation. Encourage responsible behavior--not inane rules you yourself
wouldn't follow. The bit about the music taste was especially rich. Should I
apologize for preferring Lady Gaga to Bach? My playlist is unabashedly top
100.

Late night AIM convos and talking to my friends until we fell asleep were some
of my fondest high school memories. They kept me going and helped me process
the world as it opened up to me. I forged friendships then that are
sanctuaries to me today.

To the kid: Let loose. Explore. Engage in activities that interest you. Don't
be afraid to fail. Don't fear the judgment of others. Don't be different for
the sake of being different. Don't be overwhelmingly goal oriented. Don't
focus your life on padding your resume for some college.

You're probably not the introspective, reserved gentleman that your mother
wishes you were. Learn to be comfortable with who you are.

~~~
jlgreco
> No calls after 7:30pm?

This one seems particularly bad to me, since it implies to me that there is
also a _"be home by 7:30pm"_ rule in place. Pretty damn extreme.

~~~
lawtguy
As a counterpoint: what if he's on the swim team and has to be up at 5:30 am
to make a 6:00 am swim practice every day? A 7:30 pm cut-off on electronics so
he's asleep by 8:30 pm wouldn't be unreasonable.

------
angrydev
Over-inflated ego? There's no app for that.

With a list like this I would hope that the kid wises up soon and forgoes the
device. It's not worth the pain that's going to come when an inside joke via
text is seen by mom and all hell breaks loose. Greg is going to have to set
some of his own boundaries as he goes into High School, they will be more
valuable than an iPhone ever will.

------
general_failure
Sad. I wanted privacy in everything I did even as a teenager. With such anal
parents I would rather not loan their phone.

~~~
aroman
I agree. Frankly, I would think that in his situation I would politely decline
the phone and it's phonebook full of rules, and work to buy my own. Maybe
that's the hidden lesson she was trying to teach him?

~~~
dneb7
I don't know. I find (as an adult) I pretty much follow those same rules in my
normal day-to-day usage of my phone (not exactly of course, but close). And I
do that because of what I find to be emotionally healthy (connect with live
people, not digital icons), polite (don't bug people too late) and reasonable
(I have to pay to fix my own phone). It's called parenting, and it's pretty
hard. It seems like society needs more of it, not less.

------
cheald
A 13-year-old is not an adult. The fact that the mom is giving her 13-year-old
a $600 piece of hardware at _all_ obviously means that she trusts him with
some degree of responsibility. An internet-connected pocket computer is a very
powerful device, and it'd be ridiculously irresponsible of her to _not_ set
out some kind of guidelines that helps to ensure that he uses it responsibly
and "inside the rules".

It's called parenting. A 13-year-old is not an adult, and does not have the
maturity of an adult. Even if her rules aren't something that you or I would
personally agree with, good on her for entrusting him with a large
responsibility and setting out the guidelines for that responsibility. It is
her duty as a parent to do exactly this - to trust her children with
progressively more responsibility and freedom, but to also set hard-and-fast
boundaries that shall not be crossed.

I like to say "I was such a good parent before I had kids". Parenting is all
nice and neat and easy until you actually have to do it. It's really easy to
armchair quarterback this one, but I'm pretty certain that anyone without kids
is wholly unqualified to pass judgment on this one.

~~~
kristm
I don't think that the people who commented above are "armchair parenting."
They're speaking in the position of the 13 year old kid. And we are all
definitely qualified to pass judgement as a 'teenage' version of ourselves.

'A 13-year old is not an adult.'

\- This probably varies per culture. My personal opinion is, if you treat
someone as an adult, they will behave like an adult. If you treat them as a
kid, they will act as a kid.

~~~
cheald
Surely you recognize how ridiculous it is to give parenting advice from a
teenager's perspective. Parents have been teenagers. Teenagers (at least at
the heart of this discussion) have not been parents.

~~~
jlgreco
Not at all. With the powers of reflection and self-consideration, I can think
back to how I was raised and make judgement calls on the merits of various
parenting techniques that I experienced.

Presumably, in the case of first children, this is what parents have been
doing since the dawn of time.

------
JohnsonB
This is not the way to teach a kid responsibility, with a list of seemingly
(to a 13 year old) arbitrary and draconian set of rules. Let the kid save up
his own money, buy the phone in person, and be responsible for it. That's
exactly how it works in the adult world and fits perfectly in this situation,
seems like a fitting way to teach responsibility. This mom just seems like a
self-aggrandizing control freak.

~~~
awakeasleep
It will teach the son how to live outside a set of rules while representing
himself as abiding by them, though. And that is an essential part of life in
any civilized society.

------
misnome
IANAL but isn't it explicitly _not_ a contract; he doesn't have to sign or
agree to anything. With the "Acceptance of this present", doesn't that make it
more equivalent of a EULA stuck at the bottom of this page?

Or, since it sounds like he got given it first, it's the equivalent of putting
an EULA inside the box of something that says "By opening this box you agreed
to the following contract:".

~~~
grecy
Being that we're talking about a legal minor, and their legal guardian, who
has complete legal control over them, then what you say makes no sense.

------
wglb
As a parent (of now adult children) I like these rules, but can see pushback
potential from today's kids. In retrospect, I wished I had, in particular,
pushed for #3, having experienced calling the phone I was subsidizing and
getting only voicemail.

And I like #6. and #7 is what parents should be doing.

The password thing (#2) was not something I would ask, nor the other privacy
things, as I assumed they already had enough judgement by that time to have
their own privacy. In fact, my Facebook rule for my kids and their peers that
I know has always been that they invite me to be friends, not the other way
around.

And #15, #16, and #17 are things that should be part of family life already.

#11 might be a good idea, but what adults even do that? As a parent, if you
expect a behavior from your kid, the best way to get that behavior is by
setting an example.

------
dchichkov
I'm not sure, what could be a good reply to a list of rules like this. I
guess, accepting the phone, rolling your eyes and hoping that stupid rules
will gradually dissipate.

Reductio ad absurdum also works well, for particulary stupid rules.

~~~
wglb
Or in other words, Malicious Obedience?

