Cleaning out the detrius of our home machine I found that LilMiss has been surfing pron like mad. She’s also been IM’ing people that she claims are friends, but I’m not sure.
She’s 11.
For the most part, I’m quite tolerant of all things - I don’t ban any music, TV, books. She’s always been good about asking questions and knowing what she can personally tolerate and what she can’t. We talk quite a bit about internet safety and she knows what I deem acceptable. Obviously, something was missed in the discussions. I have not talked to her about what I’ve come across tonight.
I’ve downloaded a trial tracker program, but it’s fairly expensive to buy.
My questions to you are:
Should I talk to her again, knowing the eyeball rolling and smacking of teeth will commence (by both of us)?
Keep mum, but review the tracker program and then bring questionable convos/sites to her attention?
Sit behind her whenever she’s online?
DL Net Nanny and let her scream?
I’m not sure. Yesterday I came on her IM’ing a friend from school. Today another friend from school was IM’ing her. I don’t want to come down on her - the whole “Hello Pot, my name is” comes into play. The sites that were listed? Stuff that made me blush, and that’s difficult to do. I don’t want to be the gestapo, but I also don’t want her to get into a situation she can’t handle.
Also, please tell me of some good, inexpensive, chat monitor programs.
Thanks.
Here’s what my SO and I do about his teenaged girls online: we monitor every damn thing. We keep the computer in the living room, so anyone can peek over and see what’s going on at any minute. He occasionally logs into their chat as them to see who IMs him (and he’s gotten some surprising IMs!). We used the parental controls to limit what websites they can access, but we also alter those as needed; for example, the oldest likes to research Wicca, so he overwrote the controls to allow her those sites.
Why are we so paranoid? Because a friend of mine told me his 15-year-old step-daughter gave out her full name and address to some guy on the internet, and this 25-year-old guy showed up at the house to pick her up (along with a friend of his). Because my SO once noticed that the pic of a guy who was chatting in a teen chat room with his 14-year-old daughter appeared to be quite older… he was 20 if he was a day, and I’d say he was closer to 25. “Close that, now,” he said, and daughter did without argument.
An 11-year-old viewing porn that weirds you out? Could be mere curiosity, but I’d have a little talk about that. I’m dealing with 14+ teens here, and they’re different animals.
So I guess I’d go for the 1, 3, 4 combo. #2 seems a bit passive to me. Just MHO, worth what you paid for it.
WhyKid and his friends exchange porn url’s at recess. He’s 12. The first time we found him going to porn sites he was…lemme see…9!
I did my best not to freak out. I did my extra best not to think about all the Penthouses I swiped from my brothers to read when I was about 9 or 10.
I did tell him that while I understood his curiosity, and that it was perfectly normal for a young man, he was to cut. that. out. right. now. For me, it was easiest to couch it in spam and virus terms. Mom does not appreciate sitting down at the computer and seeing dicks and chicks in pop ups that come over the DSL in the middle of the night. Nor does she appreciate having to become an amateur haXor to get her own system to stop locking at boot-up and her browser to go to the damn site it’s told to! (One virus we picked up was so exciting and unique that the guys at the de-virusing sites I begged for help asked me to email it to them so they could study it. Apparantly, it was quite impressive.)
I also switched us to Firefox, which itself pretty much takes care of the pop-up and virus issue, but I didn’t tell him that.
We did also have a teeny chat about unrealistic depictions of men and women (which was easy because we go to clothing optional hippie festivals, so he does know most people don’t look like that) and also about how sex makes friendships and other relationships SO much more complicated than he’s ready for. I also pointed out the irony of getting viruses from computer sex. Luckily, he found that funny.
Net Nanny is indeed an option. If my lecture hadn’t done it, I would consider it.
And there’s no chance that she accidentally stumbled on these sites? I never looked for porn, but the occasionally google search would accidently turn some up. This has happened several times. Of course, the pictures will go into the cache, but that doesn’t mean I was purposely surfing for porn. (Amusing anecdote: my poor mother thought she remembered an unfinished furniture store called Naked Wood, so she googled the name yesterday, and was quite surprised at the results.)
No, it wasn’t by chance - she looked up www.fucker, www.penis &c.
As she was relaxing on the couch and I was being spanked at poker on line, I offhand commented “So, I cleared out the 'net history and stuff. Care to explain all the porn?”
silence
“The what?”
She stated she just “wanted to see” and was grossed out by it. I then asked why she chose to save an obviously photoshopped pic of a naked guy with an enormous erection. “It was photoshopped?” :smack: You know, if you’re curious I will direct you to more educational sites. “No, it was gross”.
I am going to come down as a hardass here, but I say monitor every minute. Don’t let her be alone on the Internet, why would you do such a thing? There are tons of freaks out there.
When she’s a little older and has shown she can be trusted - which I don’t see right now - then maybe you can back off a bit.
There’s a reason why I hang onto AOL with it’s guardian features. Hallboy (aged 11) knows that I receive a report (email) each time he logs online that tells me how long he was on, what sites he successfully visited, what sites he wasn’t permitted to visit, how many people he IM’d (and how many IM’d him–as well as who is on his buddy list), and who he is allowed to send/received emails to/from. He also knows that he’s not allowed to change his password, that I know his password, and that he’s not allowed to give out any information to anyone online. And, yes, he knows I will sign on under his screen name and check things out periodically.
Although he just got a computer for his room, it’s not hooked up to the internet and is for (mom approved) games only. The internet computer is in the same room where we spend the majority of our family time. With the exception of the recently aquired computer for Hallboy’s room, the Hallgirls didn’t have a computer (or television) in their rooms until they went to college. (And they’ll even say now that kids shouldn’t have computers or televisions in their bedrooms!)
It’s odd to be the sole voice of dissent, but it sounds like many of you are seriously going overboard. Restricting access to content is one thing, I guess, but getting into your kids’ conversations, e-mails, etc. seems to really cross the line. It’s the same thing as using a device to record their conversations for the purpose of “busting” them, and unless you have legitimate cause for concern, it strikes me as uncalled for.
For the record, I recently turned 21, I have been using the Internet for about half of my life (entirely unrestricted), I have seen all manner of bizarre pornography/dismembered bodies/etc., and… I’m pretty alright, really. If you have any respect for your children, be certain they are aware of the ease of impersonation, etc. on the Internet and let them go. This should obviously be modified for very young children or children who are extremely sensitive or whatever, but your kids will be as fine as they’ll ever be.
No offense, but the fact that some kids DO, indeed, hook up with perverts that they meet online proves that the parents are NOT unjustified in their concerns when it comes it IMing. Don’t bother saying that these occurrences are not the norm, or that not all kids are that gullible. That goes without saying. But the worst thing that taking precautions can lead to is a pissed off kid. The worst thing that failing to take precautions can lead to is a story on the TV news about the national manhunt for your missing kid and his or her pedophile buddy. Guess which one I’d pick?
I think being curious about porn at that age is perfectly normal (and we must remember that girls mature much faster than boys and much faster than they did in the past- at eleven she very likely is already menstrating.) I know I had a computer in my room at that age and I have many pleasant memories of long nights looking at ASCII porn on BBS’s.
If I were in that situation I would explain that curiousity about porn is natural, and that she will probably come across a fair amount of it in her lifetime. You should also explain that it’s pretty likely that you will accidently come across what she’s been looking at in the course of regular computer maintainance. That alone would probably stop her. Then you should really emphasize that looking at porn is one thing, but communicating with actual people or giving away personal information can be dangerous, and she should only talk to people she knows personally.
OK, this made me laugh out loud. Then I relayed it to my wife, who also laughed out loud. We don’t have kids yet, but although we both think looking at porn is normal and understandable, we’d worry about Net fare that is too far out of our own comfort zone, such as bestiality, photoshop, and badly overdone boob jobs. I’d say that restrictions are appropriate as long as they aren’t part of some “sex is bad” message, which certainly doesn’t seem to be the case for the OP.
I don’t know how they enforce it, but friends of ours have a rule with their daughter that she doesn’t get to delete her email, so any time they want to see what she’s up to in email, they can go look.
Interestingly enough, she and her friends are notoriously lacking in the “prune old posts” etiquette of passing along emails, so anything they read, there’s the entire history of the conversation going all the way back… they’ve caught some other peoples’ kids in some pretty big whoppers that way…
I do feel compelled to state the obvious, since it hasn’t been specifically mentioned: technically, someone who allows a minor access to porn over the Internet (or any other way, really) is in violation of the law (yeah, I know, pot, kettle of color, etc.). I’m just sayin’.
Good on you for dealing with it the way you have, however. I just go in and delete cookies, files & offline content and clear the browser history every morning before I go to work… another year and a half and I’m clear…
Actually, the worst thing about controls is that your kid decides that your warnings about the potential danger of various things are crap, and ignore you when you try to give them a heads-up on alcohol, driving, sex, and the like. Educate your children that there are Very Bad People out there, and that the Internet can bring them (virtually) to your front door. But don’t try to make out the problem of internet stalking to be worse than it is, lest your children rightly call you on your bullshit.
VerizonDSL includes MSN Premium, which has some nice parental controls. I don’t review emails, nor IM conversations, but anyone looking to get added to the buddy list must be approved. Fortunately, daughter rarely uses chat (12).
I had to become a greater hardass than I already was after the third or fourth virus and block downloading. Explaining where the virii were coming from seemed to help for about a week, maybe 2. Then it’s back to finding unblocked anime sites with dodgy mp3s or screensavers and I’m back cleaning up her computer and sometimes the whole network. And this was despite a current anti-virus program (AVG). Now I need to approve any download or download site.
My son, when at my home, shares the same restrictions. Everyone has to enter through MSN to get online. Considering how often he crashes the PC at his mother’s home, it is prudent on my part. I keep telling him why he is crashing his PC, but he’s 15 and he knows I’m wrong and it’s not all the dodgy stuff he downloads. It’s the computer’s fault, not his. It must be, because it never happens when he’s at my house.
porphyrogene, I don’t think any parent wants to snoop or spy on their kids, but take a look at THIS site
and then tell me we’re going overboard. The pervs on that site are the major concern here, not just innocent curiousity about porn.
Spend a few hours reading those transcripts. If you have no idea about how sick and scary the net can be, you’re about to find out.
I have a cousin who’s a cop who used to go undercover online to try and catch these bastards. shudder I don’t think the problem is that online stalking is worse than it really is, it’s that young kids are, well, naive and easily lead, so they’re more at risk from the sickos.
There may well be a pervert lurking in the bushes on your child’s route home from school, too, but the best thing you can do is teach your children what is acceptable and what to do if they encounter danger and hope for the best. Looming over their every action, online or otherwise, is only going to create tension, create interest in whatever is being forbidden, and potentially shelter them from legitimate things in which they may have an interest. Educate them until you feel comfortable letting them use the Internet, obviously, but I still find the prospect of all this Net Nanny-type parental watchdog software to be ill-advised and overprotective.
You do know he could just pop open an Internet Exploder or Firefox window while AOL is logged on, and AOL won’t see anything that he browses with that? Make sure to check that too.
Anyways, I say that any child that is too stupid to get around parental controls like this is just too dumb to be allowed on the internet unsupervised. If the kid can get around the controls, then they are smart enougth to be let on the net. Just tell them not to let out there personal info online, to keep creeps from showing up, and they’ll be fine. I saw plenty of freaky perverted stuff in my teen years (Am 21, got internet when I was 14) and I turned out mostly fine.
Agreed with RandomLetters, if she’s not good enough to get around your blocks, she’s not ready. If she is that good, you’ll never know nor need to.
Looking at porn though, even tentacle sex, bestiality, or whatever is probably healthy–wierd stuff does happen in the real world, may as well get that idea down–so ineed, the scary one is meeting other people on the net. For that, probably best to give a very realistic, uncensored “these are the things to watch for, and these are the things that HAVE happened.” And again, not presented as a horror story–the odds are 1 in 10,000–real enough that she’ll actually think first. 11 year olds are much more realistic about that kind of thing than 15, so better to do it now while she’ll still listen to you.
When my daughter was eleven she wasn’t surfing unsupervised and it was that way from the beginning until she was around fourteen. Even then I was in the room because that’s where the computer is but I never restricted the content. I think that at least at that time the parental controls were crazy and useless.
I’ve gotten eyerolls …hell, if I let them get to me I’d be in big trouble. Safety is more important. It’s really not about what she sees, it’s more about the people online that we don’t know. I’ve observed the AOL teen boards. It would not be hard at all to gain the trust of some of those kids. If I was a perv all I’d have to do is use a picture of an attractive teen and make myself a valid looking bio. These kids offer so much information just on the boards and practically beg strangers to IM them.
I’d like to think my daughter is not that naive, but I just don’t know. My mother thought I was smarter than I was and she’d have freaked if she knew how stupid I could be.
