Internet and your children

[PitbullMidwest]

My 11 year old daughter uses the internet daily but only because we subscribe to an internet filter service, it is the best I've ever seen. It catches sites that are even hosted by servers owned by **** companies, this can be a little annoying to the wife and me but you can override the filter with a password or submit the site for review to the company. We use <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.familyconnect.com>Family Connect </A> and are very secure in our daughter's online safety.

Our school principal informed me at a meeting Tuesday night that one of our daughter's friends had her email password "stolen" (she probably gave it out) and the person was sending hardcore and child **** to everyone in her addressbook, he was also telling the other kids he was a teacher at our school. I immediately went home and asked if Emily was on the girl's email list and was relieved to hear that she wasn't. I then added the girl's name to the filtered list. The police are involved but the internet provider isn't helping much and the principal hasn't told us who the provider is yet at the police's request.

If we did not have a filter, my daughter would not be on the net alone.

 

[HunterdonPaul]

Thanks very much PitbullMidwest, I may give them a try. It does seem that a filter service is the only way to go. At age 9, even when I were to surf with her she still sees things I don't want her to see. The search engines are really bad (or good) at finding sites that are X rated by searching for the simplest words. I hate answering "what was that" questions. It takes all of the pleasure out of the experience.

Thanks again,
Paul

 

[PitbullMidwest]

I'm not on commission for Family Connect /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif but it even filters search engine results, it will replace banners and ads with the standard red "X" . They used to have a free thirty day trial offer, you might want to give it a try.

 

[DavidInNH]

<font color=blue>Was it here that I saw the story of the undercover cop cruising the chat lines seeing if he could get the kids to give away enough info that he could track them down?</font color=blue>

I don't know if you saw it here, but we have a cop in Keene, NH that has made a specialty of this. He gives a demo where he logs on claiming to be a kid and within a very few minutes somebody in the chat room, also claiming to be a kid, will approach him. I talked to a child psychologist that has seen the presentation and he said it is very scary - he can go into almost any teen chat room and is approached in very short order. The cop has managed to catch a few of these predators. The last one I read about flew cross country to meet him in a local hotel.

If I had young kids, I would be far more worried about the chat rooms than about anything else on the net.

 

[Trev]

Hi Paul,

This is probably an age-old problem.. I don't have any great advice. But maybe some of my rambling will give you ideas.

First is education.. explain to your kids that they don't give their names, addresses, phone numbers out.. to anyone. Ever. They don't choose usernames that indicate gender or age. And so on..

Explain to them that there are a lot of predators out there, and a lot of scum trying to get rich through ****, etc. Explain pedophilia, in detail!

I believe a 9-year-old is old enough to comprehend these things. And needs to know about them.

Then monitor what she does. If she isn't mature enough, it will quickly become apparent. If she's got a good and open relationship with you, she will be able to ask you questions when she isn't sure.

An equal danger, which you didn't mention but I'm sure you've thought of, is all of the misinformation on the net. This is a good chance to explain to her about opinions versus knowledge backed up by solid research. Get her into questioning the validity of everything she finds out there.

These are lessons that will serve her well for her lifetime.. and a beautiful opportunity for you to share them with her.

Just my thoughts...

Bob

 

[Wingnut]

Paul,

it's tremendously refreshing to see someone who cares enough about his children to spend the time to supervise their activities.

imho, children do NOT have the experience to know what is real, valid or moral ... and won't unless they're lovingly educated.


you're doing the right thing!

(/opinion)
pete

 

[RanchMan]

Bob -

Good points. I especially liked this one...

<font color=blue>...misinformation on the net. This is a good chance to explain to her about opinions versus knowledge backed up by solid research.</font color=blue>

He could use TBN as an example /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif - "See dear, this person believes this tractor is bad when they don't have any first hand experience with one, while that person, who owns one....."

 

[Trev]

Ranchman,

<font color=blue>He could use TBN as an example /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif - "See dear, this person believes this tractor is bad when they don't have any first hand experience with one, while that person, who owns one....."</font color=blue>

I was thinking more of the snake oil salesmen and the like, but you have a point!! ROFL!! /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bob

 

[Mosey]

I think you’re being somewhat overprotective, but don’t go as far as your co-worker and let your daughter on the web unsupervised either. Rather than get rid of the TV, we control what the kids watch. They don’t turn it on without asking and don’t change channels without asking. The same applies to the web. As others have stated, you can use software that will not allow her to visit certain sites. They have installed “Websense” where I work and it will not allow people to go to **** sites, gambling, etc. It works too, I can’t even get to the Hoosier Lotto web site to check lotto numbers (by the way, I rarely buy a lotto ticket, only 2 or 3 time a year for the fun of it). I would keep her off any chat rooms though, those are dangerous. I think Trev has some good advice. Your going to have to stay one step ahead of her though, once she gets to where she knows more about the internet and the browser and other software than you do, you’ll lose control! It will be hard to keep it clean, even ads are too sexual sometimes. For example the ads for that X10 camera with some scantly clad woman and the statement “What do you want to see?”. Are they selling those things to people who hide them in women’s locker rooms or something? What about some weirdo who works at a high school or college getting a hold of one of these! Anyway, there needs to be some better control about advertising on the web.