Limiting InternetAccess – The Parents Duty

With school out, the kids never go to bed until the wee hours of the morning, which means half their life is spent up while I am sound asleep. Why should this concern me, you might ask? One simple word, which has many meanings: Internet.

Between online chatting (think MSN, AOL Instant Messaging or Yahoo messaging), social home page sites (MySpace, FaceBook, and more), my kids are exposed to the evils of the world 24 hours a day. And becuase it is my {job|duty) (at least until they are 18) to watch over them, parenting has, in fact, become a 24 hour a day job.

So, how do you protect them from the evils of the Internet? Step one: no computers behind closed doors. Keep those kid's PCs out in the open where there is a risk they may get caught. It is amazing how much more careful they are when they imagine someone may be watching.

As far as social sites, instead of saying "NO", say "As long as I am a member, and you keep them to invitation only!" Again, the slight fear that I may actually know how to find and look at their home pages is enough to keep at least the more honest of kids a little safer.

If you don't trust your child (shame on you for not doing a better job parenting when they were younger), then there are more drastic steps to take. For example, most chat systems can be recorded, so simply set them up to record (you choose whether to disclose this to your child or not), and review them as much as you feel is necessary.

And the most drastic step of all, limit Internet access to while you are awake hours. Almost all home routers have some form of restrictions capability, and it is as simple as restricting access for a given MAC address except to particular hours of the day.

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