by Tracee Sioux
I found myself facing a modern-day dilemma when my 6-year-old daughter, Ainsley, started surfing the net.
I suppose in my mind it I thought it would go something like this:
My 10-year-old daughter would come to me and say, Mom, I need to do a report in school. Is it okay if I learn to Google now?
Of course, Darling, but you know the Internet has a lot of issues with inappropriate content, so we need to go over a list of rules about opening email and files and what pages are off-limits.
Yeah okay. Here's how that went in real life.
Mom. Log me on to Disney.com.
I obeyed.
How do you spell Zac Efron?
Z-A-C - space - E-F-R-O-N
After 15 minutes of watching Oprah and folding laundry, I look over at the computer screen and realize my 6-year-old daughter has been randomly clicking entertainment gossip blogs and tabloid websites (read: soft porn). It's only a matter of time before Zac Efron's girlfriend, Vanessa Hudgens, appears naked on our computer screen. Not to mention all those nasty text ads advertising the actual sale of girls, she might randomly click.
Ainsley, I think you should go read a book or something.
After the kids are in bed,Honey, I think it's time to install the Internet Safety software, immediately. Ainsley learned to Google today.
Hop on over to the Internet Safety Advisor for Parental Safety Tips for guidelines on how to allow children to safely navigate their first movie-star crush.
And please, leave all the advice you've got on good software and effective rules.
3 comments:
Oh jeez. Yep.
Izzy Neis is the internet safety for kids guru -- I don't remember her URL, but she's on my blogroll, so you can link from there.
Step one - you have to give her a desktop of her own to log into. None of these solutions will be useful if she uses YOUR login which will give her full access. (Plus it will let her mark her favorites/bookmarks without them getting mixed up with yours.
Vista has good Parental Controls built into it (finally). Even XP has some limited control on what they can and can't get to.
Norton Internet Security has one, but it is pretty basic (meaning you will need to approve a lot of sites that it blocks inadvertently).
McAfee's controls are better, but the program is a resource hog and slows your PC down from time to time.
NetNanny is an excellent (if not the best) standalone product for limiting what you child can and cannot get to. It takes several minutes longer to set up at the beginning over the install and go solutions, but you have better control of what you will allow without having to "approve" sites quite as much as you would with other solutions.
Thanks mom and jaymonster. I appreciate the advice. I wasn't prepared for this yet. I'll look into setting her up.
How do you prevent your kids from logging on as you? Do you password protect your own desktop?
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