What Parents Need To Know About Reddit’s New Account Karma Rules For Kids
Last Tuesday, I was folding sweatpants on the living room couch after dinner when my 13-year-old daughter Lila wandered over, twisting the peeling popsocket on her phone and avoiding eye contact. She had a favor to ask: could she borrow my old Reddit account?
I hadn’t logged into my account in almost two years, so I was curious what she needed it for. She pulled up her own new account and showed me the pop-up that had appeared when she tried to submit her Minecraft fan art to a group contest: In order to post your account must be older than 10 days and have 100 positive karma.
The contest closed in three days, she explained. Her account was only three days old, and she only had 2 karma from a single comment she’d left on someone else’s drawing. She’d heard from a friend at school that borrowing an older account with enough karma got around the rule, and she’d spent two weeks staying up after homework sketching and coloring her entry, so it felt like everything was riding on this.
I pulled up my old profile to check my karma, and it clocked in at just over 12,000, mostly from sourdough baking posts I shared back in 2020. For half a second I almost said yes – why not, right? She’s not going to post anything bad. But then I remembered how group mods crack down on shared accounts, and I didn’t want both of us getting banned, or Lila getting discouraged before she even got started. I also realized I hadn’t ever actually talked to her about why those rules exist in the first place.
I sat down next to her and asked her what she thought the rule was for. She shrugged and said it was just dumb, made to keep new people out. That makes sense, I told her, but it’s actually to stop spammers. People make hundreds of fake new accounts every day to post scam links, steal art, or harass people, so community volunteers who run the groups put rules like this in place to cut down on that garbage. It’s not personal, it’s just cleaning house. She nodded, but still looked dejected – the rule still ruined her contest shot.
Instead of handing over my account right away, I suggested we try working with the system first. We could spend 10 minutes a day for the next three days commenting on other posts in the group to earn upvotes, I said, and if that didn’t work, we’d figure something else out. I told her not to leave generic one-word comments like “cool” because no one upvotes that. Instead, comment on something specific: ask a question about how someone did something, or say what you like about their work. That’s how you get people to notice your comment and upvote it.
First day, she commented on a post of a giant castle base: “I love how you hid the enchantment room behind the bookshelf, I’ve been trying to come up with a good hidden storage idea for my base.” That got 14 upvotes. Next she commented on a skin post: “The purple gradient on the hood is such a nice touch, I never remember to add shading like that.” That got 29 upvotes. By the end of the second day, she was at 89 karma. The next morning before school, she saw a question thread asking everyone what their favorite Minecraft biome is, and commented “Dark forests! The moss all over everything makes it feel cozy even with the creepers.” That got 18 upvotes, pushing her to 107.
We got excited, until we looked back at the rule: it needs both 100 positive karma and an account older than 10 days. Her account was only 6 days old. She still couldn’t post.
She slouched back into the couch after school that day, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her to just wait for the next contest. I logged into my account, sent a quick message to one of the group mods explaining the situation: my 13-year-old made a new account, earned 100 karma four days early, worked really hard on her contest entry, could you make an exception and approve it manually? An hour later, the mod wrote back and said sure, go ahead and have her submit it, they’d approve it.
She posted it that night, got 34 upvotes and a dozen nice comments, and didn’t win, but she didn’t even care that much. She was just happy people got to see it.
This whole small moment stuck with me, because so many parenting conversations about online spaces are just “is this safe, should I ban it.” But rules like the 10-day/100-karma requirement come up all the time for kids who are joining niche communities that actually match their specific interests – not just the algorithm-driven feeds that get all the attention. Lila doesn’t have anyone at her middle school who likes building detailed Minecraft worlds as much as she does, so this little group is the only place she gets to talk about that hobby with people who care.
The practical thing I’ve started telling other parents who ask about this is: don’t immediately say no to helping, and don’t just hand over your account without talking through the situation first. First, ask them to show you exactly what the rule is and why it matters to them – it takes two minutes, and it lets you see what this community means to them, instead of just writing it off as another screen time waste. Second, explain the rule in plain terms, not tech jargon – most kids have no idea why communities put these gatekeeping rules in place. Third, help them earn karma honestly by commenting thoughtfully first; it’s also a good way for them to get a feel for how the community works before they start posting their own stuff. If you still hit a hard line like the 10-day age rule, most mods are volunteers who are happy to make exceptions for genuine new users if you ask politely from an established account.
It’s been a few months now, and Lila’s account is up to almost 400 karma. She posts a new drawing or build every couple of weeks, and she often leaves nice comments for other new people who mention they can’t post yet. She still says the rule is dumb, and I don’t disagree. It’s an imperfect system that creates unnecessary barriers for kids just trying to join in. But for now, it’s working. She’s found her little corner of the internet, and we got there without breaking any rules.
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