Linux

Fedora apparently has some functionality.

There is also an arch wiki page on the subject.

Linux systems are used all over for enterprise use cases, which means there is a robust user permission system. Usage won't be Googleable with stuff like "parental control" but more likely keywords like "user restriction".

Not sure if you mention your wife because she knows Linux and thinks it's a bad idea, or because doesn't know Linux, and still thinks it's a bad idea.

Of course, when your kid one day learns to flash an iso onto a usb, and install an OS, any and all parental control will be symbolic. Hopefully you've successfully taught your kid how to use tech safely by then.

You'll want to look into browser extensions and blocking websites on your router, as well.

Gnome itself is embedded with parental control and you can enable it while adding a new user

I don't know how other DEs deal with it, but I think all of them has something similar, tho

Edit: also may be a good idea set a AdGuard to set a DNS block for some origins... AdGuard gives you the capability to block several apps and you can customize blocks as well

My kids, 9 and 11, use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Mainly because that's what I use. They were with me when I set it up to choose a name for the computer, a username and a password (for their user and for the disc encryption).

I showed them how to configure wobbly windows (most important part) and how to use Discover to install games.

I installed Minecraft. I installed Steam (which has its own parental controls). I configured emails, Nextcloud and a password manager. I configured automatic updates.

I think that's about it.

They're responsible. They ask me for help if they need some. We educate them about people they meet online in Minecraft and other games. Works well so far.

Give em linux mint, and set parental controls on the router, alternatively you can have an admin account which has a list of blacklisted ips, but i don't really recommend that since you'll never have a list that has everything, and if your kid wants to look at porn or whatever, they'll find a website that isn't blocked, also doing this probably means you won't be able to put your kid in wheel group which imo means they won't be able to learn as much

My kid, believe it or not, uses a NixOS laptop regularly. He doesn't configure it yet, but honestly I'm not afraid of him having a go. When I was just about his age, I was figuring out DOS without the Internet to help, and while it was orders of a magnitude simpler, the documentation was orders of a magnitude more sparse too. Any of the big, well-documented distros (Ubuntu, Debian, NixOS (for some values of well-documented anyway), Fedora) would be fine. Honestly, I'd even let him loose with Arch at this point, or even Linux From Scratch.

I got my daughter a surface book with Archlinux on it when she turned four. She'd previously been using an ipad so I wanted something that had a touchscreen, and I installed KDE as the desktop. She learned how to use it extremely quickly, and has even started in on the commandline now that she's 5 and knows how to read. GCompris is great too.

Me and my wife haven't bothered with parental controls and instead just keep an eye on her usage, but I agree with other commenters that controlling things at the router level seems like a better bet.

Don't put parental controls on it. What do you want to control? Maybe put controls on the website that they can visit, but that goes on the DNS or router. Most kids will go to a mate's house that doesn't have any or as harsh parental controls anyway if they are particularly keen on seeing something that they 'shouldn't'. Parental controls are a fix for parents who can't talk to their kids; they make the parents feel safer but just send the issues underground. Gen X will have been writing code for a while at your child's age. I was. There was no choice if you needed to unlock a game you could've afford. At that time GUIs were a bad overlay over MS-DOS or DR-DOS. You had to know what you were doing to get the best out of it. Your kid will be fine with any distribution of Linux. If your kid is technically inquisitive likely to be good at maths/science, get them installing Arch. If not and they just want to use a browser, install one of the top five popular distributions from distrowatch.com. The Office suite for Linux is called LibreOffice. If you use Chrome as your browser you'll easily tell if your child has been on bad sites because your timeline will be filled with adverts for unsavoury impotence remedies. Enjoy.

PS printers are still bastards in Linux. Happily they're less bastardish in Linux (and Mac, because Linux and iOS use the same printing software) than Windows. If you like your life buy a decent Laser from anyone but HP - my generation bought the last decent HP printers they made.

dont use parental controls. Its fake, doesnt make sense, and limits learn oportunities. Any Linux works out. Linux Mint works great

Could you block things at the network level?

Fun fact much of knowledge about active directory and security comes from misusing school resources. (More specifically bypassing restrictions)

Fedora Kinoite or Silverblue as base. They are so stable, very nice to know they will not break. You may want universal blue.

GNOME has some form of parental control too but no idea. I would trust it way more than ElementaryOS, as it is one of the 2 main Linux Desktops.

GNOME is also stupid simple to use.

It may break KDE apps themes, and KDE has tons of nice learning apps. But this also goes for all other desktops I think?

Education:

• GCompris
• endlessOS Key
• Solar System
• KGeography
• just search Flathub for "learn"
• Marble

Educational Games:

• Slingshot
• Aqueducts

Random harmless games

• Gameeky
• surge the rabbit or mari0
• Sidetrack
• Billiards
• SuperTuxKart, 0AD, and all the other classics

Easy tools for learning stuff

• Krita, Inkscape, GIMP
• Footage (very easy and minimalist), Pitivi, OpenShot or other video editors, depending on the difficulty (KDENlive, Flowblade and some more may be the best)
• Tenacity/Audacity for audio editing
• ...

Wouldn't this be a usecase for a immutable distro? Cannot really break it? But haven't used one myself yet so not sure how that holds up.

Standard Ubuntu should have you covered.

One word of warning though, don't be too egregious with the parental controls. If your kids are motivated enough, they will find a way around it.

Education really is your best weapon here. Tell them about the dangers of the modern web and computing.

One thing I'd like to suggest is get most of their forward facing apps as Flatpak and let them install software that way instead of using the system package manager (even if it has a GUI). This jibes with others suggesting an immutable base system.

Obviously this may be more of a concern for older kids, but my kid started with Linux and it did fine... Right up until Discord started breaking because it was too old and they didn't want to tangle with the terminal. Same thing when Minecraft started updating Java versions. Discord and Prismlauncher from Flatpak (along with Proton and Steam now) would have kept them happier with Linux.

As for internet, routers come with parental controls these days too, which have the added advantage of being able to cover phones (at least while not on mobile data). Setting the Internet to be unavailable for certain devices after a certain time on school nights may be a more straightforward route than DE tools.

ElementaryOS comes with parental controls iirc

Arch linux? :) joke aside perhaps something with btrfs support is handy. you can easily rollback if something breaks. For parental control don't give the kid sudo/root. other then that restricting websites and stuff is more easily done on a firewall outside of the kid its control.

Almost any of the larger distros will suffice i think. Personally a fan of opensuse tumbleweed which has btrfs support out of the box. use a DE like kde/gnome and i think you have a very solid start

My dad got me a Linux laptop as a kid (I was 10 I think?), and I am so grateful that he did.

To be fair, I already had a huge passion for computing, and it meant that I would constantly toy around with Linux, breaking things and learning how to fix them.

I have been a Linux user ever since, and I feel have learnt so much about computing because of it.

(I started on Ubuntu 12.04, with the glorious Unity desktop)

I'd probably give them Linux Mint.

When I was a kid I remember being confused at what the installation questions were.

If I were my own parent, I’d explain how the OS can sort itself (FHS, Windows, macOS). This gives confidence for installing and inspecting software.

Next, I’d explain how drives work and how they’re represented in different systems. That means partitions and formatting too.

That would then take me to explaining what’s involved in OS installs, erasing everything, dual booting, retaining personal files, etc.

Don't overthink this, it's a kid. She/He would not be yet biased like you or your surroundings. About wife - I don't she would be against teaching kid how a computer works, maybe you explained it so she heard "hey can our kid spend more time in front of a screen and with my geeky thing" :D.

I have a little smart sister (now 9 yo) that use Linux, it started with her making a mess on Windows login (parents laptop) so I asked if she wants "her own space", but instead of new account I installed whole Fedora on second partition. Why Fedora? Because It works and looks nice, there really is no need for "educational", just install education programs on top.
There are basic parental controls in vanilla Fedora, but honestly there turned out to not be needed, she don't hook too much after first shock of tech and like two cries she learned to stop when we say to stop, at least most of the time. Depends on the child, I suppose some really need a timer, that's up go you, nothing bad with that. I have showed her some games too, she loves everything Tux. I teach her how computer works this way, showing more and more programs with time and every new icon of Krita, GCompris, Goxel or Scratch is new great thing. She has Windows at school, but everything works on her space too. Well almost, LibreOffice does not has 'online cliparts', so instead of arguing with 9 year old I told that program at she uses at school is not available on this OS (after a while of teaching she knows OS is something something wow the desktop looks like :D) and showed how to download search copy from the browser. With being honest and just responding on every little childlish curiosity question she already knows more about computers than her mother. I just made it normal for her, as after using Linux for years it is normal for me.

If I may ask, why is your wife not a fan of the idea?

If the child is really young, check out the sugar desktop environment. There is an official distro from sugarlabs and there is also a fedora spin (fedora soas)
If the computer should be a little more functional, the GNOME desktop or the Deepin desktop are good options imo

Basically any mainstream Linux distro is easy enough for a child, today.

For kids who can read tell them to press that 'Windows' key, and start typing what they're looking for.

For younger kids, place appropriate icons on their desktop.

I do my parental controls at the network level (PiHole, etc), so I haven't looked much into parental controls on the Linux host, itself.

I have started to favor PopOS, because it is familiar, because it looks a lot like SteamOs, what their SteamDeck runs, when they reboot into desktop mode, in order to mod their Minecraft.

Puppy?

When i was 9 my sister gave me a laptop she put ubuntu on and it pretty much worked for me. I have a pretty good sense for computers and maths so that probably helped. And on another note, no i didnt get trauma from unrestricted access to the internet because i never searched for stuff like that. The first time I started seeing(and thus avoiding) gore/shock videos was when my classmates also got devices. I think if you teach your kid well they will learn to avoid these things but be carefull because other parents(especially today) dont teach their kids about safety. Your milage may vary, im not a parent.

You probably want EndlessOS

I'd go raspberry pi for kids - gpio projects are fun and linking computer to physical world.
The newer ones are a bit pricey for what they are though.