I'm mid 40s, my kids are now 8/10.

I feel there should be a class or something on managing accounts for kids.. what should they be signed up for on their own, what should they be using parent credentials for, what 'family' capabilities do different things have, how do you do this and that. I'm kinda lost.

My kids have a school gmail, but no personal email (yet). I recently got a pc for my 10 year old.. I install windows and it wants credentials for microsoft office 365 and who knows what else at this point. So now my 10 year olds computer has my name on the log in screen.

I tried to put on some sort of 'safe mode' for MS edge, and it says do it in family settings. Under family settings, you can add a kid, but it needs an email or phone number to invite the kid?!?

So I download firefox (my browser of choice); to put safe search on it, it ties into google, and I immediately got lost and gave up.

I figured out to finally get their own child account on their ipads, instead of just signing in as me.

So many other things.

How do parents of young kinds on texags manage it all? Is it best to maybe create a new email for them now (even though they may not be using it) so I can use it to sign up for their stuff (minecraft accounts, roblox, etc etc)

I also signed them up for a united frequent flyer account.. didn't even need an email, which is great, but at some point, how do they even access it???

Medical records.. oh boy. We have 'mychart'. When I log in, it thinks I'm my son. Can't even figure out to get the other child on there.

Talk amongst yourselves, just kinda of thinking out loud here.

...ability. You should teach them accountability.
...able. You are accountable for the results of your defective prophylactics.

Set up google and outlook accounts. Claim their names and several aliases. Make them part of your family group on each. Set restrictions, get activity reports, etc. Same with Apple when the time comes. Identify their devices on your network, group them together, and set restrictions. Set on/off times for WiFi access, and just turn it off if they **** up.

No social media, and make sure they understand why.

I also randomly search devices if I suspect something is off. Never have found anything, but like to make sure they aren't watching porn, getting bullied, etc.

Kids get a flip phone that can call or text only. No camera, no photos, no data, no problems.
PC can be used at home in a common area where the screen is visible to everyone.
Smart phone after freshman year of HS if they keep good grades and earn your trust.

"I figured out to finally get their own child account on their ipads, instead of just signing in as me."

This took me a minute to realize as well; I like it because they cannot add any apps, delete any apps, make any purchases, etc. without my approval.

p1 Claire said:

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"I figured out to finally get their own child account on their ipads, instead of just signing in as me."

This took me a minute to realize as well; I like it because they cannot add any apps, delete any apps, make any purchases, etc. without my approval.

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That's a big one that parents miss.

You might have an app, you dont want kids to have...but they can download it from your account, if it's already been downloaded by someone else.

Restrict them from deleting apps without permission. Otherwise, they'll download apps they're not supposed to have, and delete them in between use so you dont find out (or before you've set up parental restrictions)

AggieArchitect04 said:

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I miss the days when you had to go over to a friend's house and sneak out a playboy his dad had.

Life was simpler then.

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We found our porn in the woods.

62strat said:

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My kids have a school gmail, but no personal email (yet). I recently got a pc for my 10 year old.. I install windows and it wants credentials for microsoft office 365 and who knows what else at this point. So now my 10 year olds computer has my name on the log in screen.

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Not really the question you are asking, but you can switch to signing in with a local account and remove your microsoft account, then your name won't show up on the lock screen. Really annoying that you can't set up windows from the beginning with a local account.

That's all kind of irrelevant if you want to implement parental controls though. Your kid will need their own email address to set up Microsoft Family Safety. No reason not to just set up their own email accounts now.

AggieArchitect04 said:

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I miss the days when you had to go over to a friend's house and sneak out a playboy his dad had.

Life was simpler then.

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Back in my day, we had to look at the underwear section of the Sears catalog. But these days, with the internet, you can just go to sears.com

Hi p1

agnerd said:

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Kids get a flip phone that can call or text only. No camera, no photos, no data, no problems.
PC can be used at home in a common area where the screen is visible to everyone.
Smart phone after freshman year of HS if they keep good grades and earn your trust.

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That is exactly what I did. No phone until high school. Flip phone in freshman year. Then iPhone. Only kids in school. I explained to them it wasn't a punishment, it was daddy protecting them.
Besides, I don't give 2 sheets about being judged by other parents.

GAC06 said:

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AggieArchitect04 said:

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I miss the days when you had to go over to a friend's house and sneak out a playboy his dad had.

Life was simpler then.

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Back in my day, we had to look at the underwear section of the Sears catalog. But these days, with the internet, you can just go to sears.com

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We had a 1976 Sears catalog which was at home until the 80s. I mainly would look at all the awesome toys they had in stock but I would also look at some pretty women in negligee in that one. Good times for a barely teen boy.

infinity ag said:

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agnerd said:

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Kids get a flip phone that can call or text only. No camera, no photos, no data, no problems.
PC can be used at home in a common area where the screen is visible to everyone.
Smart phone after freshman year of HS if they keep good grades and earn your trust.

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That is exactly what I did. No phone until high school. Flip phone in freshman year. Then iPhone. Only kids in school. I explained to them it wasn't a punishment, it was daddy protecting them.
Besides, I don't give 2 sheets about being judged by other parents.

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our kids have a phone watch that we control. They aren't getting a phone until they can drive, even then it might be a dumb phone. I feel like it's a trend brewing to scale that back for kids, especially with all the talk of schools starting to enforce no phone policies in the classroom.