Unfortunately, that’s not how addiction works. It’s hard to punish addiction out of anyone. Different kids have different nature and nurture, and for some kids, consequences don’t matter. I would have judged parent’s in this situation before becoming one. It’s humbling and builds empathy.

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.

What you're describing, combined with the sort of state provided access being described, seems like it would incentivize the child learning how to lie and hide things more effectively. It's absurd that the school would facilitate such broad and directionless access to the internet outside of the parent's supervision. It's directly undermining them.

> they just need to watch what their kids use devices for, and keep the devices in public areas of the house

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.

They are but middle school and high school kids are more creative, have less to lose, and have no concept of long term consequences compared to employees. School district IT is no match for kids with unlimited time, creativity, and access. Bypasses spread faster than memes. AI chatbots are blocked, one of my son’s friends ran a local proxy to his unblocked domain and other kids get local network access to AI. Installers blocked? Get a hacked game loader that looks like an approved binary.

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!)