Can’t stop thinking about that ancient anti-pot PSA: “I learned it from watching you!”
I’m still wondering if I should be freaked out that my little girl is gogling sex, or relieved that she hasn’t yet discovered the wonders of rotten.com
JThunder: Yes, there’s porn on the internet, but you have to pay for it.
I’d say there are two separate but related issues here:
There are several approaches one could take to issue #1. But regardless of which one you take, you will want to discuss issue #2. If you want to come down on the “no porn, ever” side of issue #1 (or “not in my house” or “not till you’re 18”), you should know that there are reasons to know how to avoid spyware and viruses other than so you can safely visit porn sites- other types of sites can have these things as well.
It’s possible to run across porn or illegal software sites when searching for something innocuous (I accidentally came across a cracked-software site when I was trying to find out if some (legal) software was available for Macs, for example), and some of these sites will try to install garbage on your computer when you visit the site (the site I ended up on tried to install a HotSEXXX toolbar or some such on my work computer, and wouldn’t let me say No to the install- I had to kill the browser). Another way that people accidentally end up at porn sites is that some (less-than-ethical, IMO) porn-site providers will choose a name that is a common misspelling or mistyping of a site that doesn’t involve porn- nasa.com is a famous example (nasa.gov is NASA’s site). ISTR hearing about some of these exploiting common typos of straightdope.com. The point is, not everybody who goes to a porn site is looking for one, and you can still end up with spyware if you accidentally go to a porn site.
I disagree. Both are minor compared to addressing what is driving the daughter’s curiosity in the first place. This curiosity may be normal and natural – it probably is - but it behooves the parent to look into it.
Compliance with a set of internet rules takes a far back seat to making sure any lingering questions the daughter has about sexuality are answered in a responsible and realistic way.
That is, of course, very important.
My point was just that parents who want to tell their kids to never look at online porn don’t get out of giving the talk about internet security that way. There are people out there who don’t think pornography is a good thing, and who don’t think anyone should ever look at it. I’m not going to judge them for that opinion, just pointing out that “don’t ever look at porn sites” isn’t an effective way to keep your computer safe.
I talk more about the spyware issues because, being an IT geek with no kids, I’m more qualified to talk on that topic than I am on talking to kids about pornography.
Hey, the American Heritage Dictionary actually had a drawing demonstrating what breasts were.
Hot? I’d say yes.
The spyware thing is a good point- that’s how I knew a wee bairn had been looking at porn on my computer because the home page had been hijacked with some sex related homepage- luckily, kids don’t know the safe sites to look at, or they’d be better able to get away with it, and they usually don’t know how to delete what they looked at 
I told the 11 year old who did it that I could tell everything they looked at it, and if they did it again they’d never use the computer again. But I added yes I know porn is fascinating (that’s why I look at it 
), but like alcohol, driving, voting, etc. its for adults only, and not to do it again. I also password protected the computer so he couldn’t look it while he was home alone.
And yes how times change- I remember scouring the stacks of photography books at the library, hoping for just one picture of a nude models tit.
Exactly! If these kids today are going to look at porn, they’re going to have to work a little harder to get it, the slackers!
Yeah, but that’s before Guccione decided everyone wanted to watch women urinate. Those Penthouses today can kill.
Quoted for truth. Don’t let your pre-pubescent child use the internet unsupervised. Kids that age aren’t ready to make sense of all the twisted crap that is available online.
Would you like it if you found out that some creepy old man in the neighborhood had invited your LITTLE GIRL over to his house to show her photos of chicks with dicks, bestiality, and rape porn? I’m pretty sure that’s something a person can be arrested for. So why in the hell would you give her the opportunity to access stuff like that in your own home???
Save the stuff about “oh she has to make her own mistakes” for when she really IS close to being an adult (late teens). For now, she’s just a little girl who is counting on you to use your greater maturity and knowledge of the world to protect her from the bad things out there.
Paying is for suckers.
Sometimes, you make choices you would not normally make to protect your kids. A few years ago, my son complained that if he mistyped the name of a common kids internet site, he ended up somewhere inappropriate. And he typos a lot because he is dyslexic.
Now, I don’t really believe in internet filtering or censoring, but I have far less time for typosquatters who target kids websites with gay porn (the guy got shut down a few years ago now, but still). Blacklisting is basically ineffective and I don’t like other (non-answerable) people making choices about what is inappropriate. But I can’t filter the internet myself, and my kids deserved some protection. So I added a filter to my internet connection. One that I could adjust and validate. And that did the job for quite some time. I also made sure that the kids knew that the server keeps web traffic logs, and that I could easily get a report of sites visited. They also knew that they just had to ask and I would unblock something that was blocked if they let me check it out.
Currently, I use OpenDNS on my gateway server, with the DNS filtering option (free). I occasionally hit blocks that I don’t expect, but I use my home connection as a proxy from work, so I usually appreciate it. If I want to get around the blocks I can whitelist sites, but I usually can’t be bothered. And for some piece of mind, I’m pretty happy. Could my kids bypass it - probably. If they can bypass the filtering (and the logging), then they’re probably smart enough by now to not be too affected by it.
Si
I installed filtering software on the kids’ computers, which are both in the family room (and not moving to their rooms, despite multiple pleas by my 9-year-old son to do so). Webroot Childsafe gets good reviews for minimal false positives, has a 4-user license, allows me to not just filter content but also block specific applications and control (separately) computer time and Internet access by time of day and duration. It also has the ability to be remotely monitored from another PC and you can set up single-use passwords that allow the user to bypass the filtering.
In other words, it’s pretty damn cool.
Why did I do this, and why does all this appeal to me? Largely because of what malware will do to a computer, and to a lesser degree because I don’t want the kids (and their friends, including the next-door-neighbor who’s 2 years older) exposed to adult material without first understanding and discussing it with me. And as si_blakely pointed out, it’s far too easy to wind up somewhere you did not intend to be, and the chances somebody is trying to exploit your typo and install malware are higher than I like.
I’m reminded of a Dilbert cartoon in which he, in Dogbert’s cynical words, “pitted his programming skill against the curiosity of a horny pre-teen” and, in true Dilbert fashion, lost miserably (“Is that the sound of eyeballs popping that I hear?”). I’ll bet genuine commercial filtering mechanisms are better than Dilbert’s fictional product, but the point is, the kid is curious. It’s natural. If stopped from exploring on your home computer, this world has many, many other outlets though which she will explore.
The important thing is, now that you have discovered that she’s become curious about sex, that you begin explaining to her whatever sexual ethic you subscribe to and think it wise for her to follow as well. Most parents have such concepts in mind well before their children reach that curious age, but are hesitant to introduce it too early. Well, it obviously ain’t too early anymore. Get your ideas in her head before her desires are too highly aroused to consider them.
:o
I was too embarrassed to look at the pictures, so I read the “Dear Penthouse”, and since Mom’s rule about words we didn’t know the meaning of was “Look it up in the dictionary”…
Well, you’d be surprised at what you can learn armed with your parents stash of porn and a dictionary.
>My sweet little innocent child apparently is more knowledgeable in the ways of life than I thought. I’d rather not censor.
It’s like farting in church these days to say this, but, I heartily endorse not censoring her.
My most compelling experience is from my own childhood, when I learned most of the interesting things about sex by finding old discarded pornographic magazines with my friends. My mother did sit me down for a talk, and it was she that told me that intercourse was for procreation - I was surprised, and said, “But… but that’s fucking!”
And intercourse isn’t for procreation, not when you’re 10, probably not till you’re 20 or so.
I think limiting kid’s access to these things is like telling people not to gossip, not to listen to the grapevine. What most of us do is find the most accessible sources of the most accurate information of the most interest to us, by hunting around. This is not some kind of malfunction. When I was reading old porn, I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing to grow up. And attempts at censorship were frustrating and alienating and made me mistrustful, but I don’t think they worked as intended.
Your daughter getting taken in by some molester and waiting around the back of a shopping mall with a daisy in her lapel would be a different matter, and I’m not sure how to guard against that, but watching her activity and having a low-intensity ongoing discussion are probably good.
BTW my own daughter has occasionally frequented adult toy stores and bought out their supplies of dildos, but it’s not as bad as it sounds - she’s a social worker and has trained other social workers in conducting classes that include AIDS awareness and condom use, and she has to equip them with the props they use to show how you put one on. And her husband and son are doing quite nicely, thanks. I’m very happy with the way her upbringing turned out.
This is timely…My 9 y.o. son and a friend attempted to look up"naked woman" and “naked man” on google over the weekend. All they got was a couple of sites about making yourself more attractive to members of the opposite sex by brushing and flossing your teeth. (And that must have been a big disappointment to the kids, too- LOL)
Clearly, there are some questions to which they want some answers.
I set out his copy of “The Human Body Book” and plan to keep the floor open for questions and discussion this week.
How did the talk with her go, Leaffan?
This is one reason why you should make sure she knows that not everybody online is what they say they are. She’s probably not just chatting with people she knows from school- she’s probably meeting people online as well. She should know what kind of information is and isn’t safe to give out online to someone she doesn’t know IRL. She should know what sort of things aren’t appropriate to say on IM (either for her to say or for someone to say to her), and she should know that she can talk to you or her mom about it if someone is saying things on IM that make her uncomfortable. “Something that makes her uncomfortable”, btw, is orders of magnitude more likely to be an online version of some routine teenage or pre-teen drama than it is to be a child molester stalking her.
For a technical solution, CyberPatrol isn’t too bad. It works for my niece - combined with the parental talk, open area and occasional supervision.
tim
Get a rolltop desk, big enough for a computer, & with a lock on it.
“Use only with supervision” until she gets the message.