Make Your Young Child Internet Savvy .

[Florentyna]

My husband and I are very busy in our respective professions. That leaves us with very little time for our adolescent twin daughters. Sometimes it so happens that we are even unable to meet on a certain day due to all our schedules. I want to install a safe internet connection at home, so that I can at least communicate with my daughters. At the same time I fear their exposure to vulgar and adult sites. Is there any such service provider?

[think_too_mut]

My husband and I are very busy in our respective professions. That leaves us with very little time for our adolescent twin daughters. Sometimes it so happens that we are even unable to meet on a certain day due to all our schedules. I want to install a safe internet connection at home, so that I can at least communicate with my daughters. At the same time I fear their exposure to vulgar and adult sites. Is there any such service provider?

You don't need a provider. Even if there was one, you will need means to restrict the traffic to that site only.

What does it all is McAfee Security Suite software, I have it. For 80$ a year you can install it on 3 computers (downloadable from McAfee site, no media, no CDs, nothing). Automatic updates come almost daily (it also world leading anti virus software).

There you have "Parental" options where you can restrict whatever you want. McAfee tests sites themselves for porn, viruses, malicious software, you can accept their judgement.

It is password protected, no way your kids (or anyone) can crack it in and reconfigure or remove the restrictions.

Not sure how (this PC is from Corp, also McAfee but restrictions are with our IS, I can't see it) if you can direct everything to one or chosen sites, will have to check from home PC.

[Daffy D]

Don't know if English is your kids first language or they perhaps they have a good understanding of it.

Anyway there is this site Kidzui that has interactive programs for kids of all ages. You have to register but it's all free. The kids get to create their own virtual person and have password login for themselves.

The good thing about this site is that you can set up a parents password login so once you have done that the kids cannot navigate to any other sites or web pages.

[Tywais]

One approach is shown in the below links. Remove all links and shortcuts to Internet Explorer so only Firefox is accessible.

Strong & fun parental control using Glubble

Glubble for your children

//edit - looks similar to DD's site above.

[nikster]

Buy a Mac for your daughters and turn on "Parental Controls".

Of course depending on how badly they want it, you can't really stop them from visiting "vulgar and adult" sites. The whole premise is flawed, actually, what you should do is make sure they find those vulgar and adult sites in your presence, or they have been taught about them beforehand so they know what to do. You can't control where they go, but you can prepare them for whatever they may find. I don't know if something changed but from what I remember in my teenage years, it was always only the boys who were out to find the porn, whereas girls weren't interested.

If I had teenage girls I'd be much more concerned with who they will meet in chat rooms and teach them all about those - that's IMO a much more real and present danger than any vulgar material could be. I don't think it's possible to block chat either - because people can contact you via IM, via Skype, via Facebook, there are a million ways, and all of them have perfectly legitimate uses as well.

PS: I have a female friend who always asks my advice about computer stuff, she's not very bright about these things. And the amount and types of online fraud that she unwittingly digs up are astonishing. For example she found someone obviously posing as friendly, rich, english family looking for an au-pair. It was a dream job, very well paid, lovely children, nice parents, big house - except none of it was real, the email had all the elements of Nigerian fraud and I am sure had she pursued it further she'd have had to send some money somewhere at some point for some made-up reason. She found this person somewhere in a chat room....

Edited May 27, 2009 by nikster

[jerrylee]

Buy a Mac for your daughters and turn on "Parental Controls".

I'll second this good advice.

The parents need to dig up all the interesting, meaningful and exciting sites for you kids,

you cant expect kids to google themselves, and the WWW is not childrens daycare?

[PerfectRadish]

Instal some tracking software. Thus you won't be afraid of the internet hazards your child may deal with. For example, I use ActyMac DutyWatch, but this is for Mac OS only.

[mrsouza]

My husband and I are very busy in our respective professions. That leaves us with very little time for our adolescent twin daughters. Sometimes it so happens that we are even unable to meet on a certain day due to all our schedules. I want to install a safe internet connection at home, so that I can at least communicate with my daughters. At the same time I fear their exposure to vulgar and adult sites. Is there any such service provider?

Try "Net Nanny", available for both PC and Mac. Googun it.

[suzy59]

Thanks for all the advice. I'm concerned about this too.

[cdnvic]

A few things that make a big difference:

Never let them have a computer in a private place, like in their bedroom. Keep it in an area where it can be seen by anyone.

If they come across something obscene, or someone is acting inappropriately and they tell you, be positive and let them know they did the right thing by bringing it to your attention. The last thing you want is for them to be afraid to tell you about something being wrong.