The Limits We Assume Our Kids Understand
Access comes with assumptions, and parents and kids may not be making the same ones.
By Jill Murphy, Common Sense Media
Edition #27 | August 28, 2026
The Snap Saga Continues
For those who are new here: I recently let my 13-year-old get Snapchat on a trial basis. Five weeks later, we're still trying to sort things out enough that we can officially call this a saga.
What I didn't expect was that the hardest part wouldn't be the screen time, the streaks, or even the using-her-sister's-phone workaround. It's the access to the kids and relationships she genuinely can't nurture anywhere else. It's an experiment in redefining what "friends" even means. "I know them." "I talk to them all the time." Do you, though?
Living through this with her has made me realize how differently "friends" can work online. Some of these kids go to schools nearby, or she met them through camp or sports, but how much does she really know about them?
When I first wrote about Snap, a lot of you responded as if the choice were yes to Snap (or social media, generally) or no. I'm finding the harder part comes after the "yes."
She hears "Snapchat" and thinks it means she can reach anyone she wants, whenever she wants. And I keep extending her time: because homework is done, because I'm in a meeting, because I'm trying to write this newsletter about how hard it is to manage any of it! Before long, that "trial" starts to feel permanent because I never stopped to say what the rules were.
So this week's move is about naming the assumptions out loud before they calcify into "well, you never said I couldn't."
Tonight's to-do: Pick one app or privilege your kid already has and ask them what rules they believe come with it. You may discover a few rules that you thought were obvious really weren't.
Always worth checking out and bookmarking: Family Media Agreement
Our Questions for "ChatGPT for Teens"
OpenAI recently rolled out a dedicated teen experience for ChatGPT that kicks in when the system knows, or believes, it's talking to someone under 18. It includes more study tools, additional safeguards, expanded parental notifications, and limits on how "human" the bot is allowed to act with a teenager.
Our Youth AI Safety Institute called the direction philosophically right, though they were careful to say they haven't tested it yet. In-depth testing takes time so we can provide parents and caregivers with the specifics you may be looking for. The last time the Institute evaluated ChatGPT's parental controls, they found serious gaps and rated the product as High Risk overall. So for now, these are some of the questions they'll be watching:
Will it slow down homework shortcuts? The new "Responsible Homework Reminder" is supposed to notice when a teen is trying to skip straight to an answer and steer them back toward the work. Good in theory, but our researchers want to know how easy that is to get around.
Do safety alerts reach parents, fast enough to matter? Linked parent accounts are supposed to be notified about conversations that involve self-harm or disordered eating. But nobody outside OpenAI right now knows how well it catches teens who are logged out or lied about their age, how many families actually have linked accounts, or how long it takes an alert to land once something's flagged.
How friendly is too friendly? Teens can customize ChatGPT's tone and voice to be friendlier, warmer, more enthusiastic, while OpenAI also says the chatbot shouldn't use romantic language or imply it has feelings. Our researchers want to understand how that warm, customizable voice feels from the teen side of the screen, no matter what the fine print says.
Tonight's to-do: If your teen uses ChatGPT, take a look at the account together. See which experience they're getting and what the personalization and parental-control settings actually look like.
Worth reading:
→ What We Still Need to Know About the New ChatGPT for Teens
Do Gen Z & Alpha Kids Miss the '90s Too?
I keep hearing it from parenting influencers, other parents, and myself: this pull toward the '90s. Mix CDs. Landlines. A childhood you had to leave the house to rebel against.
And don't get me started on the bliss of being sneaky without surveillance footage at every address you walked by. How was a girl supposed to sneak out at 15, take her brother's car, ride down "the avenue" with friends, and smoke cigarettes we bought at the video rental store!? But I digress.
I don't think "nostalgia" is really what's happening, and I don't think it's really about the 1990s.
Waiting for your song to come on the radio. Sorting through a shoebox of photos. A Yoto instead of a tablet works not just because of the retro appeal, but partly because there's a physical step between wanting something and getting it. You have to find the card, put it in, wait for it to start.
There used to be way less convenience built into everyday life.
The funny part is that kids now discover the '90s through the most 21st century tools imaginable: YouTube deep dives and TikToks re-creating the aesthetic of a decade they never lived through. They're using the most reactive, algorithm-fed, digitized medium that exists to try to touch something that was supposed to be about not being reactive or digitized.
The '90s were hardly perfect. I'm not interested in re-creating them. But I do wonder whether some of the appeal is when the barrier to getting anything—a song, a show, a friend's phone number—was just high enough to make you think about whether you actually needed it.
Now I need your help. What's one "old" object or ritual you've brought back at home to slow things down? A Yoto, paper calendar, alarm clock, landline, anything. Tell me whether it became a household hit or sits quietly dead in a junk drawer. I'll round up the best (and most honest) ones in an upcoming edition.
Send it my way ([email protected]).
Tonight's to-do: Make one digital habit mildly inconvenient on purpose. I'm partial to making the chargers live somewhere inconvenient.
Wishing you a weekend with a little less instant gratification and a pace that works for you.
Warmest,
— Jill
Jill Murphy is Chief Content Officer at Common Sense Media, where she leads content strategy across media ratings and reviews, parenting advice, and resources that help families navigate media and technology. During more than two decades at Common Sense, she has helped build and evolve its editorial work to keep pace with changing platforms, audience needs, and the digital lives of kids. But first and foremost, she is a mom of two girls, a lot of pets, and shares this chaos and delights in her parenting fails with her husband, Steve.