On my home network, I run a transparent, MITM squid proxy with a whitelist for my 8 year old son. My intention is to gradually loosen the restriction as he gets older, in stages: first switch it to a blacklist, then lift all restrictions but continue to log, then remove the proxy altogether and allow him free, unmonitored internet access. I will change it at whatever times seem appropriate - I'm new to this, ofc, and I don't know when it will be.

I have no intention of letting him have a mobile device any time soon, but if and when I feel it's appropriate/necessary, I have the option of giving him a "managed" device (i.e. like a corporate device) with always-on wireguard to my home network, routing traffic through the same proxy. I haven't tried setting up a device like this yet, but the necessary capabilities appear to be present in both iOS and Android. This will also allow me to control which apps can be installed on the device.

I am of course entirely open with him about this, including the technical aspects of how it works, and frequently discuss all of the many issues involved. My goal is not to hide reality from him or to instill some unreasonable fear of what's out there - quite the opposite. It's to try and help him arrive at a healthy relationship with the internet as an adult, something that most adults I know (including me) have so far failed to establish.

And yes, of course it's possible to circumvent all of this stuff (although quite a lot harder with what I have than with the vast majority of parental control solutions). And yes, I can only control the technologies he has access to that I manage. But you have to consider the "threat model" here. He doesn't rail against this restriction. He understands it. If he wants access to something he asks for it. If I say no, I explain why, and he accepts it. We'll see how that develops over time, but it's certainly not the case that "It's technically possible to circumvent it, ergo there's no point doing it".

There's a strangely defeatist attitude I see about this, often voiced alongside a false dichotomy: that what we need to do is teach our children responsibility instead of using technology to protect them. As I see it, both are needed - and the latter, while difficult, is possible. Unfortunately it currently requires skills that are far from universal. It would be much easier if people took the need for it seriously and developed better technologies for it.

There are people on this post saying about dubious content on Tik Tok that you "only see it if you like it". That's not good enough. Internet technologies lead you on in subtle ways. As an example, my son is massively into Lego. When he was 6 he discovered Lego videos on youtube and started watching them on our smart TV. After a while I realised that all of the models he was making were weapons, mostly guns. It reached a particularly bizarre moment when he handed me an (awesome, obviously!) lego butterfly knife he had made. I checked the videos he'd been watching and all of them were Lego weapon tutorials. Now, my reaction here isn't "omg weapons how horrible!". Not at all. It is, however, to note that through youtube's algorithms a general interest in Lego became laser-focussed on one, perhaps slightly dubious, genre of models.

Among other things, I want my son to understand this kind of subtle shaping/guiding influence that technology can have on its users, and until I feel he has developed sufficient awareness I want to be in a position to know and to intervene if I think he's being led by it in directions I don't approve of. At this stage in his life, I feel that is my responsibility and it would be wrong of me not to at least attempt to live up to it.