I thought so too. I hoped I'd never have to be this way. It's not just stolen money from a bank account or a hacked Instagram. It could be life or death.
What does this mean? Isn't it better to teach them how to be safe so when they grow up they will be safe? Instead of teaching them nothing but to not trust you?
Once your monitoring no longer exists on their devices, what do you think they'd do?
So say you have a 13 year old daughter. She's naive, horny as all hell, on discord surrounded by a bunch of boys and probably plenty of grown men asking her to send nudes, which is the same as asking her to produce child pornography for their enjoyment. And she will, absolutely, 100% send nudes before she turns 18, to somebody.
Now imagine she is asked to meet up.
Sure, teach them. Explain your rules. Make things clear. But there are real people on the internet. Nice people and dangerous people. Just like the real world. You don't let them run around going to brothels and bars before they're adults, the same applies to the internet. Once they're adults the monitoring stops, of course, just like the real world.
I absolutely agree that teaching them is important. But, 13 or 15 year old kids get taught stuff all the time that they completely ignore. Humans in general are bad at understanding possible risks when faced with what seems like easy short term success. Kids are an order of magnitude or two less capable of doing that.
This is a resetting for us and not a permanent state. Teaching often means letting someone fail, correcting that behavior, and then trying again. Teaching is never, "I say it and they do it."
