My 11 year old is really after me to let him join his friends' discord chats but I'm pretty skeptical. How private are the private chat rooms? I had read that discord has terrible parental controls and privacy, but maybe they've upgraded since then?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Discord's age limit is 13. Its an ok site. I look into what's being posted on the sites that DS frequents from time to time. He knows that I can check at any time. Boys Scouts has started using it because the boys are on their more often than their email, so its easier to get a hold of the boys and make announcements.

No way would I let DS communicate through Discord.

This.

Its a private server on Discord. You have to be invited and the invite isn't to be share with anyone that's not supposed to be there. Similar to MS Teams. I randomly check all discord activity of my young teen. He knows it and doesn't have a problem with it.

Thank god, no! I have other (many many) problems with my kids -- gaming is not one of them.

Yes, 15, with guidelines to talk to friends, only.

Anonymous wrote:Started around 10 but uses parent's account and its monitored. It concerns us as the kids don't behave very well on there (they don't know we monitor it but pretty shocking language for 11-13 year olds). We don't restrict it but make it clear to our kids they aren't talking like that and they get cut off if they do.

Same rules here for a 10yo, but I do spot check and have been pleasantly surprised by my kid's interactions – I really hope it lasts.

It's like Slack but with more memes and bots and more idiot 13 year old boys.

We let our DS use it because he uses it with his friends (so weird they use Discord over texting....) but we monitor heavily.

DS started around 10? Many of his gaming friends from school are on it. Especially during COVID.

I’m on several servers and it just depends. It’s like asking if you let your kid use internet message boards. What does that mean? DCUM? A red piller board? A woodworker board?

My 13 year old was late to the party. He joined last spring. Several of the kids wt school were using it and creating multiple groups. Of course it got out of hand to the point that the school got involved and sent an email to all parents in the grade. After that the kids backed away from using discord. Mine will still occasionally look at something gaming related but its not like it was for about a month last spring.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s mainly chatting for gamers.

For my teens' friend groups, it's a primary way to stay in touch.

+1. DS has been on it since 13 - now 17. It’s the main way they all communicate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it’s all gaming? DD thought there were all different kinds of discussion groups, on a variety of topics. She’s not at all into gaming.

I think of it almost like Reddit, where you create these individual servers, invite people to them, and have mods that enforce the rules. My DD (13 yo) has been using it since last year and the strictly enforced rule is to absolutely not join any server unless it's run by someone she knows to be a middle schooler. They chat about all sorts of things and use it to DM one another.

The issues that arise are when people join public servers that include adults and all sorts of people. Those can be a terrible place (like Reddit). There was a situation last spring where a 40+ man from somewhere in Virginia convinced a teen in California to run away with him and they connected through Discord.

This happened to a friend of my son's last year. The friend was found and brought back home. The mom was able to print some of his chats and it was so creepy and manipulative. The cops told us it was the fourth kid in Bethesda who had run away to meet someone from the internet in the past 2 weeks. My son deleted Discord the next day.

Anonymous wrote:So it’s all gaming? DD thought there were all different kinds of discussion groups, on a variety of topics. She’s not at all into gaming.

I think of it almost like Reddit, where you create these individual servers, invite people to them, and have mods that enforce the rules. My DD (13 yo) has been using it since last year and the strictly enforced rule is to absolutely not join any server unless it's run by someone she knows to be a middle schooler. They chat about all sorts of things and use it to DM one another.

The issues that arise are when people join public servers that include adults and all sorts of people. Those can be a terrible place (like Reddit). There was a situation last spring where a 40+ man from somewhere in Virginia convinced a teen in California to run away with him and they connected through Discord.

My kids started around time of pandemic- pre teen. Use it to talk to their friends. Helped their dad get on to talk to his son in another state. My kids were communicating with him, but the dad had a hard time getting by his ex wife to get to talk to (older) kid.

Ours uses it to chat with friends. Like texting but more options.

No