User blog comment:Semanticdrifter/Updates to COPPA/@comment-3335785-20130624225658/@comment-1216259-20130625021938

...Have you told them that children are going to be encouraged to falsify their information by virtue of the fact that they can't edit until they do?

Well, regardless, would asking for birth YEAR work? It's not that much to type, doesn't have any variants (like September 8, 1991 vs. 9/8/91), & would screen age without mentioning the 13 benchmark, which is what I assume they're worried about.