What parents need to know about Reddit’s 10-day and 100 karma posting rules for kid hobbyists
I was folding my 13-year-old son’s grass-stained soccer uniform at the kitchen counter last Tuesday when he leaned against the dryer, phone held out at arm’s length, and huffed. “What is this? Why won’t it let me post?” The screen glowed blue, the warning clear as day: In order to post your account must be older than 10 days and have 100 positive karma.
I’d run into that same rule myself when I joined Reddit back in 2012, but I’d forgotten how confusing it is when you see it for the first time. My son had made his account four days earlier, after a leak of the new Lego Castle set dropped, and he’d spent every free minute since building his own custom castle MOC, that’s what they call it now: My Own Creation. He’d taken 200 photos, edited a 2-minute time lapse, written a little paragraph about how he’d scavenged old pirate set pieces for the towers. He just wanted to share it with the 3 million other people on r/Lego who get that level of excitement.
I read the warning out loud to him, and he crossed his arms. “I didn’t spam anything. I didn’t scam anyone. Why do they hate new people?” It’s a fair question for a kid who’s only ever used TikTok, where you can post a video 10 minutes after making your account. I sat down on the floor next to him (the only chair at the counter was occupied by his half-eaten bowl of cereal) and explained it simply: the rule isn’t for people like him. It’s for bots and spammers that crank out hundreds of new accounts every day to post fake giveaways and scam links. It’s just a cheap, easy filter that works most of the time. It’s not personal.
That didn’t make the frustration go away, though. To him, it didn’t matter why the rule existed. All he knew was that he’d finished his project, and he couldn’t share it. I didn’t want to just tell him to wait 10 days and go do something else – I remember being a teen on early forums, spending a week drawing a comic that I couldn’t post because I didn’t have enough “posts” to my name, and I quit sharing art online for two years after that. The rejection feels like it’s about your work, not a platform rule.
I started thinking about how many parents I talk to that have no clue how Reddit works. We all worry about screen time and harmful content, which makes sense, but we rarely talk about the small, everyday hoops kids navigate just to connect with other people who share their niche hobbies. More and more, kids aren’t just on TikTok or Instagram these days. A lot of them go to Reddit for the hobby groups, because there’s no algorithm pushing viral garbage at them 24/7, just people talking about the thing they love. But no one gives parents a heads up about these basic rules.
So what did we do? First, I pulled up his comment history. He’d left 17 comments up to that point, and almost all of them were just “cool” or “nice build.” No wonder he only had 12 karma. I showed him a trick I learned back when I was trying to get enough karma to post in a houseplant group: instead of leaving one-word generic comments, leave a specific comment that adds something to the conversation. Instead of “nice castle,” try “I love how you did the drawbridge hinges, I’ve been struggling with that on my own current build – what pieces did you end up using?” People are way more likely to upvote a comment that’s actually useful or relatable than a generic one.
We spent 20 minutes that night going through the new posts in r/Lego, leaving 10 specific comments. By the end of the third day, he was up to 78 karma. He still wanted to get feedback on his castle right away, though, so we posted the time lapse to the small Lego MOC Discord he’d already joined. He got 12 comments within an hour, people asking questions about the design, and that took the edge off the frustration. He didn’t have to wait to share it at all, just wait to share it on Reddit.
He hit 101 karma on day 9 of his account, so we waited one more day to follow the rule, and he posted it. Last I checked, it had 127 upvotes, and a 16-year-old builder from Canada asked him for instructions. They’ve been chatting about build hacks every other day since.
It’s not all solved, of course. Last week he tried to post a meme on r/teenagers and found out that sub requires 1000 karma to post. He groaned, remembered what we did last time, went and left a handful of comments on Lego posts, and posted the meme to the Discord instead. Now, when he talks about making a second account for his Stardew Valley modding projects, I just remind him about the 10-day, 100 karma rule up front, so he can start building karma while he works on his first mod, instead of waiting until he’s done to find out he can’t post.
The thing I’ve taken away from this is that we don’t have to overcomplicate these small internet frustrations. You don’t have to be a Reddit expert to help. Just remember: name the rule and why it exists when your kid makes a new account, teach them to leave specific comments to build karma faster, and help them find a smaller space to share their work while they wait. No one writes a parenting guide about this stuff, but it’s just part of letting kids have their own space online these days. Last night he checked his karma while we waited for his pizza to cook, grinned, and said he’s almost at 500. It’s not the biggest milestone, but it’s his.
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