User talk:Acroterion/Dealing with the young

Purported parents

"The parents of young users will sometimes appear" would be better as "People claiming to be parents of young users will sometimes appear". The number of proven instances of fake parents is significant when compared with the total number of instances of purported parents participating.

On a similar note, you may wish to mention somewhere that not all those who claim to be children are children - although this point is made in more detail in some of the other pages you already link to. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:31, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I've seen fake parents, as well as some I suspect were fake children. Usually, though, in the cases I'm describing, there's a marked difference in the way the "parents" express themselves (or the "parent" writes the way a kid would when faking an excuse note), so it's either the real parental unit or a more mature friend. I've specifically encountered parents either when something bad was happening, in which police and the Foundation were involved, or where the young editor had some issues with autism: a simple note describing the problem from somebody with direct knowledge of the editor helped a lot. In the case of the autistic 10 year old, he still got blocked, but we were able to deal with it from a more informed and compassionate perspective. Acroterion (talk) 19:44, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Parents and competence

The "parents" section is a lot more optimistic than actual experience would support. Adding something like "Some parents lack the WP:COMPETENCE or the willingness to follow Wikipedia policy or to encourage their children to do so" would give it a bit more balance. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:31, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

All of the teachers I know would agree: much depends on the level of interest and involvement of the parents. I've encountered an apathetic or irate parent only once though, I think, probably because an apathetic or incompetent parent simply can't be bothered, and my example might have been a fake parent. Most of the (few) parents I've encountered have been a little freaked out about little Junior's activities. Acroterion (talk) 19:47, 19 December 2012 (UTC)