Working backwards, at some point they are going to be on their own, and if up until that point they are entirely leaning on the fences set up by the parents, and/or don't understand the 'why' behind those fences, they will fail badly.
I've seen situations where the opposite happens. People who aren't exposed to something when they're kids, and then have almost no interest in it when they're on their own as adults. Whereas people who are exposed to it develop an interest and addiction that lasts through adulthood.
The counter-balance for that is plenty of love, support, and one-on-one time. Building trust, essentially. With that, the kids will understand the reasons for the rules.
> I really question that decision to completely block him out.
I have two children. One child has always successfully-self moderated her screen time and we have never had to step in and correct anything. Zero worries about her.
The other child is the exact opposite. He is not that young anymore but still has no self-moderation. He has his own computer on which he can do an unlimited number of things but if given the choice, he will spend literally ALL of his time on it not even playing video games, but watching YouTube videos of other people playing video games.
Even if we tell him, "here's your computer, you can do ANYTHING except watch YouTube gaming videos," he still ends up watching YouTube gaming videos when he thinks we aren't looking. When he gets caught, we take the computer, tablet, or phone away, and remind him what the rules were. He gets angry and throws an enormous temper tantrum. Rinse and repeat, for years on end. He doesn't seem to be learning any lesson here so the only option we are left with is banning him from Internet-connected devices most of the time.
It's a real bummer to me because free access to computers (as a kid) and the Internet (as a teen) are the only things that turned me into a half-capable human being. I'm worried he won't have that chance due to his inability to self-moderate his screen time, combined with the fact that the Internet is now more of a shopping mall than a library.
About self-governance, honestly I don't know. I know that what kids are dealing with online is crack compared to the coffee I grew up with. I don't know if anyone can have a healthy relationship with Roblox, Tiktok, and Youtube.
I also know that now he finishes his school work, is learning guitar entirely on his own, and talks to us about school and his friends. Before he would stare at the computer until dinner and go back to it after unless we forced him to do something else.
Anyone judging and trying to lecture on how doing actions like this is actually counter productive - well, chances are you don't have kids or you yell a lot.
It took a lot to convince my wife to enable the time limit on our Amazon Fire tablets. They get 1 hour of videos and apps, but unlimited book time.
> He's never been as respectful, attentive, or creative.
I hope the latter statement is true and is not just satisfaction from completely controlling your childrens life. Because blocking all electronic after school is certainly the harshest thing I've ever heard of.
In fact, I exert less control than I used to because now I trust him to be taking care of himself. He gets his work done, he learns new things on his own, and he takes more responsibility for his own health and well being.
My grades didn't get measurably worse when I got the computer back, and my parents stopped taking it away from me when they saw that I was teaching myself how to code for fun, because I think they realized that is a marketable skill, and I think I taught myself to code (and my grades started improving) because I simply grew up a bit.
Granted, there weren't really "smartphones" throughout most of my high school years, and I didn't even have a laptop at that point either, so it's possible my information is out of date.
Hell, I can barely control my own urges to look up some interesting fact whenever a thought pops into my head---and for years I was the guy everyone mocked for never looking at his phone.
they cannot google stuff or check wikipedia when they are at home? no internet access at all?
I think online educators have a lot to offer young students, but they help accelerate the process - they don't replace it.
You say that as if the official elementary- and middle-school curriculum are the only things worth looking up. There is much one can profitably learn from the resources which are freely available online beyond the least-common-denominator taught by schools.
The right time to start "independent research" is approximately from birth. We should be overjoyed that any child is curious and eager to learn. Standing in their way by limiting access to educational resources based on arbitrary ideas of "age-appropriate materials" is absolutely a crime.
I mean, that's what Big Tech pays many here for, isn't it?
Get them on Linux or a BSD and explain their purpose and value.
I got my kid on all Apple devices and set screen time to completely block him out outside of school hours, when unfortunately he is required to have his computer all day. He's never been as respectful, attentive, or creative as he is now, and after an angry adjustment period, I only regret not doing this sooner.