Parents of Pre-Teens: How Do You Handle Your Kids and the Internet?

[Mama_Zappa]

@TheBori

As the father of 4 boys, currently 19, 17, 14 and 11 I’ve been dealing with this particular issue for a while.

My biggest concern was not so much inappropriate material as loading viruses and other malware. The first line of defense was to instruct the boys not to click on any banner ads or anything that looks too good to be true. Kids are surprisingly adept at identifying scams and the like. I installed Trend Micro to scour for malware and set it to update every three hours and run a full scan every night. I also loaded WinPatrol. The little Scottie dog monitors for installations and system changes. My instructions: Always say NO when it asks if it’s OK to do whatever.

That said…to the inappropriate material. When looking for a house 11 years ago one of the deciding factors in our selection was where to put the computer(s). The house we chose had an office directly off the family room. Perfect. The computers are out of the main room, but close enough so I can pop in to see what you’re doing. I explained that I can and will demand access to their FaceBook pages and other sites that might contain personal info “on demand”. The biggest concern was the age-appropriate stuff…not porn per se, but language, jokes and situations OK for the older boys but not for the little ones looking over their shoulder.

I will not allow computers or other internet access in their bedrooms, down inthe basement or other isolated places inthe house. I need to be able to walk up to the monitor at any time…

Parent of nearly-15 year old boy, and 12 year old girl, and we’ve done pertty much the same stuff as you have. The computer is in a readily-accessible location. We periodically glance in and make sure the kids aren’t anywhere they aren’t supposed to bel We maintain virus software that updates daily. We do actually restrict their computer time during the school year.

My daughter has a Nintendo DSI which can connect with our wireless router, and can browse the web; we enabled the connection just long enough to do the initial setup, then disabled it, so she can’t browse willy-nilly (she could go to a public wireless spot and browse there but so far she hasn’t bothered). Similarly, the Wii is not set up to browse the web, though that would actually be less of a problem as it’s in the family room.

We don’t routinely check browser history. The one time I did so, I was trying to print something and saw there was a document ahead of mine in the queue, labeled “penis pill” or some such. After a brief :eek:, I checked my son’s browser history - and saw that he’d been looking at an article about someone who got nailed for spamming.

We have both kids set up with email accounts which can’t get mail except from pre-approved sources. If someone new writes to them, Typo Knig gets a notice, checks it out with me or the kid, and adds it to the filter so the emails are unrestricted in the future.

To my surprise, both kids have been (so far) pretty good about not signing up for stuff without permission. For example. Moon Unit in particular has wanted a Deviant Art account for months - but went along with our requirement that it had to wait until school ended (she’d be on the computer NONSTOP in the interim, otherwise). She’s made noises about wanting to sign up for a gmail account instead of her existing mail, but we’ve asked her not to (and for the moment, we don’t believe she has done so).