Re:Ask HN: How do you monitor your young kids' computer usage?
by micahdeath on Monday June 20, 2022 @08:17PM
(#31818060)
I use this at the house: https://firewalla.com/ (Red Model - limits to 100Mb) - Can block tiktok, youtube and more. (I keep the youtube block and pause the rule when I allow it.)
When away from home we just keep an eye on them. At friends' houses, we don't allow them to take their devices -- normally. We haven't reached 'the talk' stage yet.
Now that my oldest is 13, I've started to realize that you can only control a portion of this, so sometimes education is better. My setup above works fine for helping my younger two avoid content they might accidentally find. However, every middle school kid can help you kid find a variety of VPN solutions to evade all of this. The latest for my 13 year old was aChrome plug-in that routes that tabs traffic alone over VPN. I unblocked Discord for him in exchange for dumping the VPNs and having a deep conversation over what is appropriate and how to behave on the internet.