Kids on the Net. Need Advice.
- Thread starter Gilgamesh
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This is flat out a false dichotomy, and you know it.
My experiences are with how I was raised (of course, seeing as I don't actually have children, that apparently makes anything I say invalid). My mother instilled in me a core value system and trusted me enough to let me use that value system in situations where she is not there.
I'm wondering why I have to keep repeating myself as if others aren't reading what I wrote and are instead putting words/scenarios in my mouth/situation.
The point is not about how the kids see it or even if others have good advice or perspective on the situation, but on what's going to set his parental mind (his particular psyche) at ease. He's not saying "you know nothing about kids or raising them, etc. because you're not a parent" so much as "you know nothing about how I'm feeling concerning this because you're not a parent."
This is my point, you're assuming how I parent my children 100% of the time, and not simply how they're online, here in the home.
I teach them values, and protection every single day. I have since they were old enough for comprehension. They've always known that if they do something bad in school, I will find out because I talk to all their teachers through email. I go to every open house and speak with their teachers in front of them.
I'm an involved parent who isn't strict with his kids, my children have ALOT of freedoms most children never have. I do however, attach those freedoms with a warning (I will know what you did). I do not see how that's -Not trusting them- vs telling them their actions have consequences.
Exactly. I don't let my kids go to bars and raves. They aren't old enough to understand or handle themselves in the situations that arise in those locations.
Likewise I don't let them visit online sites that aren't age appropriate.
For the "real world" I know where they are at and with whom through a variety of means - mostly because we are their source of transportation and we know the people they travel with as well.
For the internet I use a router that allows me to adjust each individual connected device's settings. I keep the computers which have internet connections in an open area of the home.
I'm not talking about 17 year olds here - these are 3 to 12 year old kids. Yes, the three year old uses the computer to visit nickjr, watch netflix, and play flash games. Yes, there are ads which can take him to lots of places I don't want him to go. It's not merely an issue of trust.
I suppose if you're the kind of parent that allows your elementary school children to decide where to go, and with whom with no oversight, then you might also allow your elementary school children to go to any website with no oversight.
I simply choose to parent my children in a different way - by teaching them little by little, and exposing them to more advanced situations while monitoring them so I can understand and discuss with them where they may be making choices I believe they should more carefully consider.
It's not a leash, or a lash - it's a watchtower and a bullhorn. After they understand a principle they may make a choice I disagree with - but I'm going to keep yammering at them until they at least understand the principle and consequences.
I can't do that if I turn a blind eye, and I don't understand how observation and discussion is bad parenting as you appear to imply.
Besides, 20 years ago you couldn't as easily bring the strip clubs and predators into your own home, but the internet does that for you. Forgive me for believing that your experience as a child regarding online safeguards is likely useless. Yes, I too used BBS's, online services, and the internet two decades ago and there's no comparison to the ease with which one can find -anything- online today. Even the late nineties are relatively benign compared to right now. We didn't even have google, and altavista and yahoo are pale comparisons for search. Internet advertising was still in its infancy and more often consisted of simple scams (punch the monkey!) than today's predatory sites intending to install malware and expose a little skin.
Not that I'm trying to teach you how to parent, but I think you're laying it on a bit thick about how paranoid parents are ruining their relationships with their children.
If you have a bad relationship with your child, it's more likely because you paid them too little attention than because you paid them too much attention.
Let me also make it clear that the only reason I have Team Viewer (a camera pointed at them) the entire time they're online is because I don't have anything better at the moment just to know where they went/who they talked to. That's all I want to know, and that's all I want out of nanny-tech.
In the real world I have their teachers and their friend's parents. Online, I have nothing like that without a nanny tech.
In the real world I have their teachers and their friend's parents. Online, I have nothing like that without a nanny tech.
It's all about stages. You don't let the 2 week old out of your sight. It's 24/7 monitoring. When they start toddling you put up gates and you still keep an eye - or ear - on them 24/7.
When children take their first steps on the internet you do the same thing. It amazed me to see what my kids did with the computer and the internet - they did things I had never imagined. Just like my most recent child went straight from rolling and scooting to walking, completely skipping the expected crawling stage. I put one of my kids on a trusted site, and they ignored the animated ads, and the colorful pictures of activities they could do, and clicked on a star on the page. It took them to an interesting part of the site I didn't know existed, and obviously the publisher left it there as a treat for those kids that allowed this thing to catch their eye.
You simply can't anticipate what children will do online, nor what other users and publishers (and predators) will do online.
While it may seem draconian (rigorous, unusually severe or cruel) to you, it is the bare minimum one can do to keep tabs on what their children are dealing with. I suppose if one has extraordinarily intelligent, thoughtful, forward, and adaptive children, then one will feel comfortable letting them plumb the depths of the walled garden unaccompanied. However each of my children have been very different, and after 6 of them I know for certain can't assume or anticipate anything. Some of them will find something that disturbs them and come and ask about it. Others will see something they don't understand and may scare them, and rather than trying to resolve it they'll lock it away mentally, and try to avoid it in the future.
The problem with that is that it becomes a stumbling block to them later. They may suddenly have trouble doing their book report, and won't explain why, but after some significant work with them we find out they once saw a strange medical procedure on wikipedia, and thus they avoid wikipedia altogether with this tiny little worry that could have been resolved in seconds if we had known they saw it. If you've worked with children before, you understand this isn't them trying to hide something - they often themselves don't know why they do something in a particular way after they've been doing it that way for awhile.
You can, in fact, wall off the garden and still give a child enough rope to hang themselves. I don't think that one should restrict children without also monitoring them for the above reasons, but also so you can learn when to expand the garden, or grant some access outside the garden for a field trip with the parent.
Giving them the internet access alone was my expansion. I've put off giving them their own computer to use online for a very long time. They've been asking for a couple years now and to ease the issue I'd take them to the library 2-3x a week and let them use those computers.
So finally I decided to get one here at the house and I was absolutely crazy with worry. So I got Team Viewer as it was the only program I was already familiar with but I don't like -being over their shoulder every second- so that's why I made this thread, to find alternatives.
Great advice all around. Thus far and I think I'm probably going to go the spectorsoft route (Thank you Dave ) and see how that works. It'll be nice for them to use the computer when I'm not home or too busy to sit at my own system.
Yeah, I'm basically lazy. I could (and perhaps should) be monitoring them more, but instead we keep the computers in an area of the home we can see and hear what's going on, and our children's schoolwork requires internet access anyway, starting with second grade.
But with 6 computers the kids could possibly be using at any given time, it's an impossible task, so we give them a lot more latitude simply due to logistics.
But with 6 computers the kids could possibly be using at any given time, it's an impossible task, so we give them a lot more latitude simply due to logistics.
BananaHands
Staff member
Put 'em on Halforums. We'll ruin the internet for them.
Minotaur Penis.
Gil I did not get to read every post here, what I did read showed many good people with the right idea on parenting. There are many things you can do, including spending time with them as they surf or play (or get onto a forum and have the internet ruined for them). My kids did not get huge monitors because as an IT guy I wanted them to have the luxury of huge monitors. No, they got those because I could see what they were up to and when they tried to minimize a screen as I passed by. They also have a very open area in which their computers reside, not hiding in the bedroom with a notebook allowed. You have a good system going and you might want to consider adding Bluecoat's firewall to the mix, it is free and filters content though I have found it to be too restrictive. For example blocking breast also blocks breast cancer research for school papers. Security is always a balancing act with functionality. I have set up Spectorsoft for friends and clients and it does a nice job of capturing IMs, emailing regular screen captures to you. It would allow you to review their contacts\content\destinations online also providing the opportunity to review later and show them anything you don't like as well as letting them know when they show proper behavior. There is no substitute for good parenting and there is no substitute for making them vividly aware that you know what they are up to. Mention an IM or a remark made online that they don't think you know about once and they will be certain you see all.
Pretty much everything you wrote got addressed in the posts.
Thanks for the advice though, Spectorsoft is mst likely what I'm going with.
Dave
Staff member
What's really funny is that when we got my daughter her computer for graduation she just assumed that Spectorsoft was on it. It wasn't. When she found out she thought it was funny, but it did have an effect on what she posted online. Like the time she told her friends on Facebook that I was abusing her. She was young and did it for attention, but kids just don't understand the ramifications of what they say and do all the time. To rely on their judgement on anything is like asking for trouble.
doomdragon6
Staff member
I'm just saying, I know what -I- did online back then, and I know what 13-year-olds do online now, and I wholeheartedly agree with trying to slow it a bit.
I don't even mean looking at porn and such, I'm talking about things that involve other people. That's where touble can come from.
I don't even mean looking at porn and such, I'm talking about things that involve other people. That's where touble can come from.
No, he's not.
Dave
Staff member
Who do you think taught him?You know this from personal experience?
Around here, how would anyone know the difference?
Oi, I'll have you know...
Yeah, you're right, I'm still bad in the cyber-sack.
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