Some Apple users say its parental controls aren’t working properly. A CEO who has 4 kids called it ‘frustrating.’::Parents told The Wall Street Journal they have to continuously check their Screen Time settings to ensure their children’s usage is limited.
A CEO said something? We better listen to them, they are a CEO! That’s important!
I had the same thought. Pretty weird headline. Business insider is weird.
I mean, it’s still a somewhat useful headline, though.
It tells us “a person who isn’t good with technology can’t use this feature”
So, we need to make the feature simpler, or not bother with it
I had the same exact thought! BI definitely meant it as “This very smart and important person thinks this should change” but in reality what it really means is “this person who doesn’t understand technology thinks the software isn’t simple enough.”
This made me laugh for realz.
Either that or the kids found workarounds. I never had to deal with any of this myself, but I remember that being pretty common back in the day. Some you could even just ctrl+alt+del and close it in the task manager, do what you wanted, then open it back up to make it look like nothing had changed, though the parents would have to be technically competent to some degree to even check for that.
I think the systems these days are better but probably still aren’t foolproof. Decent chance one of the kids even shoulder surfed or otherwise figured out the password, or maybe just found the parent’s device unsecured and removed the limitations, which would be consistent with the claims of setting them one day then a few days later they are just gone.
Don’t rely on Silicon Valley to babysit your child. All software has flaws, and a kid who wants to watch more YouTube videos will figure out a way because there’s probably a dozen videos out there detailing each bug.
V-Chips didn’t do shit in my era, and we found ways around Bess, so none of this surprises me.
Do you have kids? I can tell you as a parent that parental controls are godsend.
If I were to try to do the same myself, it would be 10-15 arguments a day. When the software does it, there is no argument or very little. Sometimes they ask for more, and I can evaluate their case. Much better than chasing them around trying to tear the iPad out of their hands.
All that being said, I’ve had to use other 3rd party software because Apple’s parental controls are buggy and unreliable.
My 5 year old is already sneaky enough that when I put him on starfall he will wait for me to get distracted and chnage tabs and type gibberish into search, or click the YouTube icon in chrome and do the same (which is more dangerous, YouTube has some really weird shit if you search special characters).
I alsready have dns controls on network etc and generally manage access by physically retaining control of a device. M
But as they get older adding some level of content filter that’s https aware may be needed.
Though as an IT admin I’ll try and rely on trust and communication over technology solutions. But still. Like borderline planning to dump them on their own vlan, with a Pi-hole and some extra filters, that also goes to Cisco umbrella and some sort of squid guard/sensei setup on my opnsense router or even websense or palo alto filter.
We use a combo of ScreenTime and eero’s parental filters to cut off internet access (what they mostly want to do anyway). Though, we’re looking to migrate the eero subscription to a Firewalla and get more features without a sub in the next year.
Yeah. I have been looking at cell providers parental controls. Wife and Inhave been on pay as you cell service for a long time but they generally have nothing. But ultimately anything I do on wifi we gotta apply to cell service at some point. So something like Sensei or zenarmor only goes so far. It’s fine to start for sure thiugh
May just go screentime and sensei and maybe an mdm when they get old enough. Definately don’t want those apps that snoop on text messages etc. I want to repeat their privacy and if it comes to needing to look at that I’ll physically take the phone or restore a backup.
Keep trying, you will figure it out. Obviously you need to physically monitor as well as use tools. But my teenager finally gave up trying after I thwarted numerous attempts at circumventing the limit.
I mean. I’m a admin by trade. Ran systems for a bank that had multiple cascading products.
It’s more philosophical choice. I can easily setup blockades they would be hard pressed to thwart even as a teen.
Part of me wants to challenge them like I was to bypass them. Part of me wants to teach them to be responsible and practice good secuirty on the net
Part of me wants to challenge them like I was to bypass them. Part of me wants to teach them to be responsible and practice good secuirty on the net
I feel exactly the same.
Can confirm “the limit is the limit” 🤷♂️ works WAY better than “because I said so.”
It definitely does. Don’t use Apple products, but setting limits or bedtime alarms (on the switch) helps us all out. It cut down on the tantrums about stopping, it gives them the routine they need (we’re all on the ADHD spectrum in this house), and I set it up and it’s done (I have practically nil executive function).
Is it perfect? No. But it works for us.
Software can be very helpful for all sorts of situations. However, that doesn’t mean you get to abdicate all responsibility.
The person you are responding to is simply noting that kids are not stupid and often find ways to get around parental controls. There are also ways for content to get around controls while complying with controls. It’s unfortunate Apple’s software is buggy, it should be better.
Kids will definitely try to get around it. I’d be disappointed if they didn’t. It is a bit of an arms race, but having spent 30 years in IT, I’m up to the task. My only point is that using the tools at your disposal doesn’t make you a bad parent. Arguing with your kids every 10 minutes doesn’t make you a good one either.
No one said using tools available makes someone a bad parent. They said only blindly using these tools without doing more makes a bad parent.
No idea how arguing with your kids every 10 minutes came up. Has nothing to do with anything anyone is saying so I’m assuming that is coming from a personal place. Perhaps you’ve over invested in tooling at the sake of healthy, non-confrontational conversation, I don’t know. No one brought this aspect up, but you.
Constantly arguing with your kids is the method being used if you don’t use parental controls. Especially as they get older and actually need technology to do their school work and to be contactable when they are out and about. I’ve tried it, and it’s not very effective at all.
What if I told you lots of people can figure out how to educate their kids without arguing? Don’t get me wrong, kids and teenagers love to argue. However, not all of us use “constantly arguing with our kids” as a parenting method. Some of us have patience and learn to talk to our kids before using a tool to try to force the situation. I could go on, but you’re allowed to be the parent you want to be.
I know it’s possible. I’d just prefer to spend my energy on higher value discussions than constantly harping on about screen time.
How can the kid watch videos on how to watch more videos when they are blocked from watching videos?
“Hmm… I wonder if Mom’s password to unlock the iPad is the same as her pin code for… holy shit is she really this stupid!?”
Or if that’s not enough, here’s my lazy attempt to see what the options are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZaMNsGSvRE
Imagine if I put more than 10 seconds of thought into this.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=eZaMNsGSvRE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Good bot!
You probably don’t have kids so you don’t understand how valuable parental controls are. /s
There are a few parents in this thread showing their ignorance.
My kid doesnt have a smartphone. But he has access to our family pc, for gaming and music.
But no video. I blocked the browser and youtube completely
The alternative solution is to not give your kid a phone at all. Having been down the cat and mouse games with blocking, I can tell you that’s the only thing that works. The problem is that most schools require technology use, paper maps and public phones are non-existent, social pressure, etc. Pinwheel is the most nerfed smartphone for parents who want to limit their kids phone use but it’s a weird subset of Android, doesn’t nicely fit into Apple ecosystems, but effective if you need that.
Why are the opinions of some random CEO of a company that isn’t even named even in this article? It is irrelevant and doesn’t even make me want to read the article.
The assumption is that CEOs are smart. In reality that’s not always the case. The person the article mentioned could be a total nut job lol I think that pillow guy is a CEO right? Did they ask him what he thought about it?
I’ve read stories about IT/security people setting up a good secure system and then being told by some c-suite executive that it’s too hard and to either give them an exception that might allow them to reuse some simple password or maybe walk it back to a less secure system for everyone.
Edit: plus on internet forums, anyone can be a CEO. I’m not a CEO but I am a space admiral and if any news outlet wants to quote me for this or any other post, I insist they refer to me as “an annonymous space admiral”.
Oh no! Not a random CEO’s family!!
THE HORROR!!!
“a golfing buddy of someone senior at the newspaper who we didn’t want to just call ‘area man’”
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The other frustrating thing about Apple’s parental controls is that you need another Apple device to use them. Good old fashioned brand lock-in. No good reason you couldn’t manage this in a browser.
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“Help keep your family safer online”
So you rather let Google track your whole family? You can’t say you care for privacy while using Google services, it’s a contradiction.
And their walled garden is even trying to DRM the web.
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I have three kids. I am very present. I work from home and I’m constantly monitoring what they are using . Parental controls are a nightmare.
There are apps that are rated as ages 4+ but they have chat features.
There are apps you’ve ok’d them to use but requires the parents PIN every time they open it.
Screen limits randomly reset themselves. A lot of times that means you have allowed something that limit blocked and now you have to ok it again.
Imagine being out with three friends and you need to know everything they are doing on their phone and have to enter a password on it every 15 min.
Another annoying thing is if you approve an app from the App Store once, it’s approved for install forever.
Going off what you had mentioned about apps with chat features, we’ve run into times where we’ll approve the app thinking it’s fine, but then our kid finds out they can chat with random strangers and divulge personal information. At that point we delete the app, but they can reinstall it whenever they want without requiring parental approval again. 😬
You need to do this on their device, but you can go to the App Store, then purchase history and “hide” it. This makes them ask for approval to redownload.
Oh nice thank you!
Yup. Not to mention we have a Roku, iPhone, Chromebook, and Switch we have to manage, with three kids profiles on each.
Another thing, I have a 13 year old and a lot of apps (like YouTube) have little kid and adult.
When I was a kid and had cable there were lots of content edited for mass consumption. You could turn on TBS and watch an R movie edited down to somewhere between PG and PG-13. No one is editing down all this content now.
Screen time limits hasn’t been working for months, have had several support cases in regards to it, debugging and logs sent to Apple and nothing.
Second to last time they actually admitted to having problems with the function (accidentally I am sure since I can bet money on that they aren’t allowed to admitting to faults).
Have just given up on the function now
They were amazing for years and switched from push notifications to iMessage and broke everything, used to work to allow from Apple Watch, now that function appears to work but doesn’t do anything
It works on my 2 boys’ but not on my daughter’s. Good thing is she told me it wasn’t working and still followed the rules by not using it after a certain time of day. She’s a great kid. On the other hand, both of my boys would have totally abused it.
Precisely the same here gender wise!!
I do like the mix. My oldest is a boy, middle is a girl, youngest is a boy. Kind of lucked out. 😂
Do some parenting? Not just leave them alone with gadgets if you don’t want them on them all day.
There are involved parents who still want to use parental controls. It’s not like everyone who uses the controls is relying solely on them. It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition.
Oh I agree. I guess my points was not to rely on parental controls, and also generally know when it’s time to say it’s been enough screen time for the day.
Do you have kids?
Yes. Which is why I posted what I posted.
So what do you do if you have a teenager you want to be able to reach on the phone when they are out with friends but not spend all day on Tik Tok?
You’re going to need a more original/thoughtful response. I have kids and I think like this person. I don’t trust parental controls, kids and content creators know how to get around them. I, personally, think it is idiotic to assume parental controls do more than present a barrier to content, not usually a blocker.
What happens when your kids use other devices without parental controls at a friend’s house or school? Will your kids know about being responsible with content and how to navigate to safe spaces, or are they just going to go totally wild?
So, yes, I do have kids and no I do not blindly trust parental controls of any sort. Just want you to pack up that argument right now. Real annoying when parents think they can discredit a viable view because the person they are talking to hasn’t had a crotch goblin.
Why does using parental controls mean that you can’t also educate your children about good practices on the internet? Why the assumption that anyone who does blindly trusts them and doesn’t attempt any other form of education? I don’t understand this religious adherence to not using the tools that are available.
Why does using parental controls mean that you can’t also educate your children about good practices on the internet?
It doesn’t? Literally everyone here is saying that you should do both. No one is saying that using parental controls is bad. They’re saying it is insufficient to solve the problem.
Why the assumption that anyone who does blindly trusts them and doesn’t attempt any other form of education?
There was no assumption here. Most of the thread is saying you should be a present parent and do both. I think if you are blindly trusting tools, you’re going to have a bad time. Further, if you want to shift your story to be that you do both education and parental controls, cool. So far you’ve said that you prefer using parental controls than “arguing with your kids every 10 minutes.” Regardless, you can do whatever you want as a parent.
I don’t understand this religious adherence to not using the tools that are available.
I don’t understand why you at all think that anyone is “religious” about not using parental controls. I’m actually wondering if you are reading the responses. Literally no one is saying “don’t use parental controls.” No one in this thread is suggesting what you are saying here. Again, they are suggesting that parental controls are insufficient and cannot make up for being a present parent. This is not hard to comprehend.
Again, this is a response on a thread about parental controls where the opening salvo was
Do some parenting? Not just leave them alone with gadgets if you don’t want them on them all day.
The clear implication being that if you are using parental controls, you aren’t doing parenting and leaving your kids alone with gadgets constantly
As for you, you are the one making the assumptions here. What does this look like to you? Because to me it looks lke a pretty damn big assumtion:
I, personally, think it is idiotic to assume parental controls do more than present a barrier to content, not usually a blocker.
And it’s literally you who is saying that someone who uses parental controls won’t educate their children in any other way:
What happens when your kids use other devices without parental controls at a friend’s house or school? Will your kids know about being responsible with content and how to navigate to safe spaces, or are they just going to go totally wild?
There’s no reasoning with you. You are interpreting my statements in the most black and white manner possible when they are explicitly meant to acknowledge nuance. Nothing I said precluded education. I have simply been saying that parental controls are insufficient. I still use them, they are a barrier, after all.
Let me give you an analogy along the lines of kids. I’m saying that the pullout method is insufficient. It’s flawed in many ways. Am I suggesting that you should forgo using any birth control because there are flaws with the pull out method? Fuck no. I’m sorry that you cannot see the nuance.
This.
Maybe don’t give your kids a goddamn phone.
Be the parent and tell them no.
Seriously. Parental controls are no substitute for being a parent. They’re not too difficult to circumvent, anyway; just ask 10-year-old me.
Expecting technology to raise your kids is one of the key reasons humanity is on the downward trend intellectually. How about actually spend time with your kids teaching them right from wrong rather than expecting a multi billion dollar corporation that actively uses child and slave labour to build its products to raise your child for you. Always find these types of articles to be brilliantly hilarious. “I’m a CEO, someone else or something else needs to raise my kids!”
parental controls across the board are an afterthought by these companies at best, even if the product is geared toward children. Internet is off on thier devices and they have a growing, curated intranet to enjoy.
That’s a typical layer-8 problem. #pebkac
The mainstream tech/software industry was built on abusive tactics and nonfree software. The only thing I can recommend to people is to de-productize their computers and try to use free software whenever possible.
Even if you control what a child sees/uses on a apple device, you’re still perpetuating the injustice of apple’s products and now setting up that child to use their products in the future. In essence, you’re stripping the child’s software freedom in the end.
The youth of the generations after us need to be educated on their fundamental software freedoms, and how the loss of those freedoms leads to endangerment.
You may feel fine forfeitting your software freedom, but it’s an injustice to do that onto others especially preteens and teens.
What a hassle. Might actually have to be a present parent in your child’s life. 😰
Do you have kids?
Just going to follow you through the thread to remind you that a person who doesn’t have kids isn’t immediately unknowledgeable about a subject. That’s some parent gatekeeping bullshit so that you, as a parent, don’t have to think critically when being challenged.
Source: I have kids so apparently they that’s all that matters to you.
I can’t tell if you are joking or serious. Do you give surgeons advice on being surgeons? Or is not allowing you to do surgery “surgery gatekeeping”?
It’s easy to imagine being a perfect parent. Being one, however, is not so easy. Any actual parent knows this. People who don’t have kids don’t know anything about having kids and usually tend to be the ones who think they know the most.
People who are actually knowledgeable on a topic rarely look at things in such black and white terms when discussing it.
No one is suggesting it is black and white, but perhaps you. Everyone here is saying that one should not blindly trust parental controls. I don’t see anyone saying “do away with parental controls.”
I honestly think you are projecting some polarity on to people that doesn’t exist. Further, your response of “do you have kids?” Isn’t engaging in any meaningful conversation. You are simply seeking to discredit the person you are responding to without discussing any nuance whatsoever. I’m not sure how you think discrediting someone for purely not having kids is not black and white. You are literally saying if someone doesn’t have kids, their opinion and thoughts are irrelevant. That’s pretty black and white thinking if you ask me.
Edit: well you changed your comment a lot between when I started responding and finished. Again, I have kids so per your standard, I’m qualified to weigh in here. Never mind that your ridiculous straw man argument about surgeons makes no sense. Being a surgeon is a specialized skill. Being a parent is a basic human function that you get zero training on. Trying to equate the two is laughable. You’re not special for doing the one thing that literally every single one of your lineage has done. You don’t get a degree for being a parent. You’re absurd.
No one is suggesting it is black and white, but perhaps you. Everyone here is saying that one should not blindly trust parental controls. I don’t see anyone saying “do away with parental controls.”
I honestly think you are projecting some polarity on to people that doesn’t exist. Further, your response of “do you have kids?” Isn’t engaging in any meaningful conversation. You are simply seeking to discredit the person you are responding to without discussing any nuance whatsoever. I’m not sure how you think discrediting someone for purely not having kids is not black and white. You are literally saying if someone doesn’t have kids, their opinion and thoughts are irrelevant. That’s pretty black and white thinking if you ask me.
Now would be a good time to remind you that the comment that you are so vociferously defending is:
What a hassle. Might actually have to be a present parent in your child’s life.
The clear implication being that people who use parental controls are not present in their kids’ lives. You really don’t see this hot take as a black and white assesment of the situation? I personally don’t see how it could be more black and white.
This is the clearest indication of someone who has never tried to balance screen time with the needs of parenting, because anyone who had sincerely attempted to walk this line would know that it’s not as easy as just “being present”. There are plenty of cases where the kids need access to technology without it taking over their lives. I would posit that any parent who could take such a hot take seriously is probably a shit parent who never actually tried walking this fine line.
And if you think that someone who has 0 experience in something as difficult as parenting is equally qualified as someone with decades of experience, you must either not be a parent or be a terrible one. Because I’m a far better parent now than I was 20 years ago, and anyone who had gone through this without getting better probably was never trying very hard to begin with.
Actually, you have been all over this thread with the same commentary so it’s not just this thread that we are conversing. If you want to be a purist about it, I kind of agree with the comment. I see way, way too many parents who are not present and just hand their kids technology because it is easier. Are you telling me you do that think parents like that exist? I didn’t say you were that parent, no one did, but as a general comment, I agree with it.
Look dude, I get it, your an IT professional and parental controls are right up your ally. It is one way to approach the problem, but it is not the only way. Everyone is simply saying it’s an insufficient approach to handling the whole situation due to the complexities you acknowledge.
If you ask me, you took a random internet comment way too personally. It wasn’t directed at you, but you clearly interpreted it that way. There absolutely are plenty of parents who are not present. The comment was directed at them. If you are not that, go ahead and walk away from the snarky internet comment.
Of course you’re a better parent with experience. No one suggested otherwise. You’re not a brain surgeon though and I’m not going to pat you on the back for procreating and figuring out how to raise your kids. You really want people to praise you for doing a basic human function. When your kid wins a Nobel prize, maybe I’ll pat you on the back. I’m going to assume that like most of us, you’re average, you’re kids are average and that’s all cool. Not going to pat you on the back for existing.
Whether or not I do, they won’t be “raised” by slipping into a YouTube Kids coma 24/7 unsupervised.
Ah yes, spoken with the surety and confidence of someone who has never navigated the waters of raising kids in the modern world. It must be nice to live in a perfect world inside your own mind.
It sounds like you think that you know a lot about me. Please tell me more.
It’s definitely not a self report to be defensive when no one said anything specifically about you before losing your shit and taking things personally.
