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I've heard of some people who monitor all their kids' emails (or at least they claim to - not sure how possible that really is). Doesn't that sound like a bit of an invasion of privacy?
Other people seem to just let the kids get on with it, not really knowing what they are up to on line.
What do you think is an appropriate line to take? How can we keep our kids safe without shutting them down?
Are there any fool-proof tools for blocking online gambling sites and sites with explicit content? Or do I just have to watch what the kids are doing?
There are software tools like Net Nanny, or you can change service provider - some are now offering "protected" connections. However, my daughter is 6 and she never gets past the CBBibbes site - sorry!
hi all Im very new to the dad talk info but I feel this subject is a huge one, as alot of parents don't monitor what there children do online which is very scary as i've seen some of the things my younger cousins do online (nothing over the top) but it has me thinking that there are youth/kids who are doing a lot worse and I think its something that defiantly needs monitoring.
We have a rule about the door always being open on the room to the little study we have... We make sure we go in regularly... or if the kids use my work laptop its in the front room.. I know we talked about this in front of another parent a couple of years ago, and she thought we were over the top and felt confident about her teenage daughter having the pm (wit webcam) in her bedroom... Anyway she came back to us the next week saying she'd gone into her daughters room to find her scantily clad in front of the webcam chatting to an older guy! Needless to say the PC found its way downstairs... can't quite remember the story but it might have found its way via the bedroom window.... 😐
There is an article on online safety on the site : http://www.dadtalk.co.uk/articles/online_safety.php it does cover some of this stuff
Buzz
My youngest daughter has 2 email accounts - one of which I set up on a domain name I own. This one is the one I ask her to use for certain things, like setting up things like club penguin - the reason I gave her is that if she starts getting any dubious emails, I can simply shut the account down to stop it. What she doesn't know is that any emails that come into this account are invisibly copied to me so I can keep and eye on things. The other email account is a hotmail account which I have no control over, but this is for contact with her circle of friends, and I don't think it would be appropriate for me to monitor this anyway.
As for webcams - I'm not greatly in favour of them, and none of my children have them. I don't see that they greatly improve communication with their friends so the problem never arises in my home.
I did the same thing for my teenager, allowing an email address, but to be monitored. I did however make them aware of the watch I have over the account. There does not seem to be an issue or any sneaking around. . .. yet
Hi all
I have attached a couple of videos from You Tube - you will need to watch them all the way through as the message is strong but is very worrying. It certainly made me look at the way my kids surf the net.
They were produced by the "Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre" and they are a must for every parent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK5OeGeudBM&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o8auwnJtqE&feature=channel
Mario
Those youtube links were pretty scary,it's one of those things you will probally think it won't happen to my kids but it can.
On the issue of monitering your kids internet access,I have a 14 yr old step-son and we had an issue about 2yrs ago where he'd had a couple of friends round,they were in his room and were looking/downloading some porn off Limewire and I don't know if anyones used the site but it's crazy as you'll put in a music artist for example and you'll also get some porn come up 😕 ? ,the big problem this particular time was some of the titles that had come up were pretty graphic/sick really,im sure they didn't mean to download these particular titles but they did. We obviously read the riot act and turned his internet off for a while,my big concern was that if the unthinkable happened and there was a knock at the door the powers that be might not believe it was kids messing around with stuff they don't understand,they would think it was me.
Now he doesn't download stuff and every now and again me or my wife will have a look at his computer,I think we really scared him that time and we havn't had any problems like that for ages now.
I think the internet is a great thing but can also be a real problem.
my other half has a 17 year old daughter who lives with us, since she was about 12 we have let her have very limited internet use, we bought her a laptop for her 14th and let her have free run with it but i also installed a spy program to monitor her activity without her knowing i would then check it at night when she had gone to bed within 4 days of her having the laptop we found that when she was supposed to be doing her homework she was spending a measly 3 mins on her homework and 2 hours playing on the internet, when asked about it she outright lied ( she's a compulsive liar anyways ) about it and so the laptop was taken off her and since then she can only use it for doing her school/collage work but she must do it in our pressence at least that way we know she's doing her work.
As we have had trust issues with my partners daughter for the past serval years we have felt that it too dangerous to let her have unrestricated access to the internet as we could not guarentee we would get the truth from her about anything and she is very easily led as well making her a nice easy target for online predators.
My feeling with this is that it has done her no harm what so ever.
clarkkent, me being a geek, what software did you use? I thankfully don't have an issue yet, but my daugther (7) has just started playing a game called Moshi Monsters - and reminded me that I really need to spend some time digging into this sort of software.
(which is independent of how I communicate that to her!)
Hi Batman
Most good kids websites ask for parent permission first and they have a parents area so you can look to see what the fuss is about. It is worth spending 20 minutes with your daughter asking her to show you the website.
She will think you are interested but actually you are monitoring the site.
Mario