Title: Or, more generally, how to give children freedom and privacy, yet also be there to help them understand the lessons the world is about to teach them?<p>I have this preconceived notion that I don&#x27;t want to violate my children&#x27;s privacy. It&#x27;s very tempting, of course, to passively monitor e.g. their spending or online habits, but I don&#x27;t want to.<p>(As a concrete example, I know a some people get very detailed reports from the daycare about what their children have been up to. I&#x27;m not interested in that -- when I want to know what the daycare experience is like, I personally spend a day at the daycare.<p>This gives me much more nuance than a report ever would, but it also feels more respectful toward my child that they&#x27;re allowed a part of their life outside of my supervision. But the reason I can do that is because there are other helpful adults at the daycare. That won&#x27;t be the case everywhere, unfortunately.)<p>So I want them to have privacy, but I would also want to pick up on problems early -- either their own bad behaviour, or if they&#x27;re victim&#x27;s of someone else&#x27;s bad behaviour.<p>Some more concrete questions in the same vein:<p>- What fraction of their online time should I sit with them?<p>- Do I play all video games with them or should they have some of &quot;their own&quot;?<p>- Do I give them the ability to do online purchases?<p>- Do I allow them to use up all of their money even as a mistake, or do I set up a limit?<p>- Do I limit their &quot;screen time&quot; (hate that term) or will that prevent them from interacting with their friends in the way they would want to?<p>This depends on maturity levels, of course, but I&#x27;m looking for generalisations. My children are 2 and 0.2 years old now, so this won&#x27;t be relevant in a while but I like to be prepared and if you have thoughts regarding any maturity level, please share.<p>The reason I ask you HN folks is (a) that you are likely to understand my concern for privacy and personal integrity, and (b) that I&#x27;ve received very useful and thought-out child-related advice here before.<p>----<p>I&#x27;m also skipping a bunch of privilege-related questions like &quot;who the hell can take a day off to spend it at the daycare?&quot; Or, perhaps more importantly, &quot;what determines how much time you spend online with your children may not be what&#x27;s appropriate, but how much time you can spare for it?&quot;<p>And yeah, both of those are problems for myself as well -- I&#x27;m interested in all creative solutions here, also that help work around such problems.
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