Comment by topkai22

Mine aren’t teenagers yet, so we aren’t quite at the danger zone. So far we’ve been focused on letting them use devices in a controlled manner.

I’ve set up various network level controls via Pi-hole and opendns family shorties (obviously this is mostly dns based). YouTube and all the search engines are set to in strict mode.

The devices we have also have various restrictions on them. Kindle kids edition has been great- lots of options for games and videos but limited ability to get into stuff they shouldn’t. We also have iPads now, with the suite of family controls applied.

Our lives are complex enough that our kids have Apple Watches now, again with parent controls in place. It’s a good compromise- they can chat with thier friends in sms, but not the stuff that pushes content on you.

It’s not perfect, but we plan on not getting smart phones or allowing normal social media until like age 18