Will is not allowed to play Geometry Dash on his computer.

This seemed like a fairly straightforward parenting decision. We turned on parental controls. We blocked the game. We deleted the game.

Except the game kept coming back.

He could reinstall it without asking. Then I discovered a copy sitting on his desktop that could not be deleted, moved to the trash, or even properly downloaded.

So, naturally, I opened Terminal.

And there it was.

My seven-year-old's forbidden copy of Geometry Dash was owned by root.

For the non-tech parents: basically, the computer thought Geometry Dash outranked Will. And me.

I have no idea exactly how he accomplished this. I do know that this is a child who was given a parental control and apparently thought, interesting technical problem.

We eventually removed it with administrator privileges.

Geometry Dash: 0.
Mom: 1.
Will's future career prospects in cybersecurity: alarmingly strong.