Twins got tablets for Christmas. They asked me to put parental controls on it, because the neighbour kid has it on his tablet, and the twins wanted to see wtf it is.

It took them about 30 minutes to get around it.

They're 8.

Anyone who thinks they can stop a determined teen from acessing whatever they want is an idiot.

@algernon I've always said parental controls are great to raise little hackers!

@buherator if used for that purpose, yes. If breaking it isn't the goal, that erodes trust. But showing it, letting them break it, knowing that if they can't, I'll remove it anyway is a great bonding & learning exercise indeed!

@algernon @buherator parental controls in software are for abusive control freak parents tbh, good to know you aren’t like that

@zaire Not going to lie, the urge to hover over them and protect them is there. But I also know that erodes trust, and that's not something I'm willing to lose. I want them to trust us during their teens too, I want them to know that we may be cringe adults, we may not understand them completely, but we'll try, and we'll listen.

That requires trust. Trying to control them makes that impossible. So instead, we try to guide them, teach them, let them teach us. So far, it's working a whole lot better.

It's hard though. Parenting is hard. But also fun. :)

@buherator