When we moved into our house last year, I installed a UniFi Dream Machine Pro SE, which functions effectively as the router. It has exceptional controls for parenting, and I plan to set up a specific WiFi for them when the time comes. You can limit or block traffic to particular platforms or sites quite granually. So long as they are not savvy enough to get a VPN…
The only problem with traffic monitoring is I also see what my other half is spending time on… 
They do know that children spending a lot of time on social media are missing out on other activities with important mental and physical health implications.
We had to resort to having a separate WiFi for kids. Just this week the teenager managed to get access to my wife’s phone and use the iphone share wifi feature to steal access to the parent’s wifi point…
Next up will be MAC filtering access until she learns to spoof MAC addresses…
It’s like that here as well.
The only kids who get to take iPads home with them are those with learning issues such as dyslexia who are allowed to use them for help in lessons.
I’m amazed that kids of the age Phil’s kids are are given iPads by schools here and allowed to use them as they like.
Edit: I hadn’t realised Phil had a teenager as well, I thought both his kids were still young.
On the plus side, kids are learning to problem solve and how to be techies… 
If not them, some of their friends so they develop social skills too - collaboration! 
For me it’s just amazing how very young these “techies” are…9 - 10 y.o. already.
Time to up the game to NAC and 802.1x. And of course only fully managed devices.
But I’ve heard that kids just buy Pay-as-you-go data plans and usb sticks from retailers and use these. They can buy off-the-shelf mobile routers…
Unless you want to build an always-on-VPN infrastructure with forced content-filtering, at some point you have to let go, I guess…
My brother has a kid (he’s like 3 or so) - he doesn’t have a smart-phone, the mother does have a very old one (and isn’t much on it, apparently).
But he says, the kid uses the TV remote to pretend to phone people and do selfies because he sees it with other people all the time!
My other brother has two kids and the older one basically spends all the time he can on the phone or a mobile gaming console. He has trouble achieving anything even in Hauptschule in Germany. He cannot be bothered to read a piece of paper, much less a book.
I have no idea how that generation is going to “achieve” anything.
My brother has given up doing any kind of regulation and the mother (they are separated) is no help - she’s also more in the “let kids decide for themselves” camp, which is insane.
Given the state of the world your generation “achieved”, i have no doubts whatsoever that the younger generation will do much better
At least with PAYG data, they will have to limit themselves to their pocket money and data transfer allowance!
My kids did that too. The funny thing was that they held it to their ear - which confused me as we don’t have a landline and tend to use video calling when we talk. I later discovered they were copying from the daycare where they used land lines.
In our case is not the teenager that provokes all the drama, is usually the younger one who feels left out and frustrated that the older sibling is allowed to do and to have other stuff…
I am not so sure the new generations will be the cause of future problems, it looks like they have to fix the baby boomers’s and even our s**t. 
A teenager, who may watch cartoons only for 5 mins? Isn’t it cruel?
On the other hand, they lack some basic skills, like using Word/Excel etc. My son is amazed how I can drag a corner of the cell to fill in a column with incrementing numbers or months names. He also finds my (very basic) Photoshop skills exciting.
I’ve heard that many teenagers and young adults do not understand the concept of files and folders. They don’t understand that a file has a physical location on hard disc.
Our school (Zurich city) let’s them take them home and hence they have this tool at home where they are entirely unsupervised and they can access absolutely anything on as it has zero blocks or filters. I am sure it not an issue for many kids, for one of mine it was a disaster.
Yeah reminds me when I had no kids and I vouched mine would never roll on a supermarket floor… 
I need to learn how to do this.
Indeed, ours too and given the older was not an issue we were also much lax and thought it would all work out.
Just said that to DH this weekend - child can overcome parents controls but does not know how to use word…
Every generation of computer-users gets “dumber” than the one before.
Concepts of files, folders and directory hierarchies seem to be almost completely lost on younger people (though they rarely actually create or store any files to begin with…).
It’s a concept that “modern” IT has successfully abstracted away.
Many schools seem to work with cloud storage where each student either uploads completed work to the relevant folder or goes to other folders to collect work/material. They get a tutorial and a ‘woe-betide you mess up the folders’ lecture at the beginning of term.
I think most of them have a handle on it.
As usual your blabla makes zero sense. I quoted the entire post, that makes “out-of-context” impossible.
Maybe if you quote the whole sentence the “blabla” you’re struggling with would make sense?:
Phones and social media are now baked into society and if kids can’t learn by themselves how to regulate it under a controlled environment, as soon as you take the brakes off and/or they reach the age where you can’t control their every waking moment, you may have a fight back on your hands.
Even with that, your post still wasn’t clear.
Why don’t you just discuss the subject - how do you deal with with your children (if you have any)?
Youngest kids (3, 5) are allowed max 1 episode of Peppa Pig per day (about 5 mins). Teenager (13) isn’t really interested, she just watches YT on her iPad.
Indeed, most have no idea what the ‘save’ icon is - it is just an abtract symbol for them!