Apple recently launched a new family page designed to help parents and families control their digital lives.  Apple has recently faced pressure from share holders about the addictiveness of Apple’s products to children.(Link).

Apple’s Families page showcases tools that are supposed to help families “feel good” about what their children are doing. So “Learn how to turn on Ask to Buy”.

It would be wise not to let this create a false sense of security.  For example, limiting adult content in Safari will not stop a young tween from watching hours of semi inappropriate YouTube videos.

We should also remember the obvious.  That technology plays a big role in everyone’s day to day life.  Our children need to learn desired technical skills such as software engineering (thanks SWIFT).  And sometimes building a program is going to take hours, or if working on a bigger project weeks/months.  We need to take these items into consideration in our parental decision making processes.

Children also use technology in the classroom (Promethean Boards / Google Classroom).  It’s important to to be able to see the forest through the trees.   We should also remember this is not a set it and forget.  For example you might want to restrict Safari use for a young child but when he/she becomes a teenager and have legitimate needs (ie research) then we need to be able to adapt.