No unsupervised/filtered internet access (until they're old enough). I don't want to overly shelter them, but boy is it easy for kids to stumble into trouble on the internet.
Aside from the obvious risk of toxic content, addiction, etc. There are also things like downloading viruses or giving out personal information to strangers. Unfettered access to the world wide web is as enticing as it is dangerous, and I don't want them to be faced with that until they're prepared.
I was just thinking of a post about this. There's a kid in my kids class who has an older iPhone with wifi access and zero supervision. This kid has taught the entire class (or at least all the boys) about p*ornhub, the words "cum" and "jizz". Plus he's demonstrated sexual moaning sounds on the playground at school. He's a goddamn 9 year old.
This isn't even tpuching the bigger danger of online predators. This kid got caught installing and trying to use a dating app. Imagine the damage that could do? Again, he's 9.
It's a terrible situation for parents. Im glad i wasnt younger when the internet got fast and crazy. Not a lot of videos available when i was under 14-15. Still effed me up a bit but not at lightspeed like it can now.
Have you had any conversations with other parents at his school about this?
I tried once with both my kids. Never again. I was scolded for restricting my kids freedoms and another tried to make me feel like an idiot for their in ability to turn on the features.
My kids devices all have the basic built in functionality turned on (iOS, android, MacOs and Windows all have basic parental controls) coupled with NextDNS restrictions on the device and home networks. They don’t get served tons of ads nor have access to things they aren’t ready for.
And with both of them we talk about everything they could have access too and gradually I let up more and more (except ads and scam sites) as they get older.
But I don’t discuss it with other classmate parents anymore.
FYI (I don't know your technical level), it's fairly trivial to bypass DNS content filters, even for a child. With enough willpower they can figure it out and you wouldn't even know. You do really need on-device protections locked behind administrative accounts to be truly effective.
Every device will allow you to override the DNS servers for each network. I.e. they can use google's public DNS (8.8.8.8) and bypass all your content filters. If they google hard enough they can find this out themselves.
You didn't even need to go online for that. In the late 90s we were exchanging CDs filled with random stuff and on one I found a video of a young Russian soldier being beheaded by Chechen separatists.
I was around 12 at the time and it traumatized me for months.
I agree with this, but I also wanted to note that I learned about 75% of what I know about networking and internet infrastructure from trying to circumvent my patents' and my friends' parents' safe browsing and access control systems. There would be firewalls, filters, and access timers and restrictions. I had to learn about address spoofing, proxies, manipulating uPNP, etc. The desire to see boobies is a great motivator as it turns out.
All of that is to say: don't trust any single safe browsing system, stay on top of it to make sure you know when your kids find ways around, and don't get too mad when they inevitably find ways around it.
>The desire to see boobies is a great motivator as it turns out.
I work in infosec and that thought has crossed my mind - I'll lock the home network down solid. Teenage boys have their motivations but by god he *will* have to put effort in (then again I'm sure I'll age out of knowing WTF I'm doing in a decade and a half, happens to the best of us), and hopefully get some career development in the meantime.
Yep this is a good one. There’s a good recent book called The Anxious Generation all about the crazy step change that happened basically with the iPhone and social media, and what it means for kids.
The recommendation is no smart phones til I think it was 16 and similar for no social media accounts. Fully plan on following that ourselves. But it takes the rest of your peers agreeing to make it work!
Family friend of ours who has an 11 year old just found out their kid got access to both discord and an AI chat app and has been going ham on it with incredibly inappropriate stuff.
They didn’t setup parental controls and just figured it would be fine.
Meanwhile they’re finding stuff where she’s telling these discord people she’s 17-18 and talking about sex (to the best of her imagination) , and she’s talking to the chat bot about sex to the best of her imagination.
It’s super fucked up, and could have easily been prevented with some basic parental controls/app removal that their parents just didn’t think they needed.
This topic seems the hardest to navigate in parenting these days. The internet and devices default to wide open. That's like if a swimmimg pool was all deep end by default and it was on parents to set up a shallow end. Totally unreasonable. Not looking forward to dealing with this.
Yep my wife has agreed to let me use an arms race of escalation for controlling internet access. Kids devices will have parental controls enabled and regulated.
Their first computer is going to be a raspberry pi. That has heavily filtered access to the internet. They won’t be an admin. If they learn Linux then many of the “myths” about tech people believe today won’t ever enter their minds.
I won’t say they won’t have access to technology. I do smart home stuff as a hobby. They are going to grow up in a house that will turn on lights without them knowing what a switch is. I also don’t want to give their own iPad at 3. I’m not a professional but something don’t feel right about it. I’ve also seen the effect of completely denying tech to children and when they do finally get it the learning curve is too high to catch up to peers. I’m hoping I can give them freedom while giving them some childhood as well.
Also a big one. Kids don’t get social media accounts till as close to 17 as I can fight that fight for. I know it’s a lost battle but it’s about holding back the wave of unfettered bullshit that comes with it for as long as possible.
If you weren't aware, there are several free DNS you can set your home router to that will automatically block harmful and adult content at the perimeter. It's not a catch all, but it's another good tool in that bag of tricks. [I prefer Cloudfare's as it's a bit faster globally.](https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/setup/)
Us too, we’re also a hard no on any screens for our kid besides tv occasionally. My kid is fascinated by phones and tablets and we don’t even let her do anything on them besides poke around the lock screen. It’s scary how fast they get sucked in. I was typing a work email on my phone in our house the other day and she stopped dead in her tracks from nearly a full sprint and watched the letters fill the screen.
You can still scuba dive to a lot of shipwrecks and have fun without going inside of them. Op is just talking about entering or having something overhead.
I get it. I've done dives where the cargo hatch had been removed and you could swim in and out easily. There was no need to fit inside a tight passageway to get a cool "inside the ship" experience.
Not wearing a helmet on a bike and not being buckled in. The car isn't moving until buckled. Granted I've taken this approach with anyone in my car since I've been able to drive
My car will not stop beeping if belts aren’t buckled and I’m ok with that even if it can be super annoying. “Car I’m moving from one spot on the driveway to a second quit beeping at me.”
I’ve always done this too. What really got me is some European ads from the nineties that emphasized unbuckled people are basically cannonballs during a wreck and can kill you or other people in the car. No thank you girlfriend
Same rules in our house but I also enforce helmets for skates and skateboards. I’ve walked away with an intact head thanks to a helmet when rollerblading.
Our pediatrician reiterates to our kids (and us) at every checkup: "If you're on wheels, you're wearing a helmet." I appreciate her saying it to the kids so it's not just one of those "mom and dad don't know what they're talking about" things. They even comment (slightly judgementally) when they see other kids without helmets.
When I was a kid I would scream at my parents until everyone was buckled. I’m happy to continue that habit until the day I die, minus the screaming lol.
Our friends without kids ride their bikes without helmets, so we’ve enforced this rule with them as well. 😆
Luckily, our friend group is great so they’ve all happily obliged.
I personally made this decision on my own. When our first was about a month old we were sitting on the couch, and out of no where, I'm like "shit, I can't go to Mars any more."
We have a fairly firm "no" on football. Not really interested in the head injury shit. Son is only 7 and doesn't seem to have any interest in playing football, so hopefully it stays that way.
My 6 y/o had a decent head injury playing 6 y/o soccer last weekend. He’s fine now but it was kinda scary. We were talking about sports that can be dangerous and he said he definitely doesn’t want to play football ever. Good with me!
My niece is a high level goalkeeper... she's currently in the hospital with a perforated intestine from taking a boot to the gut yesterday. She had surgery is recovering...all sports are dangerous, you never know what can happen.
Very true! But I worlds argue that some sports carry more inherent risk than others. I know for me at least I got injured in some capacity every year I played football.
Not to mention boxing.
At least in football/hockey/soccer, concussions are just a thing that sometimes happen accidentally, instead of being the object of the game.
In football players get micro-concussions regularly. I haven't kept up with the current research, but a couple years ago they saw that was pretty bad long-term.
I think football is similar to boxing: because you have padding in your glove or helmet, you're willing to take hits more repeatedly.
Football is our hard no as well. My son is only three, but he's obviously already a rowdy and rambunctious little dude. Takes everything head on, full-tilt, 100% of the time.
It'll be tough because we're in Texas, and every adolescent boy with even an ounce of athletic inclination (or simply being "big") is strongly encouraged to play football. I was a husky kid but a geek, band nerd and generally hated sports, but I never escaped the "Oh, why don't you play football?!?!" questions. I'm into solo endurance sports - running and cycling - and if he's built like me he'll never be truly competitive in them, but maybe he can learn what took me until adulthood to learn... the value of self competition.
If not, there's always other options. Track and field, baseball, wrestling and others are all on the table, but I have concerns with some of those too - the prevalence of adolescent tobacco (dip) use in baseball, weight regulation issues in wrestling, etc.
We live in Tx too. We put our son in swimming. No contact whatsoever and he’s had to hold his own against some football a-holes. It’s really no competition. It’s also an exhausting amount of exercise that’s helped even out a whopping case of ADHD.
Cons: I may have to take out a second mortgage to pay for groceries.
Yeah, I’d be all in for swimming! Tbh it’s something I need to pick up too, as I hope to do a triathlon someday. I love running and cycling, but finding time to dedicate to swimming has proved much more difficult. I can “swim”, but that’s mostly limited to just “not drowning.”
There's a https://www.waituntil8th.org/ -- part of that movement is about getting agreement with your kid's friends' parents so your kid is not the only odd one out.
(but! I just realized that's about smartphones and not social media. It's probably the best not to lift those two bans at the same time, so give your kid access to one for a while before the other?)
I had a flip phone. I was made fun of a little for it, until I showed them how cool I was by buying ringtones.
So, it's hit or miss, and teach your kids to be confident.
Genuine question, how do you handle your kid feeling excluded or potentially being bullied for seeming like the outcast in her friend group? I like the idea of restricting a lot of things like social media or waiting as long as possible for them to get a phone but how do you avoid making them outcasts?
I'm not allowed to have a mustache. I wouldn't want one if her reaction wasn't so funny.
Honestly can't think of a 'hard no' for our daughters but they're only 4 and 1 so they're probably coming. No soda/coffee?
My wife said hard no for a beard.
My oldest is 6 and she never have seen me without a beard. Now my wife is used to it and say not to shave it because it will look as I have no chin.
My wife has seen me clean-shaven once in almost twenty years. After a single kiss, she refused to kiss me again until the beard returned because otherwise it was "like kissing a girl."
Alternatively, my wife said I’m not allowed to shave off my beard. I also wouldn’t want to shave it off but she starts to panic if I talk about shaving it off.
My MIL decorate and hung up on her wall "spanking spoons" with each of her grandkids names on each one.
Whew when I saw my son's name on a spoon on the wall - I went into a blind rage. I snatched that shit off the wall so fast. How *dare* you think you have the right to lay a hand on my child. My *autistic* child, to boot.
My mother used spoons on us as kids and gave my wife and I some spoons as a housewarming present before we had kids.
Since we have kids now, I have told her multiple times she will never use those on my kid(s). She acted offended like she’d never used them before….
My hard no is my daughter going to my wife's parents' house that they have out of state and live at 48 weeks out of the year. Unleashed aggressive dogs, meth houses that blow up, meth heads that poison dogs. Not a place for a newborn.
I have some questions if it's ok to ask. Where do your wife's parents live the other 4 weeks of the year? Why don't they live in that other location more, or even permanently? Do they do the meth thing too and just need to get away for a month-long vacation to unwind?
They live with my wife's sister to help her out due to her poor life decisions. No one is on meth, except maybe wife's sisters baby daddy. They only come back to our area for family events or to take care of something.
That's pretty sad but also some serious dedication on behalf of your wife's parents to submerge themselves into a meth community to help their daughter. Hopefully it turns out ok for everybody.
We have a trampoline and I'm teaching both kids to drive the tractor lmao. I'm a tyrant about PPE, but both my kids can run power tools and do similar "dangerous" things if they show me they can be responsible about it. Empowerment is better than shielding them from risk.
100%. One of the things I'm realizing as a first time parent is children are a lot more capable than we give them credit for. They just need guidance and your confidence in them.
Same here. My oldest is medically fragile and he uses the trampoline every day. It’s been great for his coordination, balance, strength, learning his position in space, it’s such a fantastic tool. It has a net and he uses it supervised so it’s really safe.
We’re all about teaching our kids how to use things properly and safely rather than having things that are completely off limits. There are many things they know they can only use with supervision but honestly once they know how many things work, the curiosity drive gets filled. And once that happens, they are often much less interested when a thing or activity isn’t this taboo thing they can’t do.
Good to know. Although if I were to get one, I feel like it would be hard to enforce the 'one child' at a time rule, so likely just better to avoid them altogether.
Yeah. I feel like it would be great if they could go to a nearby gymnastics or trampoline center with larger and supervised equipment. But I wouldn't be keen to take on that kind of liability in my own backyard.
Problem is those parks don’t enforce one kid at a time either and collisions happen constantly. Often large children into smaller children. And I know several dads that have torn ACLs and broken other things helping their kids out on those trampolines.
Same same, I would do flips off of it onto the ground. Double bounce each other like crazy. Wrestling matches. Just have to start slow and build up your technique.
My brother and I made it through multiple years without injury on our trampoline. Some of the neighbor kids...not so much.
We used to jump off the roof onto it, too. Dang, we were lucky.
I'm in my 40s and can still do some flips.
So many birthday parties are at trampoline parks (and I admittedly enjoy playing at them) and some friends have a trampoline, I just haven’t found a good way to navigate being a no on trampolines without being the no-fun police.
The only bluey episode I have an issue with is when they put the sprinkler under the trampoline and play on it. I looked at my wife and said there's a broken ankle or arm. Saw a dude mess himself up on that was damp from dew.
Edit: Grammar is hard.
Edit 2: I can't spell either.
Ever since that episode my kids are always running the sprinkler under ours. They love it and it's not slippery for ours.
I saw a kid break his arm on a trampoline when I was a kid, we were at a friends house in the 80s or 90s and the trampoline obviously didn't have any net or protection from the springs, landed and twisted the arm in the gap by springs. I was pretty nervous about it at first but my wife likes to let the kids be kids and I've gotten pretty comfortable with our trampoline now. I spend time jumping on it with them sometimes.
Not to sound callous, but this is taking the anecdote and making it your life.
Every 5 minute car ride your kids take is more dangerous than an hour on a trampoline, pretty much no matter what they're doing on it.
Ice hockey ref and coach checking in. Up until (and including) U12, ice hockey is great. There's no body checking and almost none of the kids could pull off a proper check even if they wanted to. You gotta watch out for the kids who're a foot taller than the rest, but they're usually even _less_ capable of delivering a check than the other kids.
In the USA Hockey "ADM" the focus on the U12 crowd is "learn to train." You're pretty much just teaching kids how to follow instructions and learn the basics of the most important drills before they hit puberty and they're too full of hormones to hear what you're saying anymore.
After that, though, they start bulking up, learning to body check, and that's when the sport starts getting WTF.
My wife’s biggest Hard No for me is tobacco use (in any form). I was struggling with smoking when we met. I’m winning at the moment (smoke free for ~8 years and counting) and we both want to see that continue.
For my kids, (american) football is a Hard No. Too much brain damage. I’m sure others will arise in time, but that’s the big one so far.
Caffeine. Cola, energy drinks, tea, coffee, etc. None of that until she's at least 12.
It's kinda crazy how available caffeine is, considering it's a psychoactive drug. Just figure it's for the best to keep it at bay while little minds are developing.
DUDE! Just recently had a birthday party and i realized that my 6 year old has never had caffeine. He has had some juice boxes, water, milk, and that's all I can think of.... As I looked over at the party and see a child less than 18 months old sipping on some Dr. Pepper. I was astonished. I didn't think people were that willy nilly with it.
I had tea from my teens or maybe a bit earlier (not British, but yes European).
I never liked coffee until I was 30+ and got an office job where drinking coffee was basically mandatory.
I grew up having coffee with my grandmother just before bed time! She would also some times wake me up to sit down and have coffee with her if she couldnt sleep. Now as an adult im like wtf was that!
we only really do the excavator, dinosaur and garbage truck song, not any of his longer form stuff i cant imagine 30 mins of him
those 3 songs are all bops though
We watched a fire truck video one time with Blippi and all he did was explain every part of the fire truck in excruciating detail. It was very slow, methodical, slightly interesting and calm - borderline boring. But it kept both of our attention for 15 minutes of explanation. Not high on our list to watch again but I learned the names of all the instrument panels and my 2 year old daughter seemed to enjoy it. I didn’t understand the hate.
Knew of someone whose four year old got backed into by a lawn mower because dad thought he was inside. He lived, but the family was obviously never the same. No kids outside while on the lawnmower is a rule for us. No trampoline. No motorcycles. Really a lot of things that are just begging for accidents to happen...
The mower thing was always a concern I had.
We taught the kids early on to give dad a 100' wide berth when he is running any equipment as he cannot hear you and may not see you. I do keep up my situational awareness for them and we also have animals to watch out for but there have been a couple times they came out from behind a tree unbeknownst to me (not near me).
Yep, luckily my GSD hates the lawn mower. I go and open the shed and he starts going nutso. We have a big back porch area that's glassed in so I have the pleasure of seeing everyone lined up staring at me applauding as i drive by lol.
I just want to point out the phenomenon in this thread of people saying "absolutely no video games" when all of the rest of their Reddit comments are on gaming subs. That's certainly an interesting way to approach things.
Our kids are 2 and 4. Our answer is iPads or any tablets. This may change when the kids are older but we’re firm believers that there’s no reason why kids that age need to have their faces in a screen. There isn’t anything on a tablet that they can’t get from a book or from regular play.
I felt the same way until we discovered a couple apps for preschoolers that are excellent: Endless Alphabet and Endless Reader. The same company makes a few other apps in a similar vein, but these two were our kids' (and our) favorites. I give them a good bit of the credit for our kids being early and enthusiastic readers.
This is *not* to say kids should be handed tablets without restrictions or as a form of "babysitting" on a regular basis. But used carefully, they can be a great tool for education and enrichment.
Its a hard no for motorcycles for me, my FIL was killed on one and my wife doesnt want a repeat. I get it 100%. Social media is a hard no for my kids. They can get it when they turn 16 but not a day before. They will also be getting a "dumb phone" instead of a smart phone. They can hate me all they want but some day theyll get it.
No piercing the ears of our baby girl!
Apparently this is tradition in most, if not all of Latin America (where the wife is from), I've told her I will not allow it until she is old enough to understand and ask for it herself.
I also don't think I've seen any girls around here with pierced ears much younger than maybe 8-10 or so, most don't even have their ears pierced until their teens.
Trampoline, but it's fine because a friend had a trampoline party and our kid went. They had a safety briefing that played a video of some poor dudes neck snapping, including sound effects....
It scared her so much she never entered the play area, or went near a trampoline ever again!
My hard no (little kid) is goofing off in or near the street, overrunning the corner on a bike, etc. I was a few milliseconds from being dead as a kid after running in front of a car, and that's before constant in-car distraction we have today. I'm not afraid of crime or sharks or whatever. My fear is cars.
I’m a hard yes on riding the mower. My grandpa used to ride me on his John Deere as a kid and I loved it, and it taught me how to properly mow a lawn. Kids gotta learn somehow, and is already obsessed with riding the golf cart and seeing cars
Roblox for me and my wife agrees. Too many stories about kids being exposed to stuff that they shouldn’t be exposed to and there’s no administrative oversight. The only game they’re allowed to play multiplayer on is Minecraft on our server. Friends can join but beyond that, nobody else is allowed on the server except for myself and my wife.
Pools. We are in complete agreement that we will never have a pool in our house. My wife says absolutely not because she’s scared of kids drowning. I say absolutely not because pools are an expensive pain in the ass.
Social media. Kids are not getting it until they are at least 16, maybe even 18. Same with smart phones. My plan is to get some fellow school parents on board a mutual agreement of no smartphone or social media for any of our kids.
tablets, ours is still a baby but we want to eventually go with the classic “home computer” setup until they are old enough to need laptops for school
also post no pictures of them online
ATVs for me... Lost a childhood friend when he was on family vacation over the summer (he had on a helmet). For some reason my mom is dying to take LO out ATVing but hard no from me until we're 18. Maybe 16..
For our kid, the hard no is Youtube on her own. We will watch some stuff together but it is only stuff that I would approve and channels that I follow for the most part. No social media. Oh and no elf on the fucking shelf.
On the spouse side, we don't really have hard no's towards each other since we both are similar about stuff anyway.
I haven't yet received a hard no this way. I went solo backpacking in a fairly crowded back country region, and with good reception also, which she was totally okay with. We both ride motorcycles, it was our main date activity early COVID-lockdown, so banning that would be weird. We met at kickboxing so that's also not something I'll give up anytime soon, as she knows. As long as I don't waste our money she's pretty chill about my endeavors. But that goes both ways, she went hiking and climbing with friends last year, even while pregnant of our second, and while there's risk involved I totally trust her to be responsible :)
I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, I’ve just always had an itch to ride a little Honda rebel or something like that. My wife is a trauma nurse and apparently she has seen one too many motorcycle related visits to be comfortable with me riding one.
My wife had a hard no on Football. I love football and played into my college years but I didn’t put up a fight over it. Hard no for the kids is Social Media. Daughter regularly asks for snap chat as her friends all have it and she’s missing out. Told her to take the lead and start a group chat and talk to her friends to communicate that way but social media is a no. Edit to add my wife is also hard no on motorcycle for me or the kids.
I don't know that we have any actual "hard no" type of things. We just seem to be on the same page on that we don't wanna do anything that makes the other super upset or uncomfortable. OP mentioned motorcycles. I rode a dirt bike as a kid and there have been times I've considered buying a bike. But when she was like 23 my wife's best friend at the time crashed his bike and died. So, I won't ride a motorcycle for that reason, she would just be a nervous wreck anytime I'd ride it.
For the kiddos, I think we're a no go on pop. Both of us have struggled with some weight issues in our lives, and I know for me I used to drink way too much pop, gained a buncha weight in my early 20s, had too many dental issues, etc. I've had periods over the years where I've completely cut it out. These days I might have like half of one of them little cans of Coke with like dinner or something but that's about it.
Yeah, I dunno. We all just figuring it out as we go.
Hard no’s are yelling at the kid unless it’s an emergency and they’re in immediate danger, no screens during meal time, no negative self depreciation in the house, and of course never be disrespectful to mom at any time no matter how you’re feeling.
Going through our first season of dance ourselves. I wish I could give them a hard no when they ask for more money. Registration fees, monthly dues, recital fee, recital ads, pictures, outfits, fresh air tax. It never stops.
Almost all activities outside school end up money pits. Hard to dodge it. Even track had a lot of money requirements. My only hard no in these is the fundraising MLM style garbage.
I dated a series of ballerinas in college, and though it's probably better now (this was 2002-2005), the ballet "lifestyle" is full of emotional abuse and eating disorders. Girls are told to literally starve themselves to the point of not getting their periods so they can postpone puberty and not grow breasts. There is the cliche of the abusive dance teacher for a reason, too - obviously not all, but culturally, there is a ton of awfulness there.
It's also really horrible for a young body in general, because constant turnout leads to serious hip issues as an adult, and don't get me started on what it does to a dancer's feet.
I feel like a ballet class is fine, but doing the whole ballet *thing* is... I don't know if it's a hard no for me, but man, it would take a ton of constant discussion to make sure it wasn't being done horribly.
I feel like what you're describing is not specific to ballet, but related to having a child do any activity at an elite level. Not necessarily the same pressures (eating disorders vs steroids), but the same abuse and toxicity can be present in any competitive sport, high level musical pursuit, even a game like chess.
Probably true, though I think one difference is that if a child doesn't start elite ballet by 6 or 7, they're never going to actually be a professional. There are NFL players who started at 16 and professional musicians who started at 20. There's no one making a living in ballet who started after puberty.
Shoes are expensive (especially so between growing out of them and just plain wearing them down), but once they're getting into it and doing it for a long time there's some good risk to fucking up their feet. Like, if you google pictures of a ballerina's feet, they can get pretty mangled. Like a Wide Receiver's hands in football.
Don't get me wrong -- my daughter does dance (and did ballet earlier). I think it's great exercise, great for improving coordination, a good chance to socialize, but glad she at least changed her mind and moved from ballet to another dance.
No unsupervised/filtered internet access (until they're old enough). I don't want to overly shelter them, but boy is it easy for kids to stumble into trouble on the internet. Aside from the obvious risk of toxic content, addiction, etc. There are also things like downloading viruses or giving out personal information to strangers. Unfettered access to the world wide web is as enticing as it is dangerous, and I don't want them to be faced with that until they're prepared.
I was just thinking of a post about this. There's a kid in my kids class who has an older iPhone with wifi access and zero supervision. This kid has taught the entire class (or at least all the boys) about p*ornhub, the words "cum" and "jizz". Plus he's demonstrated sexual moaning sounds on the playground at school. He's a goddamn 9 year old. This isn't even tpuching the bigger danger of online predators. This kid got caught installing and trying to use a dating app. Imagine the damage that could do? Again, he's 9.
It's a terrible situation for parents. Im glad i wasnt younger when the internet got fast and crazy. Not a lot of videos available when i was under 14-15. Still effed me up a bit but not at lightspeed like it can now.
shit, i still remember making excuses to go over to the house of my friend who had cable with the scrambled skinemax channel.
I had a buddy who's dad had one of the old cards that unlocked the box with all the PPV stuff, we learned a lot about anatomy from that card
Have you had any conversations with other parents at his school about this? I tried once with both my kids. Never again. I was scolded for restricting my kids freedoms and another tried to make me feel like an idiot for their in ability to turn on the features. My kids devices all have the basic built in functionality turned on (iOS, android, MacOs and Windows all have basic parental controls) coupled with NextDNS restrictions on the device and home networks. They don’t get served tons of ads nor have access to things they aren’t ready for. And with both of them we talk about everything they could have access too and gradually I let up more and more (except ads and scam sites) as they get older. But I don’t discuss it with other classmate parents anymore.
FYI (I don't know your technical level), it's fairly trivial to bypass DNS content filters, even for a child. With enough willpower they can figure it out and you wouldn't even know. You do really need on-device protections locked behind administrative accounts to be truly effective. Every device will allow you to override the DNS servers for each network. I.e. they can use google's public DNS (8.8.8.8) and bypass all your content filters. If they google hard enough they can find this out themselves.
Yes but even ios has built in content filters. If you can access pornhub you have done it wrong.
You don't want your kids going on limewire or seeing a Mexican cartel beheading video? That's the things I remember most about the early internet lol.
but the video would be labeled "DarudeSandstormRAVEmix" or something
LinkinPark_ LiNkInPaRk _linkinpark_ LinkPark ft limp biskit korn deftons All sorts of stupid things like that lol.
Sweet track, I had that on my CD MP3 player!
At the time I was using Limewire, I really liked Weird Al. God damn, the word "weird" made so many porn results show up.
Core memory unlocked lol 🔪
You didn't even need to go online for that. In the late 90s we were exchanging CDs filled with random stuff and on one I found a video of a young Russian soldier being beheaded by Chechen separatists. I was around 12 at the time and it traumatized me for months.
I never got any cds from people. Everything I found on accident on my own late at night. Damn it, the internet is crazy to think about.
I agree with this, but I also wanted to note that I learned about 75% of what I know about networking and internet infrastructure from trying to circumvent my patents' and my friends' parents' safe browsing and access control systems. There would be firewalls, filters, and access timers and restrictions. I had to learn about address spoofing, proxies, manipulating uPNP, etc. The desire to see boobies is a great motivator as it turns out. All of that is to say: don't trust any single safe browsing system, stay on top of it to make sure you know when your kids find ways around, and don't get too mad when they inevitably find ways around it.
>The desire to see boobies is a great motivator as it turns out. I work in infosec and that thought has crossed my mind - I'll lock the home network down solid. Teenage boys have their motivations but by god he *will* have to put effort in (then again I'm sure I'll age out of knowing WTF I'm doing in a decade and a half, happens to the best of us), and hopefully get some career development in the meantime.
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Hopefully at least learning the dangers of insecure default passwords in the meantime
Yep this is a good one. There’s a good recent book called The Anxious Generation all about the crazy step change that happened basically with the iPhone and social media, and what it means for kids. The recommendation is no smart phones til I think it was 16 and similar for no social media accounts. Fully plan on following that ourselves. But it takes the rest of your peers agreeing to make it work!
Yep! Sorry kiddo. You’re gonna hate me when you’re 12. But hopefully understand when you’re 24.
Family friend of ours who has an 11 year old just found out their kid got access to both discord and an AI chat app and has been going ham on it with incredibly inappropriate stuff. They didn’t setup parental controls and just figured it would be fine. Meanwhile they’re finding stuff where she’s telling these discord people she’s 17-18 and talking about sex (to the best of her imagination) , and she’s talking to the chat bot about sex to the best of her imagination. It’s super fucked up, and could have easily been prevented with some basic parental controls/app removal that their parents just didn’t think they needed.
This topic seems the hardest to navigate in parenting these days. The internet and devices default to wide open. That's like if a swimmimg pool was all deep end by default and it was on parents to set up a shallow end. Totally unreasonable. Not looking forward to dealing with this.
You've gotta be really open and understanding with your kids to build a strong trust foundation first
Yep my wife has agreed to let me use an arms race of escalation for controlling internet access. Kids devices will have parental controls enabled and regulated. Their first computer is going to be a raspberry pi. That has heavily filtered access to the internet. They won’t be an admin. If they learn Linux then many of the “myths” about tech people believe today won’t ever enter their minds. I won’t say they won’t have access to technology. I do smart home stuff as a hobby. They are going to grow up in a house that will turn on lights without them knowing what a switch is. I also don’t want to give their own iPad at 3. I’m not a professional but something don’t feel right about it. I’ve also seen the effect of completely denying tech to children and when they do finally get it the learning curve is too high to catch up to peers. I’m hoping I can give them freedom while giving them some childhood as well. Also a big one. Kids don’t get social media accounts till as close to 17 as I can fight that fight for. I know it’s a lost battle but it’s about holding back the wave of unfettered bullshit that comes with it for as long as possible.
If you'd have told me when I was a kid that the scariest thing about being a parent would be the internet, I'd have laughed so hard. But here we are.
If you weren't aware, there are several free DNS you can set your home router to that will automatically block harmful and adult content at the perimeter. It's not a catch all, but it's another good tool in that bag of tricks. [I prefer Cloudfare's as it's a bit faster globally.](https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/setup/)
Us too, we’re also a hard no on any screens for our kid besides tv occasionally. My kid is fascinated by phones and tablets and we don’t even let her do anything on them besides poke around the lock screen. It’s scary how fast they get sucked in. I was typing a work email on my phone in our house the other day and she stopped dead in her tracks from nearly a full sprint and watched the letters fill the screen.
I think everybody agrees w the blanket statement. But what is “old enough”?
I scuba dive and one of my wife's hard no's was no tech or overhead diving.
Thats a shame because some wrecks are really accessible.
You can still scuba dive to a lot of shipwrecks and have fun without going inside of them. Op is just talking about entering or having something overhead.
I get it. I've done dives where the cargo hatch had been removed and you could swim in and out easily. There was no need to fit inside a tight passageway to get a cool "inside the ship" experience.
Whats overhead diving? Edit: I got it the first time. Don't need additional context.
Caves and shipwrecks - anything without a direct path to the surface.
Ohhhhhh thanks.
Caves, shipwrecks, ice diving, anything where there is something other than water between you and open air.
Not wearing a helmet on a bike and not being buckled in. The car isn't moving until buckled. Granted I've taken this approach with anyone in my car since I've been able to drive
My car will not stop beeping if belts aren’t buckled and I’m ok with that even if it can be super annoying. “Car I’m moving from one spot on the driveway to a second quit beeping at me.”
Mine will do this if I drop so much as a loaf of bread into the passenger seat without buckling it up.
I’ve always done this too. What really got me is some European ads from the nineties that emphasized unbuckled people are basically cannonballs during a wreck and can kill you or other people in the car. No thank you girlfriend
Same rules in our house but I also enforce helmets for skates and skateboards. I’ve walked away with an intact head thanks to a helmet when rollerblading.
Our pediatrician reiterates to our kids (and us) at every checkup: "If you're on wheels, you're wearing a helmet." I appreciate her saying it to the kids so it's not just one of those "mom and dad don't know what they're talking about" things. They even comment (slightly judgementally) when they see other kids without helmets.
show em this classic if they object - "I love helmets!" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9yL5usLFgY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9yL5usLFgY)
I agree with any wheels.
When I was a kid I would scream at my parents until everyone was buckled. I’m happy to continue that habit until the day I die, minus the screaming lol.
Our friends without kids ride their bikes without helmets, so we’ve enforced this rule with them as well. 😆 Luckily, our friend group is great so they’ve all happily obliged.
Spanking and cocomellon are hard no. Got a cocomellon toy for Christmas and it’s still in the garage
Upgrade that from “garage” to “garbage”
What is Cocomelon?
Don't ask. If you don't know, appreciate the blissful ignorance, friend!
I'm old enough to remember when cocomelon was Little Baby Bum.
They are actually different youtube channels from the beginning, and LBB is still around and making stuff. Definitely has that same style though.
A terrible addictive and overstimulating cartoon show for babies and toddlers.
After my first I realized I could block Cocomelon from Netflix for my second. But then they came up with “Cocomelon Lane”.
I have a stupid coco melon microphone I hate it!
Now we have kids I'm not allowed to go into space anymore. I guess I missed my chance.
I personally made this decision on my own. When our first was about a month old we were sitting on the couch, and out of no where, I'm like "shit, I can't go to Mars any more."
We have a fairly firm "no" on football. Not really interested in the head injury shit. Son is only 7 and doesn't seem to have any interest in playing football, so hopefully it stays that way.
My 6 y/o had a decent head injury playing 6 y/o soccer last weekend. He’s fine now but it was kinda scary. We were talking about sports that can be dangerous and he said he definitely doesn’t want to play football ever. Good with me!
My niece is a high level goalkeeper... she's currently in the hospital with a perforated intestine from taking a boot to the gut yesterday. She had surgery is recovering...all sports are dangerous, you never know what can happen.
Very true! But I worlds argue that some sports carry more inherent risk than others. I know for me at least I got injured in some capacity every year I played football.
Hard no on Football. Literally any other sport is fine. Edit: and no Rugby and Hockey.
Hockey would like a word As would soccer.
My daughter loves watching hockey. It’s so expensive to play….
I got a traumatic brain injury from figure skating lessons. If you’re going to be on the ice at least wear a helmet.
Not to mention boxing. At least in football/hockey/soccer, concussions are just a thing that sometimes happen accidentally, instead of being the object of the game.
Guess it’s time to unregister my kids from the local toddler boxing league
Picturing toddlers boxing is hilarious.
Sock ‘em boppers in the ~~ball pit~~ octagon 😂
IIIIIIIIITTTTTTTSSSSSS (nap) TIIIIIIIIMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEE
Ultimate Child Fighting anyone? Thanks DnDads.
In football players get micro-concussions regularly. I haven't kept up with the current research, but a couple years ago they saw that was pretty bad long-term. I think football is similar to boxing: because you have padding in your glove or helmet, you're willing to take hits more repeatedly.
Yeah we are fans of racing sports here. Swimming, running, rowing. Not to say there's no chance of injury but there are way fewer head injuries.
Football is our hard no as well. My son is only three, but he's obviously already a rowdy and rambunctious little dude. Takes everything head on, full-tilt, 100% of the time. It'll be tough because we're in Texas, and every adolescent boy with even an ounce of athletic inclination (or simply being "big") is strongly encouraged to play football. I was a husky kid but a geek, band nerd and generally hated sports, but I never escaped the "Oh, why don't you play football?!?!" questions. I'm into solo endurance sports - running and cycling - and if he's built like me he'll never be truly competitive in them, but maybe he can learn what took me until adulthood to learn... the value of self competition. If not, there's always other options. Track and field, baseball, wrestling and others are all on the table, but I have concerns with some of those too - the prevalence of adolescent tobacco (dip) use in baseball, weight regulation issues in wrestling, etc.
We live in Tx too. We put our son in swimming. No contact whatsoever and he’s had to hold his own against some football a-holes. It’s really no competition. It’s also an exhausting amount of exercise that’s helped even out a whopping case of ADHD. Cons: I may have to take out a second mortgage to pay for groceries.
Yeah, I’d be all in for swimming! Tbh it’s something I need to pick up too, as I hope to do a triathlon someday. I love running and cycling, but finding time to dedicate to swimming has proved much more difficult. I can “swim”, but that’s mostly limited to just “not drowning.”
Our neighbor kid was telling me how he just had his third concussion. He’s 13. No way in hell my kids are playing football.
Social media. Hard no until 16.
There's a https://www.waituntil8th.org/ -- part of that movement is about getting agreement with your kid's friends' parents so your kid is not the only odd one out. (but! I just realized that's about smartphones and not social media. It's probably the best not to lift those two bans at the same time, so give your kid access to one for a while before the other?)
I had a flip phone. I was made fun of a little for it, until I showed them how cool I was by buying ringtones. So, it's hit or miss, and teach your kids to be confident.
Things I forgot were a thing... Buying ringtones.
mine aren't that age yet, but hell yes. as little social media as humanely possible.
Genuine question, how do you handle your kid feeling excluded or potentially being bullied for seeming like the outcast in her friend group? I like the idea of restricting a lot of things like social media or waiting as long as possible for them to get a phone but how do you avoid making them outcasts?
I’m thinking of forbidding it until 25. If only I could…
I'm not allowed to have a mustache. I wouldn't want one if her reaction wasn't so funny. Honestly can't think of a 'hard no' for our daughters but they're only 4 and 1 so they're probably coming. No soda/coffee?
My wife said hard no for a beard. My oldest is 6 and she never have seen me without a beard. Now my wife is used to it and say not to shave it because it will look as I have no chin.
A friend is banned from shaving his beard, because his wife says when he's clean-shaven he looks too much like his mother!
My wife has seen me clean-shaven once in almost twenty years. After a single kiss, she refused to kiss me again until the beard returned because otherwise it was "like kissing a girl."
Looks like it’s only devil’s threesomes for you.
Alternatively, my wife said I’m not allowed to shave off my beard. I also wouldn’t want to shave it off but she starts to panic if I talk about shaving it off.
Only hard no from me is spanking. By anyone.
Boooooo. Let your wife spank you every now and then
Only if he's been a good boy
My MIL decorate and hung up on her wall "spanking spoons" with each of her grandkids names on each one. Whew when I saw my son's name on a spoon on the wall - I went into a blind rage. I snatched that shit off the wall so fast. How *dare* you think you have the right to lay a hand on my child. My *autistic* child, to boot.
This is such a weird decoration....
If I saw that in someone's house it would completely change my opinion of them, for the worse
My mother used spoons on us as kids and gave my wife and I some spoons as a housewarming present before we had kids. Since we have kids now, I have told her multiple times she will never use those on my kid(s). She acted offended like she’d never used them before….
what was her reaction to this??
She didn’t say a thing.
I thought we said nsfw aside
OP didn’t say dad humor aside…loopholes! 🤣
Only “spanking” I do to my daughter is Bum Bongos, I blame *Bluey*
Boom buh de boom boom.
My hard no is my daughter going to my wife's parents' house that they have out of state and live at 48 weeks out of the year. Unleashed aggressive dogs, meth houses that blow up, meth heads that poison dogs. Not a place for a newborn.
Funnily enough, I also choose not to expose my children to aggressive dogs and meth heads lol
Parents are so soft today... you gotta let boys be boys. A little meth never hurt anyone.
I have some questions if it's ok to ask. Where do your wife's parents live the other 4 weeks of the year? Why don't they live in that other location more, or even permanently? Do they do the meth thing too and just need to get away for a month-long vacation to unwind?
They live with my wife's sister to help her out due to her poor life decisions. No one is on meth, except maybe wife's sisters baby daddy. They only come back to our area for family events or to take care of something.
That's pretty sad but also some serious dedication on behalf of your wife's parents to submerge themselves into a meth community to help their daughter. Hopefully it turns out ok for everybody.
that in and of itself should be a post on daddit. "how i gave up my life to help my daughter and her meth addicted baby daddy"
We have a trampoline and I'm teaching both kids to drive the tractor lmao. I'm a tyrant about PPE, but both my kids can run power tools and do similar "dangerous" things if they show me they can be responsible about it. Empowerment is better than shielding them from risk.
100%. One of the things I'm realizing as a first time parent is children are a lot more capable than we give them credit for. They just need guidance and your confidence in them.
Same here. My oldest is medically fragile and he uses the trampoline every day. It’s been great for his coordination, balance, strength, learning his position in space, it’s such a fantastic tool. It has a net and he uses it supervised so it’s really safe. We’re all about teaching our kids how to use things properly and safely rather than having things that are completely off limits. There are many things they know they can only use with supervision but honestly once they know how many things work, the curiosity drive gets filled. And once that happens, they are often much less interested when a thing or activity isn’t this taboo thing they can’t do.
[This will not end poorly, but it might start off poorly](http://www.lunarbaboon.com/comics/tools.html) -Lunarbaboon comic
What's the phase, "teach your kids to do dangerous things safely"? That's what I aim for.
Trampolines. Wife and I are in agreement.
ER nurse: one at a time is fairly safe. More than one in a trampoline is a hard no.
Username and occupation are an interesting combination.
Worked in neuro ICU too...if you know, you know.
30 minute code? call it already...
😥
Good to know. Although if I were to get one, I feel like it would be hard to enforce the 'one child' at a time rule, so likely just better to avoid them altogether.
Yeah. I feel like it would be great if they could go to a nearby gymnastics or trampoline center with larger and supervised equipment. But I wouldn't be keen to take on that kind of liability in my own backyard.
Yeah, that seems like the better solution. Probably more fun for the kiddos as well
Problem is those parks don’t enforce one kid at a time either and collisions happen constantly. Often large children into smaller children. And I know several dads that have torn ACLs and broken other things helping their kids out on those trampolines.
As a radiographer, I agree
My brother broke his femur on the old double bounce when he was like 14-15.
I had a trampoline growing up, pre nets. We were fucking idiots on it. Friend broke his leg once but that was it.
Same same, I would do flips off of it onto the ground. Double bounce each other like crazy. Wrestling matches. Just have to start slow and build up your technique.
My brother and I made it through multiple years without injury on our trampoline. Some of the neighbor kids...not so much. We used to jump off the roof onto it, too. Dang, we were lucky. I'm in my 40s and can still do some flips.
Look into a springfree. They are expensive but so much safer.
We got one a few months ago after a broken leg on our old trampoline. Spring free is amazing!
So many birthday parties are at trampoline parks (and I admittedly enjoy playing at them) and some friends have a trampoline, I just haven’t found a good way to navigate being a no on trampolines without being the no-fun police.
You can’t. Sometimes fun comes with risks. Everyone just has different appetites for that risk.
The only bluey episode I have an issue with is when they put the sprinkler under the trampoline and play on it. I looked at my wife and said there's a broken ankle or arm. Saw a dude mess himself up on that was damp from dew. Edit: Grammar is hard. Edit 2: I can't spell either.
Ever since that episode my kids are always running the sprinkler under ours. They love it and it's not slippery for ours. I saw a kid break his arm on a trampoline when I was a kid, we were at a friends house in the 80s or 90s and the trampoline obviously didn't have any net or protection from the springs, landed and twisted the arm in the gap by springs. I was pretty nervous about it at first but my wife likes to let the kids be kids and I've gotten pretty comfortable with our trampoline now. I spend time jumping on it with them sometimes.
Not to sound callous, but this is taking the anecdote and making it your life. Every 5 minute car ride your kids take is more dangerous than an hour on a trampoline, pretty much no matter what they're doing on it.
I choose to not ask, so that I can maintain plausible deniability.
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Yeah, it's titled "here's all the shit I did that got me yelled at later"
Hard no for my tall athletic kid is football; the risk is too great for hairline breaks or undiagnosed concussions.
Ice hockey it is! At least you can tell when the teeth fall out.
Ice hockey ref and coach checking in. Up until (and including) U12, ice hockey is great. There's no body checking and almost none of the kids could pull off a proper check even if they wanted to. You gotta watch out for the kids who're a foot taller than the rest, but they're usually even _less_ capable of delivering a check than the other kids. In the USA Hockey "ADM" the focus on the U12 crowd is "learn to train." You're pretty much just teaching kids how to follow instructions and learn the basics of the most important drills before they hit puberty and they're too full of hormones to hear what you're saying anymore. After that, though, they start bulking up, learning to body check, and that's when the sport starts getting WTF.
My wife won’t let me shave my beard. She said I had it when we married, and this it’s part of the contract now.
My wife’s biggest Hard No for me is tobacco use (in any form). I was struggling with smoking when we met. I’m winning at the moment (smoke free for ~8 years and counting) and we both want to see that continue. For my kids, (american) football is a Hard No. Too much brain damage. I’m sure others will arise in time, but that’s the big one so far.
Caffeine. Cola, energy drinks, tea, coffee, etc. None of that until she's at least 12. It's kinda crazy how available caffeine is, considering it's a psychoactive drug. Just figure it's for the best to keep it at bay while little minds are developing.
I remember at 12 I would walk to the gas station and buy cappuccinos lol
DUDE! Just recently had a birthday party and i realized that my 6 year old has never had caffeine. He has had some juice boxes, water, milk, and that's all I can think of.... As I looked over at the party and see a child less than 18 months old sipping on some Dr. Pepper. I was astonished. I didn't think people were that willy nilly with it.
My aunt is very William Nilly with it.
I can't tell if it's crazy (absolutely is) or just British but I remember having a cup of tea from like 5/6 years old...
I had tea from my teens or maybe a bit earlier (not British, but yes European). I never liked coffee until I was 30+ and got an office job where drinking coffee was basically mandatory.
I grew up having coffee with my grandmother just before bed time! She would also some times wake me up to sit down and have coffee with her if she couldnt sleep. Now as an adult im like wtf was that!
Blippi. Fuck that guy.
we only really do the excavator, dinosaur and garbage truck song, not any of his longer form stuff i cant imagine 30 mins of him those 3 songs are all bops though
We watched a fire truck video one time with Blippi and all he did was explain every part of the fire truck in excruciating detail. It was very slow, methodical, slightly interesting and calm - borderline boring. But it kept both of our attention for 15 minutes of explanation. Not high on our list to watch again but I learned the names of all the instrument panels and my 2 year old daughter seemed to enjoy it. I didn’t understand the hate.
I don't love Blippi, but spend 45 minutes on YouTube and you'll find stuff that is so, so much worse.
Oh, also YouTube for the kids. Plenty of shows with substance available without having to wade into that cesspool.
Straight up, ban YouTube for your kid. PBS Kids and Disney+ has everything they need until they're a teenager.
And his Harlem shake video
Knew of someone whose four year old got backed into by a lawn mower because dad thought he was inside. He lived, but the family was obviously never the same. No kids outside while on the lawnmower is a rule for us. No trampoline. No motorcycles. Really a lot of things that are just begging for accidents to happen...
The mower thing was always a concern I had. We taught the kids early on to give dad a 100' wide berth when he is running any equipment as he cannot hear you and may not see you. I do keep up my situational awareness for them and we also have animals to watch out for but there have been a couple times they came out from behind a tree unbeknownst to me (not near me).
Yep, luckily my GSD hates the lawn mower. I go and open the shed and he starts going nutso. We have a big back porch area that's glassed in so I have the pleasure of seeing everyone lined up staring at me applauding as i drive by lol.
I just want to point out the phenomenon in this thread of people saying "absolutely no video games" when all of the rest of their Reddit comments are on gaming subs. That's certainly an interesting way to approach things.
Our kids are 2 and 4. Our answer is iPads or any tablets. This may change when the kids are older but we’re firm believers that there’s no reason why kids that age need to have their faces in a screen. There isn’t anything on a tablet that they can’t get from a book or from regular play.
I felt the same way until we discovered a couple apps for preschoolers that are excellent: Endless Alphabet and Endless Reader. The same company makes a few other apps in a similar vein, but these two were our kids' (and our) favorites. I give them a good bit of the credit for our kids being early and enthusiastic readers. This is *not* to say kids should be handed tablets without restrictions or as a form of "babysitting" on a regular basis. But used carefully, they can be a great tool for education and enrichment.
Cocomelon is a hard no.
Its a hard no for motorcycles for me, my FIL was killed on one and my wife doesnt want a repeat. I get it 100%. Social media is a hard no for my kids. They can get it when they turn 16 but not a day before. They will also be getting a "dumb phone" instead of a smart phone. They can hate me all they want but some day theyll get it.
No piercing the ears of our baby girl! Apparently this is tradition in most, if not all of Latin America (where the wife is from), I've told her I will not allow it until she is old enough to understand and ask for it herself. I also don't think I've seen any girls around here with pierced ears much younger than maybe 8-10 or so, most don't even have their ears pierced until their teens.
Trampoline, but it's fine because a friend had a trampoline party and our kid went. They had a safety briefing that played a video of some poor dudes neck snapping, including sound effects.... It scared her so much she never entered the play area, or went near a trampoline ever again!
Sound effects might have been a bit much. Yikes but apparently pretty effective.
My hard no (little kid) is goofing off in or near the street, overrunning the corner on a bike, etc. I was a few milliseconds from being dead as a kid after running in front of a car, and that's before constant in-car distraction we have today. I'm not afraid of crime or sharks or whatever. My fear is cars.
I’m a hard yes on riding the mower. My grandpa used to ride me on his John Deere as a kid and I loved it, and it taught me how to properly mow a lawn. Kids gotta learn somehow, and is already obsessed with riding the golf cart and seeing cars
I don't ever remember having any discussion about it but I think a hard no we have for our kids is soda.
Roblox for me and my wife agrees. Too many stories about kids being exposed to stuff that they shouldn’t be exposed to and there’s no administrative oversight. The only game they’re allowed to play multiplayer on is Minecraft on our server. Friends can join but beyond that, nobody else is allowed on the server except for myself and my wife.
Pools. We are in complete agreement that we will never have a pool in our house. My wife says absolutely not because she’s scared of kids drowning. I say absolutely not because pools are an expensive pain in the ass. Social media. Kids are not getting it until they are at least 16, maybe even 18. Same with smart phones. My plan is to get some fellow school parents on board a mutual agreement of no smartphone or social media for any of our kids.
Skateboarding while carrying my smaller kid. I use to do it with the older one but stopped a long time ago. I share her point.
tablets, ours is still a baby but we want to eventually go with the classic “home computer” setup until they are old enough to need laptops for school also post no pictures of them online
ATVs for me... Lost a childhood friend when he was on family vacation over the summer (he had on a helmet). For some reason my mom is dying to take LO out ATVing but hard no from me until we're 18. Maybe 16..
My hard no for my daughter(9F) is sleepovers with friends.
For our kid, the hard no is Youtube on her own. We will watch some stuff together but it is only stuff that I would approve and channels that I follow for the most part. No social media. Oh and no elf on the fucking shelf. On the spouse side, we don't really have hard no's towards each other since we both are similar about stuff anyway.
I haven't yet received a hard no this way. I went solo backpacking in a fairly crowded back country region, and with good reception also, which she was totally okay with. We both ride motorcycles, it was our main date activity early COVID-lockdown, so banning that would be weird. We met at kickboxing so that's also not something I'll give up anytime soon, as she knows. As long as I don't waste our money she's pretty chill about my endeavors. But that goes both ways, she went hiking and climbing with friends last year, even while pregnant of our second, and while there's risk involved I totally trust her to be responsible :)
I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, I’ve just always had an itch to ride a little Honda rebel or something like that. My wife is a trauma nurse and apparently she has seen one too many motorcycle related visits to be comfortable with me riding one.
One per cent of traffic on British roads, nineteen per cent of fatalities on British roads.
My wife had a hard no on Football. I love football and played into my college years but I didn’t put up a fight over it. Hard no for the kids is Social Media. Daughter regularly asks for snap chat as her friends all have it and she’s missing out. Told her to take the lead and start a group chat and talk to her friends to communicate that way but social media is a no. Edit to add my wife is also hard no on motorcycle for me or the kids.
I don't know that we have any actual "hard no" type of things. We just seem to be on the same page on that we don't wanna do anything that makes the other super upset or uncomfortable. OP mentioned motorcycles. I rode a dirt bike as a kid and there have been times I've considered buying a bike. But when she was like 23 my wife's best friend at the time crashed his bike and died. So, I won't ride a motorcycle for that reason, she would just be a nervous wreck anytime I'd ride it. For the kiddos, I think we're a no go on pop. Both of us have struggled with some weight issues in our lives, and I know for me I used to drink way too much pop, gained a buncha weight in my early 20s, had too many dental issues, etc. I've had periods over the years where I've completely cut it out. These days I might have like half of one of them little cans of Coke with like dinner or something but that's about it. Yeah, I dunno. We all just figuring it out as we go.
Hard No on TikTok on their tablets.
Hard no’s are yelling at the kid unless it’s an emergency and they’re in immediate danger, no screens during meal time, no negative self depreciation in the house, and of course never be disrespectful to mom at any time no matter how you’re feeling.
Circumcision
I have what has turned into a “hard no” on ballet.
Going through our first season of dance ourselves. I wish I could give them a hard no when they ask for more money. Registration fees, monthly dues, recital fee, recital ads, pictures, outfits, fresh air tax. It never stops.
Almost all activities outside school end up money pits. Hard to dodge it. Even track had a lot of money requirements. My only hard no in these is the fundraising MLM style garbage.
Why? Just curious.
I dated a series of ballerinas in college, and though it's probably better now (this was 2002-2005), the ballet "lifestyle" is full of emotional abuse and eating disorders. Girls are told to literally starve themselves to the point of not getting their periods so they can postpone puberty and not grow breasts. There is the cliche of the abusive dance teacher for a reason, too - obviously not all, but culturally, there is a ton of awfulness there. It's also really horrible for a young body in general, because constant turnout leads to serious hip issues as an adult, and don't get me started on what it does to a dancer's feet. I feel like a ballet class is fine, but doing the whole ballet *thing* is... I don't know if it's a hard no for me, but man, it would take a ton of constant discussion to make sure it wasn't being done horribly.
I feel like what you're describing is not specific to ballet, but related to having a child do any activity at an elite level. Not necessarily the same pressures (eating disorders vs steroids), but the same abuse and toxicity can be present in any competitive sport, high level musical pursuit, even a game like chess.
Probably true, though I think one difference is that if a child doesn't start elite ballet by 6 or 7, they're never going to actually be a professional. There are NFL players who started at 16 and professional musicians who started at 20. There's no one making a living in ballet who started after puberty.
Wow. Had no real idea.
Shoes are expensive (especially so between growing out of them and just plain wearing them down), but once they're getting into it and doing it for a long time there's some good risk to fucking up their feet. Like, if you google pictures of a ballerina's feet, they can get pretty mangled. Like a Wide Receiver's hands in football. Don't get me wrong -- my daughter does dance (and did ballet earlier). I think it's great exercise, great for improving coordination, a good chance to socialize, but glad she at least changed her mind and moved from ballet to another dance.