Would you monitor your teens internet usage?

[cally]

I don't at all. I've occasionally looked at her myspace page but I don't have an account so I don't get too far. I just went in and asked to look at it and she just told me I'm insane. (I did look.) She told me that none of the parents monitor internet use. So my basic parenting instinct is to trust my child and teach them about threats, would you do anything more?

My basic operating theory is that I will never control my child's behavior. If I get into that mindset, then I will fail. So, it's all about trust and teaching.

What do other parents on DU do and for the younger DUers, what did your parents do?

[youthere]

1. My oldest is not quite a teen yet but:

I can tell you absolutely I monitor the internet usage. The only computer we have with internet access is in a common area of the house, and they are not allowed on unless an adult is in the room.

[bigwillq]

2. I don't have kids but

my b/f sure monitors his daughter's usage.
I think I would too depending on the age of the child.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. Kids are grown.

But I don't think I would. I didn't eavesdrop on their phone calls.

[reyd reid reed]

4. Depends on the individual child.

#1 son I don't monitor at all. Of course, he's 22 and has his own apartment. If he doesn't know by now, I'm too late.

#2 son I only monitor peripherally. I keep track of how much time he spends because he'll go overboard sometimes.

Girly-poo. WHOLE 'nuther story. Every. Second.

#3 son isn't much interested in it if it doesn't involve a skateboard, a guitar, a trumpet, or a sketch pad. He doesn't care much about the internet.

#4 son only wants to play...internet holds no appeal beyond a few games.

[RiffRandell]

14. Yikes! How many Kids do you have?

I guess...umm 5?

[reyd reid reed]

16. Close.

Five. Four boys and a girl.

Plus four cats, six fish, a turtle, and a lizard.

Hamster's coming at the end of the month.

:scared:

[shanti]

36. shoot

i thought i held the record with four sons! only one left tho. :hi: we have two cats too.

[ikojo]

73. Why is the girl treated differently than the

boys?

[ScreamingMeemie]

My son doesn't use it at all... My daughter, sparingly and with me

right there...or at PassingFair's House. :hug:

[bigwillq]

6. Come on....

you know she's searching the web for shirtless pics of Magglio! :evilgrin:
:P
:) :hi:

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. Only with me right next to her....

;) :pals:

[bigwillq]

10. My kind of gal!

:pals:

[crim son]

5. Would and do!

It is stupid not to.

[cobalt1999]

8. I agree.

My daughters are preteens, but have their own email accounts and computer in their room. Yes, I monitor/track their usage. Too many risks not to.

[crim son]

23. Yup.

I have very, very good kids. Thing is, I was just like them, and I eventually found trouble because my parents viewed me as so darned good. Therefore I watch my children, for their sakes.

[cally]

13. Why is it stupid not to?

I know I will never be able to control all her behavior so my best chance is to teach her and trust her. That's how I've parented. :shrug:

[crim son]

22. Me too.

I guess it's personal experience. I had two wonderful parents and I was raised to be a good girl. But there were occasions where I failed, miserably, and my parents trusted me to the point where my troubles went unnoticed. You know?

[cobalt1999]

26. because...

IMHO, younger teens are not mature enough to really internalize those lessons. Furthermore, there are adults out there who make it their business to subvert your lessons. It's no contest.

As they get older, I'll probably monitor less and less.

Everyone parents differently, but you DID ask for opinions, so don't take offense with this one. :)

[cally]

30. I'm not offended, just curious

My youngest is 16 and it gets more challenging every day. Don't even get me started on boyfriends.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

27. But my question is, what are you looking for? As a teen myself,

I'm insulted that some people would take such actions against their children that would only lead to distrust betwee the two. There is a fine line between being safe and being intrusive.

[Ohio Joe]

55. I don't have kids but my reason wound be...

Not that I would not trust my kid but the truth is, there are bad people out there and they do use the internet to seek prey. It would depend on the age of the kid, by 15 or 16 I think I would have taught them to protect themselves over the internet but younger then that I would still watch out for them.

[crim son]

69. I respect your point of view.

My kids know I monitor them. Does it foster distrust between us? Possibly. Do I really care? A little. But as a parent, my priority is not that my kids find no fault with Mom; it's that my kids survive to be happy, healthy adults. So far, so good! I have an old-fashioned belief that seems to be borne out by experience... that is, kids do better when they have boundaries. Not fences but boundaries. It's a subtle difference and maybe what you are addressing in your post.

[hunter]

70. Don't know about fences and boundaries.

If the boundaries haven't been internalized by the kid, then what?

I'll bet some of Mark Foley's pages had parents who thought they knew what there kids were up to. But you don't really know anything or how well you've done as a parent until they tell you something... um, yeah, mom, dad, I got this creepy IM. Otherwise you assume your good kids are happily messing around with their friends in a normal teenage fashion. You can't look over their shoulders all of the time, there has to be an atmosphere of trust and transparency in the household that they come to you when something goes wrong.

How that atmosphere is fostered, I can't really say. My wife and I seem to have pulled it off pretty well, and only part of it has been by setting "boundaries." Another part has been by respecting their privacy.

Just for fun I did some internet searches on one of my kid's right now, the one I figured was quietly getting into the most mischief. Besides the academic and athletic awards (I'm very proud!), yes, there was a bit of mischief... some of it a little risqué including a funny illustrated story by friends that almost made me blow beer out of my nose when I saw it. Then there's another page that's sort of dark and goth. (Oh hell, I once dated a woman who took me to see "Eraserhead.")

Hmmmm... what to do now? If I said anything they would whither in embarrassment.

And then what if they do some internet searches on me? Maybe they know enough about me to find some really odd stuff. Maybe they find pictures of me as a young man, maybe even skinny dipping, or perhaps some embarrassing stuff I wrote. Could they be protecting me already?

Being the parent of teenagers is a very difficult job.

:shrug:

[crim son]

75. It sure is.

And we each do what we believe is best, understanding that, ultimately, we do not have control. The knowledge doesn't deter me from trying! because if I did that and something happened to one of my kids, I could never forgive myself.

[greatauntoftriplets]

9. I bet the parents of Mark Foley's victims wish they had....

Kids online are subject to sexual predators and parents should definitely monitor internet use.

[RiffRandell]

11. I would so monitor myspace

if my kid was on it and an underage teen. You can control fucked up people contacting your child at that level. Why wouldn't you?

[astonamous]

12. Yuck...I don't want to see the porn they are looking at.

Just kidding. Yes, I kept track of their internet usage until they were older. However, because we were networked with their computers, I did some blocking to avoid virus' and ads.

I never really had to worry about email as neither one of my boys used email to communicate. My 19 year old still doesn't email much.

Trudy
www.pryorsplanet.com
www.richardpryor.com

[NC_Nurse]

15. I didn't.

Guess I suck. :-(

[cally]

17. Well, I think you are correct but I'm so insecure that

I ask and get the criticism. I just don't think parents succeed when they try to control their kids.

[NC_Nurse]

24. I've always talked to my kids about sex

drugs, whatever....but I trusted them to tell me if someone was pushing inappropriate sh*t on them. I hope I did right.
I agree that too much control usually backfires. Being a parent is pretty damn hard these days.

[LostinVA]

18. If I had one, yes

I monitored my 16-year-old nephew's when he visited me.

[cally]

19. To what extent?

I think there is a difference between a child who lives with you and one who is visiting. You have to choose your battles.

[LostinVA]

25. I monitored what he did

I told him no porn sites or P2P. I checked the history when he was finished. I don't want viruses from P2P, and I don't think a kid his age should be looking at porn. If I had a kid, I would be stricter about certain things they could do online -- too many predators out there.

[mzteris]

20. ** She told me that none of the parents monitor internet use.**

And you BELIEVE HER?!?!?!

:rofl:


But MOM, EVERYONE wears this, EVERYONE's going to BE there, NO ONE else's MOM called to see if there really WAS going to be a chaperone at the party, everyone else drinks a little, etc. . .

Sorry - - - but keeping an eye on things is just good parenting, imo. I'm not saying you have to check every little thing - BUT - if you're radar's raised - there's probably a reason. If she doesn't want you "checking" - there's probably a reason for that, too.

[bridgit]

21. why not, the internet is monitoring your teen...

:)

[idgiehkt]

42. dats da truff

:yourock:

[hunter]

28. All the problems I've had have been with their friends.

Mostly with them installing hideous, virus and spyware laden software. We have a strict "no friends" rule now. Kids will do stuff on other people's computers that they wouldn't dare do at school or on their own computers. Bad music sharing software used to show up on my kids' computers regularly. (But lately it's all iTunes, which has become the currency of allowances and birthday parties.)

We pretty much have an open computer policy in our house in that anyone is free to use any open computer -- so don't leave anything on there that would freak out your parents. I don't want to see any Tommy Lee Jone's penis celebrations or glowing green Paris Hiltons. (Hell, Foley emails on DU are quite awful enough!)

For a time, when they were younger, I had their computers running through a proxy, one that a lot of schools and businesses use, but that would turn out to be a huge nuisance sometimes, especially for me or my wife when we needed something in a hurry. So I quit doing that.

I could be a Network Nazi and monitor everything that goes through our internet connection, but I'm not. If I was, and my kids were being sneaky, they'd probably connect to some hapless neighbor's wireless.

I'm still not quite sure what kind of danger the internet is. We've had some pretty frank discussions about sexual predators and several varieties of myspace inappropriateness. (I dare you, if you are a parent, look at various myspace pages made by high school age kids... bet you didn't know they had pictures like that. When did you grow up and become an MTV star, kiddo?????)

But then I have to think when I was an unsupervised kid I played with rockets, guns, and explosives. Once I had to explain to my mom why my backside was covered with little cuts, and I told her I fell in a rose bush. Other kids I knew were actually having sex, and the sad thing is they didn't know anything. I knew two girls in high school who got pregnant, and it was the honest truth that they really didn't know how that happened when it happened because their parents hadn't told them anything about sex.

[cally]

32. I do have a running battle with the music downloads

But my operating theory is they have much more time and interest in thwarting any spyware that I would try than I do in installing it. I've never tried and I never will. I just think it's a lost cause.

[Guy Fawkes]

29. Well, I am a geek... so here's my 2 cents.

Setting ground rules will get you a lot further than Net Nanny or AOL parental controls- it will also save you money (AOL is expensive and worthless). First, a good web-browser is a must. Internet Explorer comes with Windows, but is full of security holes. Try something like Firefox or Opera (Firefox is better, in my opinion).

Download spyware protection, like Spybot Search & Destroy. If your kids are going naughty places online, you're likely to get spyware. Having good protection- and using it- will save you money on IT help. Trust me on this one- I've fixed a lot of computers that could've been done for free with Spybot.

Get a firewall! ZoneAlarm Security Suite (Sweet!) also has a built in anti-virus and spyware, and is relatively cheap. The best part is, you only need to buy it once. You can download a free trial (14 days) at their website. But as far as cutting edge software firewalls go, ZoneAlarm is your man.


Monitoring internet usage with a keylogger or screen capture utility is your business. But I don't recommend it- you're going to learn things you didn't want to know, and your kids will hate you. Instead, tell them about what you feel is and is not acceptable to look at online and why. Do you think pornography exploits women? Tell them that.

Finally, don't use Net Nanny or similar website filters. They block out websites like the ACLU, HRC, Planned Parenthood,SIECUS, and plenty of other resources your kids will want sooner or later. If your son/daughter is gay or lesbian, Net Nanny will also keep them from finding out that homosexuality is normal.

Edit: Oh, and NO MYSPACE/FACEBOOK! Those websites are a) crawling with predators b) can get you kicked out of school and c) are only there to get your kids to buy crap! (Myspace was started by an advertising company)

[hunter]

46. My setup is different.

First of all, I control the router, and I can shut out a lot of mischief there, or at least I could until all these open wireless sites started popping up. I wouldn't be surprised if kids are responsible for a lot of those, setting them up under their parents' computer-illiterate noses so they and their friends can play internet games. Almost everything portable now has built in wireless -- laptops, PSPs, etc.

Rule number one: stay on our household network, or you lose your computer privileges.

When our kids were younger they didn't have their own computers. There was my computer and my wife's computer (which we use for work) and a family computer out in the open in our family room.

Our house is often overrun with mobs of semi-feral children, our kids' friends, and various "who's that?" acquaintances. Sometimes they'd all hang out at the computer. For my own peace of mind I put filtering on that computer, because I didn't want any calls from some kid's mom that they were getting into computer trouble at our house -- I could say, "look, I keep an eye on them, and we have the same web filters they use at school."

But the kinds of trouble the kids got into often wasn't anything the filtering could help -- it was cruel gossip, questionable music, and other general teenage ugliness. Toxic software brought in on CD's, thumb drives, etc., was a bigger pain.

I afford my children the courtesy of administrating their own computers, because otherwise how will they learn about computers?, but that opened their computers up for abuse by their friends and acquaintances. But after a few operating system rebuilds, lost homework (and temper tantrums and cursing by me!) our kids now seem to be just as interested in keeping their friends off their computers as my wife and I are.

I don't know if my rainbow flag evoked your mention of health sites being blocked, but internet censorship of health issues is a professional concern for both me and my wife. On a personal note, gay or lesbian is almost unremarkably normal in our household. If our kids happened to be homosexual there are perfectly boring (to a teenager) and openly homosexual adults they've grown up with who'd be happy to joke around with them and make them feel comfortable about it.

I agree with you, AOL parental controls, Net Nanny, etc., are toxic. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to filter, for legal reasons or whatnot, check out this:

http://dansguardian.org

[tigereye]

50. you are a very wise man, Guy Fawkes

very similar to what my husband would say. (another geek)

[TimeChaser]

56. I agree with you on all but two points

1) You can use the free version of Zone alarm as a firewall and then have the free version of AVG as your anti-virus

2) I can't speak for high school facebook, but I know that at my (very small) college, some professors use facebook as a way to get information to students quickly and keep in touch. As long as you don't do something stupid like post pictures of you and your underage friends drunk off your ass, it can be useful.

[LibraLiz1973]

31. my 2 cents

I would not set up a spying program on the computer unless my child had done something horrible to warrant the invasion.

Otherwise, I might monitor the cookies & History on a semi regular basis and I would ask to see the MySpace every few weeks.
If the child was unwilling to show me...... bye bye computer privileges.

That said- I work with children but do not have any of my own yet. However, I have played a HUGE part in raising my 3 nieces. (Now 21,20 and 19)
I have an open policy with them and will discuss anything with them. I ask them to be respectful and honest.
Because we have that kind of relationship I have been able to stop them from doing REALLY dumb things. They know I will listen and support them and that I understand what they are going through- but that I will also be blunt about life choices that I feel (or know from experience) are wrong.

Not sure if I would have that same dynamic with my own children. So I tell them all the time that I devoted myself to them to make sure they were raised safely and I want them to return the favor with my kids!

[idgiehkt]

33. yes.

because perps are incredibly skilled at what they do and can be quite coercive and convincing. They will convince a kid that that kid is way more mature than other kids their age and that is what makes them attractive to an older person, and of course many kids want to believe this and many will fall for it.

I grew up around two hard-core predators, and I got to see all the tricks. They weren't online, but no kid is a match for what these scum are capable of manipulation-wise. Kids/teens have to be protected because predators know how to prey on the vulnerable psychology of a child, it's their reason for living.

[Broken_Hero]

34. I don't have kids yet

but my parents were in control of everything while I was growing up...from what I saw on TV, to what music I was listening too...I don't know how many Metallica, Slayer, AC/DC, or Ozzy tapes my mom busted...but it was a LOT!...It was devils music of course. Same with tv, I couldn't watch MTV, or watch R rated movies...

[cally]

37. Would you do the same thing?

I still remember the one novel my Dad told us not to read. I had no restrictions on what I watched or read. He picked up a book that my sister's friend was reading and looked appalled. He told us that he didn't approve because the men on the book didn't show respect to women. It was very bad and noone would support what the character did. He asked his daughters to not read it. I, of course, picked up the book and read it but it had a big impact. I understood that my Dad respected women. I think if I hadn't read the book then I wouldn't have understood. The difference is that I got to choose.

[Broken_Hero]

38. To a point, but that point is WAAY

looser than what my parents did to me. On the other hand, while growing up my parents would buy me T. Clancy novels, and some of them are really effing graphic/sexual in nature, so they didnt' catch everything, plus T. Clancy novels are big, so they didn't read much about the book except the back of the cover.

I would have let my kids listen to music, but there would be restrictions...Some of the rap music, and death metal to me is out of bounds, and I wouldn't let them listen to that, because of the lyrics. There are a lot of music I would let them listen to, Metallica, Eminem, Marilyn Manson, Tupac, Soul Fly...a lot, but some of the music I hear, is OTT for me.

For movies, I would control some of that as well...for instance, stupid, insanely graphic horror movies, aka Wrong Turn I wouldn't let them watch...but if they wanted to watch Boondock Saints are something like that, I would let them...

As for the internet, I would have tighter control because you never know what they are going to be getting into, or what virus they are going to download to your computer. My brothers are really horrible with downloading anything they want, and they get infected with viruses constantly. The internet is a good tool for education, and communication, but it has its pitfalls as well.

As for myspace.com, I have my own account, and if my kid had an account, I would keep tabs on it...people put a lot of personal info on their accounts, and you never know, what sort of attention your kids might be attracting...I have watched a good handful of those nbc Internet predator shows, and they got people showing up to the "bait" houses...I would rather be safe, than...sorry. My wife's cousin has a okcupid.com profile, and she had three men wanting to come to her place constantly...the cousin lives in a small town of like...100 people, and the guys recognized her, and harrassed her...

[shanti]

35. i get the "POS" when i look

he has myspace, and i do monitor it. in fact, i've fiddled with his privacy settings, but he probably doesn't even realize it. one thing i'd like to do is get rid of "tila tequila" on his friends list!!!

[uppityperson]

39. I didn't, mine started when 15 yrs old.

I trusted UPJr and felt needed a place to post stuff and talk without my looking in. Rather have it done at home than sneaking out and doing it. Only kid and we were pretty close though. Even during uppity yrs. I figured if Jr didn't have it together by then, had a bigger problem.

[alittlelark]

40. I have a 12 and a 10

Neither have a computer in their room. I am posting from the family room - where all the computers are. Hubby can go upstairs w/ the laptop, but other than that ALL internet is 'communal space'.

My 12 year old has thus far gotten 1 possibly nefarious message - she showed it to me and we chatted.

[zonkers]

41. Yup. Depends on the kid. I think I would teach my kid how to really

set up their pc for maximum efficiency to support whatever they were really into, making it a means to an end and not an end. I would limit video games. I would also encourage a lot of printing out of text and reading hard copy versus reading off the screen. And no messing around in chat rooms.

[TrogL]

43. Hell, yes

They know I've got snooping software installed and I monitor the router and their history files.

[hunter]

48. So what kind of music videos do they watch?

Please, Dear God, don't let me find this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5615212328010933613&q=type%3Amusic_video&hl=en

(Paris Hilton's New Music Video "Stars Are Blind")

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

65. Heh, you better hope they seriously trust you,

Because if they don't they'll do what I do, and routinely get rid of stuff, as well as type up lots of random BS and visit dozens of websites simultaneously. I've alos been working on some encryption and tihnkging about using a tourserver. Am I paranoid? Yes. Would it make it a Hell of alot harder for someone to acurately moniter what I am doing? Also yes.

While it's your business, my own opinion is still to set up ground rules and then trust your child. (From age 11+ or so)

[Reverend_Smitty]

44. When I was a teenager...

the internet was just gaining popularity, I was 13 when we got AOL in 97 and I was quite mature for my age so my parents gave me free range...an honor system if you will, and I never got into any trouble with it. They basically told me never to give out any personal info over the net because there are a ton of pervs out there so I didn't. Personally I'm glad that I got the freedom and trust from my parents and as a sign of appreciation to them I never abused that freedom and got into trouble (hell I never had a curfew in high school either). With that said, each child is different and I think a parent has to go with his or her gut on this issue. I know I would be pissed if I was 16 or 17 years old and my parents were pulling a "Big Brother" on me, but with younger teens I don't think it is such a bad idea to ask them what they are doing from time to time and educate them about internet predators. When I was 12-13 years old sites like myspace didn't exist so in a way it is a different world than what I grew up in.

On edit:
it's not like they could have monitored me anyway, my dad is the least tech savy person I know...he tried to pay a bill online last week and ended up freezing the computer...lol

[sandnsea]

45. temp files

Yes I monitored my kids' internet usage and regularly looked over their shoulders. I don't see it as any different than getting to know their friends or knowing where they're going on a Friday night.

Kids survive anything except parents who ignore them.

[Bunny]

47. I can and do. My ten-year old likes to find sites where you can

have models try on different clothing and outfits. There are literally thousands of these types of sites, ranging from Disney-style Cinderella models to XXX porn, apparently. My 14-yr. old came to me one day and said I should see what the younger one was doing online. I went to look, and she had found a dress-up site where the "model" had various outfits consisting of black latex and fishnets, and different vaginas that you could place on the model, with each vagina equipped with it's own vibrating, penetrating dildo. :wow:

Well, that was enough to freak this old mom out, so I had the older girl download a program that will block this sort of thing. The little one had no idea what she was looking at, btw, but I should have been monitoring it more closely before it got to this point.

My older girl has this picture of herself on her myspace page:



She also has some rather risque comments in her Comments section, but I know what she's doing IRL so I don't get too worried about it. I do monitor her myspace page on occasion, but I remember what it was like to be 14 so I give her a lot of leeway. She's a good kid.

[tigereye]

52. I wonder if it's worse for girls

my son only looks endlessly for cheats and we have some sort of smut-blocker for his log-in. He isn't really that interested in e-mail, except for fantasy football stuff with his school buddies.


yikes. The internet certainly has some weird stuff out there. :wow:


Nice pic of your daughter. :hi:

[Bunny]

63. Heh, there sure is some really weird stuff on the internets, isn't there?

Thanks for the compliment on my girl's pic. :hi:

[tigereye]

49. yup - I guess I'd probably be looking over their shoulder

occasionally and talking to them about what sites they frequent and what the risks are....in some ways, isn't monitoring those types of interactions similar to wanting to know who kids' friends are? Just a thought. I probably would check out myspace to see if what was posted was safe.... :shrug:


mine is only 10 now, and we have those filters on the computer so they he doesn't end up somewhere unsavory in his search for cheat codes.... I guess some discussion about this will be ongoing.

[hunter]

54. If he's looking for cheat codes...

... getting around whatever internet filter you have is just another cheat. Unsupervised teens can be quite resourceful.

[tigereye]

57. he's not old enough for that, yet

my husband's a software guy, I let him handle all that stuff.

[BluePatriot]

51. The best thing...

...is to work on their critical thinking skills and definitely get across NOT TO SHARE PERSONAL INFO. This MySpace generation seems to offer up personal info all the time, unlike my birth-of-internet-in-High-School generation.

When I was a teen some creeps tried to mess with me on the net. Did I tell them to screw themselves and log off? Yes. Did I not tell my mom/dad because I knew they would horrendously over-react and probably ban me from the computer due to not knowing about context or the Internet at all? Yes.

I guess just try to trust your teen to take care of themselves while keeping a small eye on things *shrug*

[Rosie1223]

53. Yes, somewhat

We have rules:
No chatting with anyone you don't already know IRL.
Don't post anything you wouldn't want your grandmother to see or read. We've now ammended that to include prospective employers.
No personal information. We watched the Dateline Predator episodes and discussed how seemingly innocent facts can easily lead someone right to you.
Mom & Dad respect your privacy but retain the right to review anything you do online.

So far, So good.

[khashka]

58. YES!

I've been on the 'net since no one ever heard of it.... when the few, the proud, the tech geeks built an actual community with manners, respect, and mutual regard. That doesn't much exist anymore....

You can't control your teen's behaviour, but you can supervise it. She needs some freedom to spread her wings and grow up. But teens don't truly know what threats are out there, so she also needs someone to protect her - don't clip her wings or violate her privacy, but be aware in case something bad might be going on. It's probably not. But she needs to know you aren't trying to interfere in her life (and won't) but want to be there for her. (Easy to say but hard to do.)


You didn't say her age and that makes many differences.

Khash.

[hunter]

59. Fuck, I've had community, respect, and mutual regard...

...but damned never any good manners.



Why do you insult me like that?

:silly:

[khashka]

60. No personal insult intended

:)


I just really loved the way the Net was and I miss it. (Doubt me? Usenet used to be a collection of various "communities of interest" now it's a total waste of space.)

Khash.

[hunter]

62. Please whisper. I'm hiding from old posts.

There are search terms I will NEVER type into groups.google.com

(I've been on the internet since 1979.)

But "Spock" is always a good one.

http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=spock&num=10&scoring=r&hl=en&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_ugroup=&as_usubject=&as_uauthors=&lr=&as_qdr=&as_drrb=b&as_mind=1&as_minm=1&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=4&as_maxm=10&as_maxy=1985&safe=off

On edit: This is weirdly relevant to the original post. I never really expected a lot of the stuff I wrote on the internet to be available to EVERYONE someday. I now write with the awareness that I can easily be connected to my posts, and it's just a courtesy by various people that I'm not, but I used to assume, maybe not consciously, that the internet would remain a fairly private playground for computer geeks.

[idgiehkt]

77. that is so true.

if you hang around any website long enough, and are forthcoming about your personal life because you think you are posting under an anonymous 'username', then when someone has your handle they can read your whole life history.

I'm not crazy about that. Even newspaper articles are archived after a very short time. It's worrisome to me.

[MrCoffee]

61. Hell yes

I have a 2 year old, and you better believe i'm gonna pay attention to what she's doing online when she gets old enough.

[JVS]

64. By forbidding it completely and telling him/her to get back to studying!

[hatredisnotavalue]

66. Best advise....

Set up the computer in the kitchen. Works really well for this family because someone is always going in and out of the kitchen.

[kryckis]

67. From another perspective perhaps

I'm not a parent. I actually still live with my parents. We got internet in ca 99 and I was instantly intrigued, and I was never monitored. I taught myself HTML, built my own blog and started sharing my thoughts online and made friends all over the world, even if they were just imaginary. It was fantastic and it helped me through a lot of dark parts of my life when I didn't have real friends I felt comfortable confiding in. I also flourished artistically and learned English through writing and reading. Had my parents been monitoring what I did I would never have done any of this.

Of course, I've made mistakes. I've installed spyware and virus, but I payed the price and I now have what I call spider sense with this sort of shit. I would have liked someone to warn me about certain things though, that I regret now, like posting my photo online. I didn't realize when I was 15 that those photos, although nothing particular, will always be around.


While I'm not judging anyone who would monitor their children, we are all in different situations after all, I just wanted to share my experience that there is another side to the horror-ridden internet with predators, porn and trojans.

[dback]

68. Speaking as a teacher: nope--but use filters if you must

The point is to make them responsible for their own choices. If you want to limit or keep a lid on those choices via parental controls, filters, etc., more power to you. But then, you need to back off and let them do their own thing--just let them know they can come to you if they encounter anything disturbing, odd, etc.

[HEyHEY]

71. If I wanted to be a "drag"

[philosophie_en_rose]

72. Not as a rule, but maybe.

I'd trust my kid, but I'd also want to monitor the computer for viruses and such. I'd definitely call out the kid for exposing the computer to porny spyware or trojans.

If the kid had a myspace, I'd probably not read it. However, I don't think there's a reasonable expectation of privacy for myspaces and livejournals and such. If the teen's too dumb to keep the world from reading it, he or she can't assume it's private.

[nini]

74. yes.. and hell yes

but the degree I would do it depends on the kid. Some kids may not need too much - others would need to be watched closely.


Anyone who doesn't watch their kids is asking for it and I don't mean it's necessarily their kid that is the problem.

[jrandom421]

76. Always have, always will

All internet connections at our house go through the proxy server. Not only is this great for shared backed up storage, but I can filter out the viruses, spyware and malware. All the kids know it's being monitored, and that I check it on irregular intervals. If they attempt to bypass the server or even disconnect it, I get immediate pages. If they use VPN tunnels, I get notified. Same goes for file sharing. The kids are sharp and tech savvy, but after getting grounded for up to a month at a time for messing with the server and the ISP, they've learned NOT to mess with Dad! :)

[grasswire]

78. the 13 girl in this house has had a lot of troubles on the net

She got hooked on Habbo Hotel and spent a lot of her dad's real money by purchasing "currency" via her cel phone -- call a certain number and "buy" this currency, which you can use to purchase clothing, furniture, whatever for your character there.

Habbo is a portal for a lot of other problems, just as myspace is. She got recruited to run the "military" room as her Habbo "job" and from there met people who directed her to private web sites with recruiting ads and all kinds of links.

People she met on Habbo and/or myspace also gather at a place called Piczo, which appears to be full of predators, too. The personal pages are pretty smutty. Our girl had made up several different personal profiles with photos she'd filched from the Internet. I had to impress upon her the fact that some innocent people's photos were being used on her piczo page to illustrate her fake characters and that wasn't right.

The fanzines are a problem right now -- our girl and another friend are absolutely addicted to what is basically soft porn fanzines and it's interfering with real life and homework so there's a crackdown coming this weekend.

Her high school brother was obsessively addicted to World of Warcraft for nearly ten months, but that has eased off. He has NO interest in any of the risky Internet behaviors. No chat, no IM, no message boards, nothing.

[Dem2theMax]

79. Hell yes. It's not so much about your child,

as it is about the Mark Foley's of the world.

You better believe I'd be monitoring my child's internet life.