11/m

I couldn't ask for a better son as he has been on the Straight A or A/B honor roll from Kindergarten to present day with very little help from us or supervision. He is also pretty active with soccer at age 5 and baseball from 7+ (heck of a player and currently is playing in two leagues as his choice) as well as joining us for bike rides/hikes once in while.

Me, I went through the typical route of Atari 2600, Commodore, Intellivision, Nintendo. Got my first IBM PC at around age 12 and spent countless hours on all those without parents ever limiting me whatsoever (well did get my IBM taken away for two weeks when I racked up a $200 phone bill with my first modem - not knowing it was by the minute back then). Sure I wasted a lot of time on those with games but I also had a huge interest in how they worked by taking them apart, learning DOS, BBS's, hacking/phreaking etc etc. Made me who I am and my career in IT. We didn't have the filth/addiction stuff like Tik-tok, Instagram, blah.

Anyway, From 1st to end of 5th grade he has had an xBox and iPad, and any restrictions to either have been on an as-needed basis - which we have had to do very little over the years (few cases of 1-2 day grounding from devices, etc). During this time he was all about Fortnite/Minecraft/Roblox with friends (sometimes a whole Saturday spent on the headset with friends) and Youtube.

When he started 6th grade recently (Middle school here) we got him his own iphone, which he has asked for a year prior. More to be able to call/text him as Discord was getting tiring and he was staying home alone more often. The pressure put on by all the other parents having given their kids phones by now (Some of his friends have had phones since 2 years ago at age 9) also mounted so we didn't want him to feel left out socially at middle school. Plus he got his own gaming PC to leave the limits of console gaming as well as for his remote learning all during covid.

With the phone and his older social circle the inevitable has started to happen - Social Media (youtube channel), short videos junk Tik-Tok, hits/likes etc. I hate this part personally as I have none of it myself so I've put in screen-time on his phone to limit Tik-Tok to an hour a day and his phone games to 2hrs. Plus phone is disabledfrom 10:30p to 8:30a. He hates the restriction and I'm having to extend it a few hours a week or he just goes on his PC/Ipad to "extend" his time himself. I really don't want to spend all the time locking all these down as I feel it is futile anyway. Youtube is impossible to block without blocking his Google Apps for remote learning. I can block the tik-tok app on his phone but he just then goes in the browser or his PC browser. On and on. I don't have the time NOR the need/desire to go full network guardian mode on him, knowing he will just out-flank me anyway somehow when he learns of VPN's or that our neighbor has an open wifi (need to talk to them about that). I'm sure he knows about porn from friends but I have seen zero evidence on his devices for now, but realize that will be next in few years. Ugh.

I just wish I could get him to be more like I was at that age and tinker/learn more rather than just consume like the majority of other kids. I'd spend a weekend trying to get my BBS setup or newest DOS installed he doesn't have similar interest. I tried to get him to build a PC with me for work and he just watched for 10 minutes and made bathroom excuse never to come back. The videos him and friends watch is just complete mindless junk and idiots doing stupid memes and stuff. Nothing creative or constructive. It is a very hard thing to get them away from once drawn in.