The last thing we need is society deciding in detail how children should be raised. CPS horror stories are bad enough as it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s-1990s_Romanian_orphans_p...
The main thing the state can do is stop requiring kids to have portable internet-connected devices for state schooling.
For 90% of kids, that’s not going to be an issue and everyone can feel like they’re such a great parent. But for another group of kids, they absolutely cannot handle it and have not developed the executive function to be able to manage access to everything the Internet offers.
In the past we understood this as a society. Broadcasters on public airwaves had standards for what was appropriate. We’ve completely thrown those out in one generation and decided gambling, porn, extremely violence, social and emotional grooming and abuse, and lots more are all OK to give children access to, unchecked and with limited education. It’s really kind of sick.
What do you do when punishment doesn’t work? When therapy doesn’t work? When strict control doesn’t work? When there is no remorse, shame, fear of repercussion, or ability to anticipate consequences or risk? When the kid has the highest IQ in the house but fails tests and doesn’t turn in homework because they don’t care about anything but their vice? When they literally spend 2 hours a day _at school_ on YouTube and games (among other things) on a device the district mandates they have?
Do you punish a child for years because they can’t function with access most people consider normal? When their siblings have all of the same access and devices and don’t have the same issues and would respond to rules and who would punishment in exactly the way you would describe?
Maybe it’s a parenting issue, but I’d like to think we’ve done far more than most parents could imagine for over a decade and come up short for one of our kids. Meanwhile 3 others are just fine.
Fortunately many states are experimenting with school vouchers and other programs to help parents choose alternatives. It has some downsides (some public schools are having trouble adapting and special ed is an issue) but it may help with situations like yours.
But what will you do when this one will grow? There will be no restrictions - not from you, not from the state. Does restriction really solved the root problem?
What I do know is that we have an epidemic of mental illness affecting children and adults are crying about how it affects them. Privacy is important. Protecting children it’s important. Let’s have both.
How do you monitor what a child is using a device for when you don’t have access to the device and they’re at a school that doesn’t care? What device is safe to use, even when in a public area? You’re able to see the screen of all devices I your house at all times? You’re awake at all hours monitoring public areas of the house? Would you think an elementary schooler could get into trouble with an eink Kindle? With an Xbox (beyond gaming to long)? With a school issued Chromebook? What happens when Screen Time fails and the whitelist of allowed sites and limits on time no longer work (as happens several times a year)? What happens when the locked down Chromebook allows arbitrary web access through a log in screen buried deep in help that all the kids know about and despite layers and layers of controls out in place the school device happily ignores them all and lets children do whatever they want?
The idea that a child can be given a device and that they could be monitored 24/7 suggests you don’t have kids, they don’t have any technology in their life, you don’t know what they and/or their friends are actually doing, or you only have children like my daughter. I suppose if everyone was like her I’d be naive to what most kids are doing as well.
You have a class with 30 kids with gaming (or social media or or porn) devices and a teacher whose just as internet addicted behind their own computer at the front expecting the kids to work on their own through the lesson while they do who knows what.
How much YouTube do you think you can you watch in a a high school PE class? About 50 minutes at today’s public schools. The teacher doesn’t care, the principal doesn’t care, the superintendent doesn’t care, and the school board doesn’t care. As long as the PE teacher’s baseball team does well, who cares, right? (Hi Scottsdale Unified School District! I’m talking about you!)
Oh, I guess you’re not my neighbor. You had me going there for a long time.
Stories like this are everywhere. Parents don’t share them because they perceive it is an individual problem, and a shameful problem.
We don’t even have a good way to talk about the problems, never mind their solutions.
Define “properly” and how often do the self-righteous themselves cause harm. I see a strong desire for people to want to “control” all outcomes on everything and have everyone in the world think and say and act as they want.
The government is vastly overreaching in this and quite frankly if one argues that this is a good thing, then where to draw the line? Will we want to see government legislation for every possible permutation of potentially harmful behaviours or consequences.
Sorry Johnny can't come out to play because I have not yet bought the latest government-legislated knee guard armour to prevent a graze, and BTW I notice that you have not renewed the foam coating on your sidewalk, if Johnny trips and falls there...
Some will experience a significant down regulation of dopamine receptors caused by the constant artificial reward stimulus. As tolerance builds, more is needed for longer to get the same response, while the ability to function normally becomes more difficult. That’s screen addiction, not meth.
We regulate most things with that potential, even if it only affects a small percentage. About 1% of the population struggles with meth. 6-10% with internet related addictions and more like 40% among youth.
120 years ago, opium, alcohol, marijuana were a free for all. There was similar opposition to their control. Now it’s accepted as a public health benefit and most people would probably be shocked at how recent these became regulated.
My elementary aged kids can’t use “safe search” without being exposed to pornography, extreme violence, Five Nights at Epstein’s, flat earther’s, etc. Tech company’s have failed to create a safe product and when that goes on for long enough, the government steps in.
People will debate all day what should and shouldn't be regulated for adults but it seems the vast majority agree on shielding children from having potentially harmful things actively pushed onto them by strangers.
And who should look out for the child's interests if the parents can't or won't?
Nor can it, because it takes a village to raise a human being.
And in this (global) village, we have determined that we will monetise everything... and for the victims, there's thoughts and prayers. [1]
In no Western society that I can name are parents omnipotent owners of their children. Parents may even lose custody of their children. If you know that parents are doing physical harm to children, you have a social obligation to try to do something for those children.
Even though we may turn a blind eye, we do have a social obligation to all children. Human anthropological history reflects this.
Although intellectual harm tends to be seen as sunken cost (and possibly "correctable"), social harm has intolerable consequences.
I’m somewhat in favour of these foolish attempts at control because they always drive innovation in technology to circumvent them and adoption of that technology creating a thriving underground scene. Content piracy and alternative platforms could use a resurgence and this is just the thing to get it jumpstarted.
Like with normal cases - have court go over this.
But decision if any form of age lock should be implemented or not is up to parents. You cannot just shift argument to "you HAVE to restrict children from internet or else!"
We turned out alright.