Who wants to use a proprietary app for something like that and let it collect data? The FOSS ecosystem lacks some essential stuff
I’ve never understood the need honestly. Why use software to control your kids actions? If i had a kid i wouldn’t give them a typical smartphone and would give them a stripped down degoogled android phone that has basic functions like organic maps, phone, text, etc. If they want another app I’d tell them to figure out how to install f droid and aurora store and install them on their own. Until they can do that they don’t get other apps. Once they’ve learned enough to do that they can download what they want. Same with a computer. Give them a linux laptop with a web browser, libre office suite, and other basic things and let them figure out how to do stuff like play games, and install other software on their own. Just set it up to do backups to your home network regularly so if they break their OS you can roll it back.
I think this would result in a kid that is much more technologically literate, and much more aware of the dangers of the internet. It’s better to let them download a virus and do something dumb now to learn their lesson then to have them make that same mistake once they have their own checking account that can be drained.
You could even do little tests like let them know, “Hey at 5pm Wednesday I’m gonna block your mac address on the wifi. Do some research now, and figure out how to spoof it to get back on the wifi when I do.” or buy them a 2nd RAM stick for the laptop and let them figure out how to install it on their own.
Also just have talks with them about like responsible social media use, and how companies collect their data and what they do with it.
Why use software to control your kids actions?
so that they don’t see some of the horrifying and traumatizing shit on the internet, obviously. it’s not hard to understand
What setting prevents that exactly? Are you gonna block every website except for Teletubbies.com?
Sounds like a good idea.
But also that’s a type of app that’s needed exclusively by people who don’t currently have the time to do FOSS dev. So that’s probably why nobody has done it.
But also that’s a type of app that’s needed exclusively by people who don’t currently have the time to do FOSS dev
yeah that was my immediate thought. kids shouldn’t have smart devices they should have 50 year old kit computers with no GUI
“But Daddy, all my friends have a laptop, or a tablet, or something! Can I pleeeeaaaasssseee have a computer?”
*Box of parts and instruction manual thunks onto kid’s desk*
“All right, honey, maybe it is time you had a computer. But you’ll have to put it together yourself! You can ask me for help if you aren’t sure how to do something or you’re stuck, but I’m not going to do it for you!”
I don’t know if six year old me would have hugged the stuffing out of my dad or wanted to strangle him if he pulled that on me.
Just give them Super Nintendo. It runs some great software.
Haha when my kid was younger we self hosted an instance of baby buddy and I was quite surprised it was developed by parents who were also raising a baby at the time
Wdym by parental control? Most of the time you should just be having conversations with kids about tech usage and how to manage it.
Usually punitive digital measures can either be bypassed by the kid itself or just strain the relationship. It feels like something only controlling parents would do.
having conversation …
Apparently you sprang forth hale and hearty in the form we have before us, skipping the childhood/teenage instar.
Kids be kids sometimes.
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I don’t underestimate any of it, frankly. I have two.
Kids have an amazing ability to understand things.
They also have the ability to fuck things up with the best and worst of them. Kids are kids. Assuming that all kids have some innate ability to understand things typicallly beyond their grasp because you talked to them about something is not only a fools errand but liable to bite one in the ass too. It’s case by case. As it should be.
I mean, my parents were immigrants who barely spoke English, so growing up in the US I didn’t have anyone to actually talk to me and explain these things from a parental viewpoint.
I think having frank conversations with kids about how to manage screen time is good. I also see the point of setting digital restrictions as a means for safety. What I don’t see the point of is spying on kids’ screen activity and making them feel that their privacy isnt being respected.
My parents basically took the approach of all screen usage is bad and then left me unattended to navigate the 2010s internet all by myself as a kid. I didn’t even have the option to talk to a parental figure about anything I was seeing/doing online.
Well yeah if the kids are at an age when you can have those kinds of conversations
Also it doesn’t have to be one thing or the other, does it?
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For now screen time and app installation. I ended up using android’s Digital Wellbeing feature. Google’s Family Link app seems to offer more but I’m not okay with using it.
Maybe I’m a big dumb dumb doodoo head but can’t you limit the kid’s screentime physically rather than digitally
It feels like involving software just complicates the situation
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i dont really get the screen hate in general
the research on this is pretty clear
The best amount of screen time at young ages is none at all. If a child must have screen time, then the best way to do it is to do it alongside them as a parent in order to demonstrate responsible device usage and keep the child engaged in media and not consuming it mindlessly. Children get better at coping as they get older but at no age does it become acceptable to just let them mainline digital content with no limitations or filters.
This seems like a leap to say “the research is clear” when the source you cited says itself that more research is needed.
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I don’t mind the criticism, but something that seems to be missing from this conversation is age, same with hello_hello’s comment. Depending on age, screen time can indeed be entirely passive, and let’s not forget that kids lack self discipline.
something that seems to be missing from this conversation is age
Hmm yes it is mysteriously missing from the conversation. Next time we’ll have to remember to read your mind so we can figure out how old your kid is
Depending on age, screen time can indeed be entirely passive
Simply don’t hand the tablet to a 3 year old, they do not need any interaction with that technology whatsoever.
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Kids are social creatures and screens tend to be fundamentally antisocial skinner boxes
That said you can sit down and do things with a kid on a screen, explaining what you’re doing
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Open Time Limit is what you’re looking for: https://f-droid.org/packages/io.timelimit.android.open/
A child you can have that conversation with is when they’re in school and exposed to using computers both for leisure and for work. If they’re like 6 and under then they shouldn’t be using screens in the first place or if they do its under direct supervision.
I’m not confident that parental control software is a solution to something thats ultimately a behavioral/self control issue and a societal one as well. Adults also deal with screen overuse.
Obviously you can still implement things like locking app installation behind your password or setting up a DNS level blocker on your home router (both of which can be done for the sake of safety online) but I don’t think setting up control software is the best approach to take since the child is going to find out you’ve been limiting them once they see their peers who dont have parental control software placed on them.
I must be wildly out of touch because I definitely would not give a child a mobile device until they were 13+
They get a linux VM and a pager, instead.
Parental control apps are fundamentally malware
Which is why I only wanna use a FOSS one
I think what they’re saying is that any app that exists to control how someone (even a child) uses a device is fundamentally at odds with the principles of FLOSS
Yes, exactly, well said
In addition to the correct summary from @[email protected] I’d like to expand a bit more. Free Software (a term I prefer over “FOSS” because the latter suggests an inappropriate neutrality between Free Software and open source software) is software which preserves the user’s four fundamental software freedoms. Those freedoms are (0) the freedom to run the software as and when the user desires, (1) the freedom to study how the program works, and change the program so it works the way the user desires, (2) the freedom to redistribute copies to help others, and (3) the freedom to distribute copies of modified versions of the software so everyone can benefit from changes.
Parental control software exists explicitly and specifically to prevent particular users from exercising freedoms (0) and (1) not only over the parental control software itself, but also over other pieces of software. Thus, parental control software axiomatically can never be Free Software.
Just buy a RAT from a sketchy darkweb site or something
Don’t use parental controls? My parents had router-level parental controls and I simply used a VPN to get around it. Kids will do what they want to do. Most parental control blocks end up blocking important websites like sex education or LGBT content. Not to mention they block cool stuff kids should be doing like piracy.
Just have antivirus software installed and teach your kids how to not download malware, not get scammed, etc. The main threats to kids online are ones that will not be blocked by parental controls. Plenty of kids getting scammed on Roblox or whatever.
Don’t use parental controls? My parents had router-level parental controls
well that was a silly thing to write.
If you are the parent you don’t need to block scarleteen, or go ask alice, or whatever sex ed website you’re thinking of.
Why can’t parental controls block a game? it seems very plausible to me. they probably all connect to certain servers, use known ports or otherwise have recognizable traffic.
teach your kids how to not download malware, not get scammed, etc
can you please teach the rest of earth’s population once you’ve figured it out
If you are the parent you don’t need to block scarleteen, or go ask alice, or whatever sex ed website you’re thinking of.
And then kids need to go out of their way to ask their parents to unblock, which is embarrassing. Just stop trying to control what your kids do online. They’re not your property.
Why can’t parental controls block a game?
I never said they couldn’t. My point is that parental controls wouldn’t block other players on a game who mean a child harm, unless you block the game as a whole. Plenty of people want their kids to be able to play video games but not to be scammed on them.
It isn’t about being anyone’s property, their brains aren’t done cooking and they can’t make sound decisions.
Yeah that’s just plainly reactionary. Nobody’s brain is “done cooking”. At what stage do you get to have personhood? If kids can’t make sound decisions let’s just lock them all up in mental asylums yeah?
I don’t have to be able to pin down the precise moment you should be allowed to make all your own mistakes to tell you it isn’t at age 8. If you’re 30 and still want to put forks in electrical outlets, have at it. You understand the consequences. That isn’t stripping children of their person hood.
Well if I see a group of people as people, I don’t say they’re inherently incapable of making their own decisions and should be controlled. Before anything else, the way you’re talking about children is incredibly offensive, and it’s nuts how normalised it is to talk about children in this way to the point where people do it in supposedly radical spaces. It’s obvious how reactionaries use this rhetoric, e.g. it underpins a massive part of the current anti-trans panic (and was the canary in the coal mine so to speak—western mainstream press fearmongered about trans kids first).
And like I said initially, kids will get around parental blocks anyway. Because despite what you think, kids are not stupid. They can problem solve. So are you going to just slightly inconvenience your child and have them end up on the websites you don’t want them on anyway without any real attention to the issues at hand, or are you, as a human with more experience than them, going to lend them some of that experience and teach them the skills they need to keep themselves safe online?
Children, to varying degrees, are not capable of making all of their own decisions or suffering the consequences of all their own actions, should they be allowed. Setting aside the moral panic of the month, there really are many things available on the internet that are actively harmful to kids; predators, scams, disinformation, viruses. As a child with unrestricted internet access you will encounter all of the above.
I agree with you that children deserve free access to information. I’m not pearl clutching about Timmy reading a book about a character with two mommies or something. Do you really think kids are better off learning every racial slur and reactionary opinion before the age of 10? That’s what dominates the internet as it exists today. That is what will be deliberately served to them by the algorithms.
teach them the skills they need to keep themselves safe online?
You can do both, just like how you install outlet covers for the 5% of the time your back is momentarily turned, not as an alternative to watching your kids.
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GNOME Linux has a Parental Control app, called Parental Control. But it’s for Linux. Nobody is going to bother developing anything like that for Windows.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Im using timelimit (android), which is FOSS, to impose time limits on myself, that works well, and it’s actually geared towards use for parents who want to control screen time. And I’m sure there’s ad blockers that have lists to achieve blocking of adult content, but don’t use those myself (I do use WG tunnel with pihole, which can do the same).
So, I think parental control should be quite easy to achieve?
The problem is kids want to play Nintendo, not some open source linux only game. You’ll never be able to get api keys from Nintendo for any kind of access to that device’s usage. Sure, they make an app. But it’s utter horseshit. Same for… basically everything else. I want to keep my kid from installing youtube on the xbox. Nope can’t be done with their parental controls app. Can I use a 3rd party tool to do that? Nope. Not possible.
I think you could use Mindful as a form of parental control, no?
This is really slick, thanks for the suggestion
Open Time Limit might be what you’re looking for: https://f-droid.org/packages/io.timelimit.android.open/
It’s called “going outside.”
Do group policies, permissions, and other standard ways of locking a computer down not count?
yeah. They’re pretty shit. I used apple’s family thing and it worked for a while, but I eventually got tired of dealing with it, and my kids finally hit the age where they listen to me for more than they don’t listen to me so I’m going with that.
When I was a kid my folks couldn’t keep me away from a computer. I assume my kids will do something similar. My kids come from split households and at some point a phone for the kids became a requirement.
At this point my only rule is location data stays on, really. I talk to them on occasion about whom they text, talk to, etc. Same as Internet in general. If something gets bad enough I reserve the right to go through their phones but I’ve never done it. It’s mostly just bullshit tho.
Again, I’m lucky that my kids listen to me more often than they ignore me so my mileage is different than others.
You can use Adguard Home for this.
