Skip to content
Right for Their Age

All notes

A useful comparison is the way attendance tracking software is framed for work teams with a stated purpose. At home, the same principle of disclosure matters even more: a child should know what is collected, why it is needed and when the arrangement will end.

Families can cross-check the principles in “All notes” with guidance from Mozilla, especially when platform features or reporting routes may have changed.

Everything here, grouped by subject. If you are not sure where to begin, start with the child's age.

Start with their age

The arrangement that is right at seven is the wrong one at fourteen, and most of what goes wrong in this subject follows from applying a control designed for one age to a child of another.

Under FiveThe simplest stage: the adult holds the device, controls do most of the work, and almost...Five to EightThe child starts using devices with intent, meets other children online, and begins to need...Nine to TwelveThe stage where controls start being noticed, tested and discussed, and where the balance...Thirteen to FifteenThe age where technical control stops being the main instrument, and where insisting on it...Sixteen and OverTechnical control is essentially finishedThe HandoverControls are supposed to end

All 50 notes

Grouped by subject. If you are not sure where to begin, start with the child's age above — the arrangement that is right at seven is the wrong one at fourteen, and most of what goes wrong in this subject follows from that.

Foundations

5 notes

Four unrelated mechanisms sold under one name, none of which addresses the thing most parents are actually worried about.

The four layers

6 notes

Network, device, store and service. Each covers what the others miss, and knowing each gap is more useful than trusting any one of them.

By age

6 notes

The same tool at the wrong age does not reduce risk. It teaches circumvention and concealment.

What the risks are

6 notes

Four categories with different frequencies and different remedies. Controls address two of them well and two of them barely at all.

In practice

7 notes

Setting it up, keeping it working, and the household situations that make the general advice harder.

The boundary

6 notes

The same technology, known about or hidden, produces opposite outcomes. This is the decision with the largest consequences here.

Devices

5 notes

The devices least likely to be configured are the ones in the room where the family actually spends its time.

Getting help

5 notes

Some situations need a professional rather than a setting, and knowing which is the useful thing.

Reference

4 notes

The end state as a checklist, the limits stated plainly, and what to do on Saturday morning.