So I have a question. It’s about Discord. My almost-11-year-old keeps begging me to let him download it. He says he wants it so that he and his cousin can talk to each other through it while playing games. Neither of them have a phone, obviously, but they both have iPads. I don’t exactly understand Discord and I’m charge of keeping my kids safe so I’m reluctant. Can anyone tell me if it is safe for him, as much as the internet can be safe for a kid? Can I lock it down in some way? Can strangers find him and talk to him through it without permission?
As far as I can tell, there are no parental lock settings. There are some ways that as a user you can set to turn off direct messages from non-friends and to prevent people from adding you as a friend, but this doesn’t prevent a computer smart kiddo from turning those off, choosing to send a friend request to someone, or prevent someone from addressing them within a group channel.
You could in theory be logged into the same account on your phone, and be able to see at all times what calls/channels kiddo was in and who else was in them, but you wouldn’t be able to see history (what channels he was in) while you weren’t looking.
Discord has a lot of community servers (forums) for various hobbies and gaming communities which is where it really depends on the individual community. Used only with known friends, it’s about the same as any direct messaging service with video & voice sharing built in.
I’m using it for work with teen volunteers at the library and we’re treating it like Teams/Slack for “workplace readiness” skill points - they are all 13+ though. All my volunteers had heard of Discord but most of them hadn’t created accounts yet, because I only have a couple gamers and it still has a reputation as an app mainly for gamers. A bunch of libraries opened Discord servers over the pandemic but mainly for teens 13+, so that they had a space for virtual programming like online D&D and book discussions.
I have it, there’s not really parental settings but there are sort of privacy settings. Your son would be able to modify those whenever he wanted though. Here’s a screenshot of the privacy settings, it should get big enough to read if you click on it:
I’ll ask my son how he chatted with friends in games - it was before discord and he wasn’t on the phone.
Eavesdropping on those conversations are some of my favorite preteen/early teen memories, though. Who knew deodorant vs antiperspirant would warrant a 2 hour discussion?
@AllHat I’m not ignoring you! I want to be on a computer to reply since on my phone I am just blah blah all over the place since I can’t easily refer back to text.
My 9 year old has used Messenger Kids in the same way and it’s pretty locked down. A parent has to approve any friend requests through their own FB account and the only way to even send a friend request is to give the other person a code to input.
What is worse: no plunger in a bathroom guests use (so they would have to ask/tell if anything happens), or a plunger in one of the closing style storage shells being on the bathroom counter? (Those are the only two options. #toddlerlife)
I want to be on a computer to reply since on my phone I am just blah blah all over the place since I can’t easily refer back to text.