To not have internet at home?

[VelvetLady88]

I live with gaming addiction & find the best way to manage this is not to have internet at home. I've previously used various software to block sites & manage screen time but I've always relapsed. I've lost our home & jobs during relapses so I'm terrified this happens again. My DS is due to start secondary school in August & I'm worried about how he will do his homework without internet. At primary school he had been doing his homework at an after school club as they have Wi-Fi. We go to the library & gaming cafes on a Saturday & school holidays so he can game & keep in touch with friends & he has internet access at his Dad's home on a Sunday. He doesn't have a smartphone & his new school don't allow them. I don't have a smartphone. He will be able to go to the local library for 1hr after school to do his homework & can work offline as we have a laptop at home. Is this reasonable for him to be able to do his homework with this amount of internet access?

Massive well done, OP, for doing this. You're prioritising his housing and financial security, and those who haven't battled addiction have no idea what they are talking about (internet access does not trump those basics).

You're actually parenting how I and many of my kids friends' parents are parenting: no phones or unsupervised internet access for our kids until 16. The school will have to adjust. There's a growing movement that are doing this also. When I was a teenager, I went to the library everyday after school and it added brilliant structure to my day and a habit I kept up: all my homework was done on time, and there was never any stress in the evenings with my parents trying to get me to do it.

Honestly, this has the potential to be brilliant for him and your relationship. And he will swerve the awful phone addictions that his friends will have and exposure to awful online content (75% of 15 year olds have been sent a beheading video). Well done and keep going!

Exactly. Happens too often on MN where people without common sense or empathy fall over themselves to bash someone who simply wants civilised adult opinions on how to manage a personal challenge.

Just to add, addictive personalities can have a genetic basis, so it could be your son will battle with this at some point also. Protecting his childhood is very important until his brain is developed enough.

Please do not give a teenage boy a password so he has unrestricted access to the internet (one of the worst ideas that will surely give him many problems - addiction, exposure to online grooming, etc), as many are suggesting.

"Parental controls" can always be got around and will be got around given time.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm thinking a dongle DS could plug into the laptop might be the best idea as he could take the dongle to school with him so I don't have internet in the house. I do have my own tablet that I use with the train Wifi during my commute to work or if DS is at the library so I would be able to check a school app or website then. I have had help with my addiction. I see my Support Worker weekly and Social Worker & GP monthly.

This is what I was going to say. There is a lot of admin for the parent which all happens by app and email at my kids school.

perhaps his dad can be on top of all this, but you will need to find a way to navigate it.

I used a Huawei Mifi with a Three PAYG mobile broadband SIM for when our Internet was down for a while, and also take it with me when I travel. It’s reliable and very easy to use, and as long as you aren’t downloading films etc the SIM lasts for quite a long time. Obviously it’s not as good as WiFi, but a brilliant alternative in your position.

Cross posted, that sounds like a good solution OP

My teens love Spotify and if you pay for the Peemium version then he’ll be able to listen to music offline. He might not be into music yet but Spotify is very popular with teens for music streaming.

sounds like u working hard to manage your addiction OP and manage the repercussions for your child - good on yer !!
being open and honest with him about how u are managing it I guess will be helpful for him to work with u and your issues, as opposed to against, and be protective against him having issues too

This is a good idea. If necessary, ask him to put a passcode on it so you can’t access it or “hotspot” from it.

I think it’s understandable, can DD spend more evening at his dads to get work done?

i think staying after school to get work out of the way or the library is fine. And get him a phone with unlimited that he could also use.

better a little inconvenience rather than losing his home

I had a password protected PC as a teenager. I somehow managed to keep away from perverts and porn.

To be fair, having no alcohol in the house wouldn’t disadvantage him academically or socially whereas having no internet will when he is secondary school age in particular.

OP will need to have internet access herself too in order to keep up with school admin and requests I think, as sometimes things will come in during ‘home’ hours / days and will need her response.

So much school / club correspondence is done now through emails and apps. Almost all of it really.

And frankly the school can be asked to make adjustments and that you do not have internet at home so they will have to text or call. And can send letters home

You need WiFi for your son. Why don’t you sign up for a broadband contract and when the router arrives get him to change the password so that you don’t have access to it?

Equally I understand your position as I have a close family member who literally gambled the house away leaving his young teens homeless.

It will make his life - school and social difficult and seems unfair on him.
could he have internet dongle type thing if these still exist?

It was like that when DD was at secondary school between 2011 and 2018.

TBH, everything is done online now, not just school - NHS appointments, deliveries, reminders for dentist and eye tests, re-ordering prescriptions, banking etc.

This would be my concern op. The school does everything online. Payments, timetables, homework, messages home, absence reporting, booking parents evening. If you can’t find a way around managing your situation you will need to talk to them about this. Your child should not be made to miss out or suffer because of your addiction.

Best solution would be a phone for him that only he knows the password to or needs his fingerprint etc, and then you can sit with him to access anything essential for school. Set it up with a decent data plan and then use it only when necessary. Sometimes you just have to deal with this stuff.

i think the idea of a trusted adult external to the home who controls the password is a very good one if you are looking for a way to manage this which still allows your child to remain the child in the situation (not putting them in sole control of internet, also not putting your relationship under strain)

If this is not possible then hotspotting through smartphone is the second best option i think

Your are absolutely entitled to enact measures to prevent relapse and your courage in managing addiction should be recognised. However, internet is a must. Access is referred to in some spaces now as a developing human rights need in so called developed countries due to the growing impossibility to navigate life without it - and although this may be not quite true for a minor, i grew up in a home which did not have internet and did not access it for the first time outside of school settings until i was 18. this absolutely damaged my tech literacy even then (i’m 38) so cannot imagine what that would look like today.

wishing you all the best navigating this tricky situation and of course congratulations on your continued sobriety.

OP, I read your message about you losing your home and job due to your addiction so I totally see it’s not as simple as some PP are saying, and sorry you’re getting this from people.

i agree that a dongle for your ds is a really good solution: he has his laptop and his dongle and you can continue to live without internet access yourself.

You can get a tablet on a phone contract and pick the highest data package for him

The secondary school will communicate with parents almost entirely over the internet ie emails, apps, payment systems for lunch, trips etc.

No advice but I'm sorry you're going through this, OP. It seems like an addiction that isn't taken seriously enough by society and there will be massive repercussions in the future because you are definitely not the only one with this issue. It's a time bomb waiting to happen.

All the best to you and your son.

I think some people are being a little bit oversimplistic about how essential the Internet is now for modern life.

Yes, we managed perfectly fine in decades past, but that's extremely difficult to achieve now. Many elderly people aren't online and this closes a lot of doors to them in modern society, in their latter years. It must be many times worse for somebody who is still near the beginning of their life. People do make some allowance for old folk who aren't online, but it's automatically assumed that all children of school age are.

Some countries treat access to the Internet as a basic human right, akin to access to shelter and clean water; and I personally agree with them.

Can't you have Internet but have your server block the websites you'll be tempted by? After all if you're really determined then surely you'd access them in the library yourself!