If you are buying an Android tablet for your little ones this holiday season, set them up with their own Google account instead of using one of yours, to be able to have better control.

Hey, I'm another anti censorship person and I'd like to suggest an alternative to this - teaching children to be more discerning.

See what content your kids enjoy, and if it encourages immoral behaviour, explain to them why those things are wrong. I think it's a skill that will come in useful when growing up and later in life.

I grew up in a house with sysadmins and security specialists and knew many other IT people, so I was taught about online security, scams, viruses, firewalls, etc. at a very young age (7ish cause that's when the internet became widely available). I also knew that my entire online history was being tracked and recorded, and my family could check it at any time. I wasn't happy about it, but it prepared me for the real world. I even got a wireless Internet dongle that didn't go through the family router when I was a teenager, but that was a whole other story.

In hindsight, I am so very thankful for no internet restrictions when I know my family could have easily blocked all sorts of domains and micromanaged my internet access. It's one of the (several) things in my upbringing that was done right and made me a much better person.

tldr: instead of blocking content, see what your kids do on the internet and have open communication about it. The internet and the world is a much scarier place if you aren't given the tools to deal with the dodgy shit, and your kids will find access unrestricted internet elsewhere.

/r/lifehacks Thread Parent