What do you use for parental control?

My kids are younger and don’t have phones yet, so all we do is set tablet, pc, and console to screen time off during the time they are supposed to be sleeping. My 10 year old’s computer is set up at a desk we share in our living room, and we had a lot of conversations about online safety etc.

I am trying to be less controlling than comes naturally and giving them more trust and privacy and hopefully less likely to hide things from us. I also figure now is the best time for my kids to make mistakes, since they are still young enough to let us guide them through dealing with it.

Cloud flare DNS that blocks porn and malware: https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-1-1-1-1-for-families...

I use NextDNS[0] for network-wide DNS filtering. Has a setting specifically for porn and Google safe search, each of the major social networks, domain/tld blacklists, and advertising lists of course, and much more. Can also set it to block while on mobile data by using private DNS settings on Android (and similar for iOS). No affiliation other than a happy customer.

[0]: https://nextdns.io/

She's only 3 but she only uses a desktop computer in a public area of the house. I think this strikes a good balance between letting her use technology and letting us keep her safe. Tablets and similar I'll save until she is a teenager.

bark.us on a google pixel 6, combined with google family link. for a middle schooler. nothing is perfect but we (and the student) agree it's a good combination of accountability and "monitoring from a distance"

some of the bark alerts are hilarious as it's just dumb pattern matching. for example, we got an alert about "alcohol content" when she listened to a "sound of music" song on spotify that had the word champagne in the lyrics :)

I gave up trying to control my parents a long time ago

For iphones I used an app called ourpact. It includes dns filtering, timers, granular app control, etc.

Circle parental controls with their box. Xfinity has their own skydog software.

AdGuard Home has excellent parental control settings. Worth a look IMO

when I researched tech for this some years ago I found that Disney's circle was the best thing (though the price seemed too high) and there was a sort of open source DNS poisoning thing as well - but I skimmed through the setup docs and router lists and then tried to think on blocking stuff others might want to access - and punted on it.

I have had many conversations about bad things on the internet, and shown how to check multiple sources for solid info / fact checking.

Danger in tik tock challenges, bernie sanders freedom sticks recipes (which made toxic gas) - sextortion..

these sorts of things seem to pop up into the news every so often and lend themselves to a new discussion about how things can go wrong even when you are trying to do right.

The need to seek more info before blindly believing and certainly before doing anything online, in a book, in a movie.

They can share with me most things and I try to listen - as they should know if I listen to their 'cannon storyline of anime or show to blah blah.. music, games, whatever' - then I will listen to other important things and care.

banned books? banned school subjects? the fam discusses why they could be right and or wrong.

Having the birds and bees talkS.. show sources online and books on the subject to learn facts and know how to compare.

Many things one may see in a movie, or a fail channel are dangerous - if you really want to do X - seek professionals who can advise on safety equipment and spotting / med help nearby.

stories about electronics addiction, social media envy / not real reality, dark patterns, privacy.. good things to share and discuss imho.

the many ways one may use a picture to find someone's location - and how using bits on info from one place and combining can lead to account takeoevers, real world stalking..

there is so much to teach, so just keep teaching and listening. We are learning new things evil being done with tech every other week it seems and I am eager to share.

a 12 yo can break any parental control. what’s the point?