Quote:
Originally Posted by dow
Thanks for all the insight, but I think that maybe some of you saw things that aren't there. My son is extremely bright and consumes books at a rate that, frankly, boggles the mind. He also has almost complete recall of everything he reads, so once it's in there it stays in there. Add to that the fact that he's very empathetic, so intense situations, whether real life or movies or the written word, can overwhelm him, and you end up with a kid that still needs some protection until he learns how to build the barriers that we all have. It's for these reasons that i want to limit some of what he reads to things that are more appropriate to him at this time.
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Honestly, I don't think we saw things that weren't there. You said you want to supply books to him, and manage his reading. The responses here ranged around how to do that and an opinion that 12-year-olds were old enough to decide for themselves. But, I think you are only interested in the "how", not "why".
Having said that, I think the only real solution is basically what @JSWolf said in the first post. The devices and stores do not seem to have good support for this sort of thing. As I see it:
Kobo does not have any way to do any sort of restrictions on the books available to an account. Whether the limit is some age based, rating or something else, there is no way that I know of to prevent someone buying a book that might not be appropriate for them.
Kobo did have the concept of a child account for a while. This was attached to a parent account. Beyond that, I don't remember what limits it had. The accounts did share books to a certain extent, but, I don't remember if there was any filtering of books for the child account.
You can have the same account on multiple devices. This will sync all books bought on the account between all devices and apps. For what you are doing, this could be good because you can see what he is reading. As he reads, the status will sync to Kobo and then to your device. For what you want, that is good, as you can prepare yourself for anything that might arise. But, at the same time, what you are reading will sync to his device.
You could use separate accounts, but, then you don't have visibility into what he is reading without asking. Or looking at the device or account. Whether this works probably depends on how much you trust him. If you do want to monitor the reading, you could sign into his account on the browser, desktop app or the iOS or Android apps.
For purchases, in either of the above cases, you can block them completely on his device by setting a PIN. This turns off the shop and some other things, but, still syncs the books. Then he would need to use a PC or tablet to buy books and you would need to manage that. Or, you can remove the credit card from the account and buy egift cards for it. That would be a good way of putting a limit on the spending and it doesn't expire so can carry over to the next "budget period". This doesn't limit which books he can buy, only how much he can spend.
The other choice is to sideload everything. That means maintaining a library for him on a computer, connecting his device and transferring the books to the device. There are a number of ways to do this: a library on his computer for him with his books, a separate library on your PC or the family computer, or a single library with both yours and his books and a way to tell the difference (probably using a virtual library). What works best probably depends on what computers are in use and how much control or visibility you want.
Of course, there is combinations of all of the above. For example, using a shared account, but, you sideloading books you want to read and leave the downloaded books to him to read. That has the possible advantage of him not seeing what you are reading but also makes reading the same book practical without turning off WiFi.
Those are the things I can think of. I don't think there is a good answer. But, hopefully that will give you some ideas.