Tech Tip: Kids and Routers
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Waiting on a work call, and building off my prior post I thought I'd share a cool tech tip.
In my other post I mentioned that all telnet transmissions can be logged and reviewed at the router level. Really, having control of the household router can give you godlike levels of power.
So if your kid is using their Playstation at 3am against the rules (or some variation of this problem), do the following:
- Get the IP address of the device
- Log into your router as admin
- Find the connected devices and deny that IP access to send data through the router between bedtime and back from school time
(Note: you can also assign nicknames to devices showing only as IP addresses. It helps to change these devices to names like "Billy's PS5" and "Dad's Cell Phone")
You can turn your kids' computer devices into bricks between whichever hours you please.
I ended up having to do this to my own teen that wasn't getting the point, and since I was the only person with the router password I could control those constraints.