I like and understand where you’re going, but I can offer some actual experience. I learned my legal first name at 8.
It didn’t go down well (I cried because the teacher didn’t call my name and sent me to the school office to get it sorted) and I had a weird complex about the real name into high school. There’s no rhyme or reason to the two names, so it is actually sort of surprising to pair the two. To this day I still go by the nickname I thought was my real name. My nieces and nephews still enjoy discovering my real name and calling me by it thinking it’s a big secret they’ve discovered. I still have to explain it a hundred times a year to new coworkers and acquaintances.
If I were to be slightly more earnest, I would say that the authoritarian concepts they learn from enforcement of arbitrary restrictions like “no screens in the bedroom” are far more harmful to their well-being than the information they could put on those screens.
The best “tech rule” I could give instill in them is an understanding of the concept of “click bait”. The sooner I can immunize them to paywalls and microtransactions, the better.
Have you had any sucess with explaining the concept of clickbaiting and the whole predatory environment of the internet? I’ve tried, so many times, in different ways, with different examples and analogies. It just doesn’t really stick, they are simply too inexperienced to fully understand the consequences and will fall prey to it the next day or two.
I mean, I was somewhat serious. Maybe not the “you don’t get to know your home address until you’re 10 years old” part.
The arbitrary nature of the rules is the problem. I don’t want my kids limiting themselves just because they think they are supposed to. If they know and understand the reason for the rule, the rule itself doesn’t need to exist.
I like and understand where you’re going, but I can offer some actual experience. I learned my legal first name at 8.
It didn’t go down well (I cried because the teacher didn’t call my name and sent me to the school office to get it sorted) and I had a weird complex about the real name into high school. There’s no rhyme or reason to the two names, so it is actually sort of surprising to pair the two. To this day I still go by the nickname I thought was my real name. My nieces and nephews still enjoy discovering my real name and calling me by it thinking it’s a big secret they’ve discovered. I still have to explain it a hundred times a year to new coworkers and acquaintances.
… Were you not in school before 8 years old?
I might be slightly facetious in my comment.
If I were to be slightly more earnest, I would say that the authoritarian concepts they learn from enforcement of arbitrary restrictions like “no screens in the bedroom” are far more harmful to their well-being than the information they could put on those screens.
The best “tech rule” I could give instill in them is an understanding of the concept of “click bait”. The sooner I can immunize them to paywalls and microtransactions, the better.
Have you had any sucess with explaining the concept of clickbaiting and the whole predatory environment of the internet? I’ve tried, so many times, in different ways, with different examples and analogies. It just doesn’t really stick, they are simply too inexperienced to fully understand the consequences and will fall prey to it the next day or two.
I still fall for it from time to time. I used to show them the headlines that caught me; they showed me the ones that caught them.
I think showing them how to use PiHole or some other content filtering would be useful. Empower them to shape their own world.
Pi-Hole? Damn kid gonna be a hacker one day, pi-holing from infancy. Back in my days, we played Club Penguin and Flash games as kids on a computer
Your initial comment did not make this clear. I thought you where serious.
Big agree on the have them understand before draconian rules. Though some stuff is just gonna be walled off on my home network.
I mean, I was somewhat serious. Maybe not the “you don’t get to know your home address until you’re 10 years old” part.
The arbitrary nature of the rules is the problem. I don’t want my kids limiting themselves just because they think they are supposed to. If they know and understand the reason for the rule, the rule itself doesn’t need to exist.