First of all, I am a long-time home-schooler (started in the nineties). We have a large library at home, and lots of art materials. Some of the older kids now hold degrees, and one is a regional manager for a fibre-company (and he did not go the tertiary education route, but was very agile on a computer, even when he left home at age 19, due to an 3D animation forum he administered. He now has four kids and owns his own house, and is still a gamer, but also dabbles in crypto-mining). We always encouraged our kids to cook for the family, always. So, in my opinion it is about strong family values, not HOW they learn, and which sites are LOL strictly out-of-bounds. The kids who are still at home also interact with neigbours, mowing lawns for old ducks, and clearing out garages, or baby-sitting for their sister etc. In terms of daily sit-down conversations, they will come and talk philosophy, and religion with us. But also regular stuff like "How do I get my driver's licence?" or "How do you do a hook properly?"

But - here is why I say roblox is good. Roblox taught my youngest kids to read and write, and touch-type. A lliterally observed my youngest, aged 8 at the time, rattling away at his keyboard while looking at the screen, talking to Spanish, and Lithuanian, kids on the chat. TBH the material we had for learning to read was just boring - "do I have to? " . In the nineties I encouraged reading via TinTin and Asterix comic books, but whatever. And before anyone starts up: There are thousands of games there, so your 'drawing app' is just one little blip, sorry. Most of those games are not even very interesting to adults - and the whole grooming thing is a dead duck in those games, IMO. there is no video chat, anyway. I bet that my kids haven''t even seen said app. They are too busy.

The popular game at that time (of touch typing observance) was Lumber Tycoon, a game where one harvests all sorts of trees and sells them at a depot to make money for building a bigger and better harvesting plant. quite, quite boring really, to adults. But, getting to the valuable trees requires knowledge which one finds out while playing. The point is that one can gain heaps of points when one collaborates with other players, so there was plenty of incentive to start reading already, and say more than just 'hi' on the chat. They also learn all the short-cuts related to 'power keys' - which was really just teaching the kids their way around the keyboard.

One of my teens is now building a Roblox game - which involves LUA language programming and 3D graphics- and yes, there are people who are playing that game. He spends hours every day programming. But, he also switches his computer off for many hours each day and does real life, and not because we nag him.

Thus, IRL we support their gym pursuits with diet, education, supplements etc. (We encourage them to find the best ones for all of us to take, online, for example) and by attending their classes etc. There are also boxing social interactions (one of them has an amateur bout coming up, and another, a professional fight), so they definitely did not turn into porn-gollums.

First of all, I am a long-time home-schooler (started in the nineties). We have a large library at home, and lots of art materials. Some of the older kids now hold degrees, and one is a regional manager for a fibre-company (and he did not go the tertiary education route, but was very agile on a computer,even at age 19, due to an 3D animation forum he administrated. He now has four kids and owns his own house, and is still a gamer). We always encouraged our kids to cook for the family, always. So, in my opinion it is about strong family values, not HOW they learn, and which sites are out-of-bounds. The kids who are still at home also interact with neigbours, mowing lawns for old ducks, and clearing out garages, or baby-sitting for their sister etc. In terms of daily sit-down conversations, they will come and talk philosophy, and religion with us. But also regular stuff like "How do I get my driver's licence?" or "How do you do a hook properly?"

But - here is why I say roblox is good. Roblox taught my youngest kids to read and write, and touch-type. A lliterally observed my youngest, aged 8 at the time, rattling away at his keyboard while looking at the screen, talking to Spanish, and Lithuanian, kids on the chat. TBH the material we had for learning to read was just boring - "do I have to? " . In the nineties I encouraged reading via TinTin and Asterix comic books, but whatever. And before anyone starts up: There are thousands of games there, so your 'drawing app' is just one little blip, sorry. Most of those games are not even very interesting to adults - and the whole grooming thing is a dead duck in those games, IMO. there is no video chat, anyway. I bet that my kids haven''t even seen said app. They are too busy.

The popular game at that time (of touch typing observance) was Lumber Tycoon, a game where one harvests all sorts of trees and sells them at a depot to make money for building a bigger and better harvesting plant. quite, quite boring really, to adults. But, getting to the valuable trees requires knowledge which one finds out while playing. The point is that one can gain heaps of points when one collaborates with other players, so there was plenty of incentive to start reading already, and say more than just 'hi' on the chat. They also learn all the short-cuts related to 'power keys' - which was really just teaching the kids their way around the keyboard.

One of my teens is now building a Roblox game - which involves LUA language programming and 3D graphics- and yes, there are people who are playing that game. He spends hours every day programming. But, he also switches his computer off for many hours each day and does real life, and not because we nag him.

Thus, IRL we support their gym pursuits with diet, education, supplements etc. (We encourage them to find the best ones for all of us to take, online, for example) and by attending their classes etc. There are also boxing social interactions (one of them has an amateur bout coming up, and another, a professional fight), so they definitely did not turn into porn-gollums.