Kids need their parents to help them become the kind of people who want to do good and avoid evil, not because it’s profitable, but because it’s right. They need years of practicing discernment and developing integrity in order to live faithfully online where indulgence, addiction—and increasingly, radicalization—are common.

There is growing momentum among parents, teachers, and legislators to keep children off of social media, and it comes not a moment too soon. Utah’s governor Spencer Cox called social media “a cancer” in his remarks following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The editors of the Wall Street Journal said the 22-year-old charged with the crime “looks like another young man full of rage and unhinged from reality, with help from the internet.” This isn’t the first time we’ve seen how “hours of marinating in online rage” can deteriorate a person’s mental stability.

The need to protect children online is greater than ever. But not every solution is helpful. One ill-timed idea would make matters worse. Just two days before Kirk’s murder, the same newspaper ran a story about parents who are trying to delay their tweens’ and teens’ dive into social media by offering them cash, and even new cars. In “Paying Kids to Stay Off Their Phones,” columnist Julie Jargon says these parents think they can “buy time until kids are more mature.”

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