How This Mom Balanced Parental Controls, and Freedom—and Raised Independent Kids

Today’s newsletter is about older kids. My friend AJ is a mom to three kids ages 17, 18, and 20. I asked her about her experiences and the advice she’d give to newer parents. Confidence and calm seem to define her approach and I can’t tell if that’s the benefit of hindsight with kids who are doing well or if her and her husband have always been this collected (AJ humbly says it’s probably a little bit of both). 

Answers in these conversations often benefit from the wisdom of experience and are less like the messy, in-the-moment debates over screens and communication that many of us are used to. It’s probably a lesson for all of us to consider: just the act of thinking about technology and trying to be intentional might improve how it all turns out.

After this discussion, I’m more convinced that guiding kids to use screens as a tool to learn and build real world skills is a winning strategy.

Overall, AJ seems to have found a balance. She’s put controls in place, set boundaries and expectations, but hasn’t micromanaged or stressed over every detail. She also says that getting on the same page with your partner regarding tech parameters is essential to making sure you both feel respected and heard. 

For this newsletter, I’m trying out a more Q&A-style format with much lighter editing. Let me know what you think!

What’s the most interesting thing your kids do with tech?

My youngest is basically a professional nail tech. She’s watched countless videos on how to do nails and now does her own and saves herself hundreds of dollars each month. She also does nails for her friends and makes money.

My son (middle child) loves to fish and has learned all kinds of skills by watching videos. I love it when he comes back from a day of fishing to tell me about how he’s taught younger kids how to fish or learned something from older people fishing at the pier. It always makes me laugh whenever I realize that the guy named Dave or Greg he’s referring to is actually somebody’s grandpa. 

Meanwhile, my oldest is completely done with technology. She resents the fact that everything has to be completed on some type of screen. She hates spending time looking at her phone at a computer and would much rather be making something. She’s ready to delete all of her social channels because she finds it all crazy and a waste of time but since she’s in her last year of school, she can’t get away from technology. Nobody can really.

I must say, though, that she watched a lot of videos on how to create different types of art when she was younger and now studies fine art in London.

All three of them have learned how to use technology to help them get better at some type of analog skill.

When did they get phones and what kind of parental controls did you put on?

My oldest didn’t get her phone until she was in the sixth grade, and it was because her schedule changed wildly. We had to be able to get a hold of her once she entered middle school. She didn’t ride the bus and after-school pick up was crazy. To be honest, public education has forced us to be dependent on tech more times than I can count.

We definitely put controls on their phones when they were little to make sure that they were going to bed on time and had some time to wind down before needing to be asleep but we started to lift those as they got older.

By the time they turned 14 or 15, I made the controls quite lax compared to their peers. But they were always really good about self-management. My two oldest kids had jobs by that time. They were 14 and 15. 

Honestly, if we didn’t do a good job talking about things like morality, ethics, and kindness before giving them tech, they would have no compass to make their own decisions. 

Tech controls eventually disappear. Two of my three kids are over 18 and it feels like it happened so quickly. They don’t have controls and that was always my goal. They are adults who have to apply the lessons we imparted over the years in an infinite number of scenarios.

There are times when I feel like they spend too much time on their phone, but I think this is true for me too. 

I also believe that people get tired of stuff and sometimes you have to go overboard to know where your limits are. Kind of like how overindulging through the holidays makes you want to go on a cleanse come January 1st. I have seen my kids spend a lot of time with technology on vacations and then want to throw it away after a period of time because they can’t stand being on their screens anymore.

We didn’t raise “iPad kids” and none of our kids had phones before the sixth grade. I think that helped a lot because they understand what life is like without technology and how much fun it can be! 

When I see kids at the grocery store sitting in grocery cart watching cartoons on their parents phones I get frustrated at the parents. It may seem judgey - and we might need breaks as parents - but having time like that with your kids is an opportunity to help them understand how to thrive as adults.

I sent my kids off on missions in the grocery store to bring back groceries before they even hit the fifth grade. Not shopping with your kids is such a missed opportunity to talk about life skills like money and cooking.

My central point is that you shouldn’t let technology take the place of good parenting and I think a lot of parents fall into that trap because they are overwhelmed and they think that because something is animated that it’s OK. 

The best tech controls are no tech at all for as long as possible, in my opinion.

One last thing. I feel like if you don’t work hard to help your kids develop their likes and dislikes in the form of extracurricular activities, volunteering, or exploring some sort of passion - then they are more prone to be focused on technology.

Social platforms in particular can put people in the position of being a spectator instead of a creator. That’s dangerous.

What did you use to put parental controls on and what did you give/not give access to?

We put parental controls on time limits and app downloads. If the kids wanted an app, we wanted to discuss with them why they wanted it and if they really needed it.

Time controls allowed them to limit how much time they were spending on the device and when they were on the device.

We used Apple controls. No other fancy apps.

AJ proactively brought up surveillance, specifically Life 360, an app for tracking family members. The app tries to simplify the chaotic schedules and responsibilities many of us face. It’s central promises are to help you manage “entangled schedules, busy kids, driving teens, aging parents, the works. It’s time to coordinate all that with Life360’s advanced driving and location safety features. Family-proof your entire family against their own chaos — all in one app.” AJ said:

Also, I don’t know if this is related, but I never used Life360. I’m not a helicopter parent. I’ve seen too many teenagers who have Life360 on their phones, and they totally resent their parents because the conversation seemed to start from a place of monitoring versus safety.

Our kids share their locations with us via contacts in their iPhones, and they’ve never had a problem doing it.

My husband and I share our locations as well. Our message to our kids has always been, “We shouldn’t have to check your location. If we have to check, it’s because you didn’t communicate well enough with us or because we couldn’t get a hold of you when we needed to.”

My kids know that it pisses me off if I have to check their location. My parents never monitored me and they didn’t have to. I feel the same way about my kids' responsibility to me.

I sent a post about Life360 to AJ and asked her opinion about it:

Yes, I’ve had parents call me and ask if I know where their kid is because they last heard that they were with my kids only for them both to be in one of my kids’ rooms laughing and playing video games or watching a movie.

The same kids use turning off their location (if they can) or leaving their phone behind as a way to spite their parents for infringing on their privacy.

Those types of parents were never friends with me for long because I would always just say, “The kids told me they were going to XYZ place. That’s where I left them and that’s where I expect them to be.” These parents have bought into the idea that stopping their kids from making mistakes is the best way to keep them safe. It reminds me of the movie Minority Report where the police use precognition to foresee crimes and stop them before they happen.

I think the expectations for being perfect and never making mistakes and never being able to have secrets is very damaging to young people.  Spending time being curious about the child you created is the best way to win their trust so they tell you things, not hide things. They want your respect and trust much earlier than you think.