Do You Really Know What Your Kids Are Doing On The Internet?

[Xeque]

Many of you will be parents.

You might like to check out this website to see if your kid(s) are featured there.

http://www.storythai.com/home/diary.php

I have just been through the most horrific experience as a father. A lesbian woman got her hooks into my teenage daughter as a result of something she stupidly did on the net about a year ago.

Her mum and I began getting wind of it a couple of months ago. The short of it was that when my daughter tried to distance herself from this woman she then went apesh@t and published my daughters photographs on the website with a written commentary insinuating that my daughter was, herself, a lesbian and in a full time and willing relationship with this woman.

If my daughters school administration had come across this stuff she would have been expelled. Her chances of a good university education would have been ruined and the follow on as far as her career opportunities were concerned would have been disasterous.

Thank God I found the website in time and identified this woman quickly. I was able to get the pages removed from the website before they had been visible to too many others. Her mum and I are now waiting with fingers crossed to see if there are any further ramifications.

Dads, Mums, if you are reading this then check the site. Some of you might be in for a shock but at least you will be able to take action to clean things up.

[GuestHouse]

A very good post on an extremely important issue.

I do know exactly how my children use the internet, because I was warned of the risks by my brother who is an Inf Tech Systems Manager for a group of schools in the UK that share an Intranet.

The first warning he gives is 'If your children have internet access in their bedrooms, you are allowing anyone to have access into your child's bedroom and life'.

All members of our family have taken his warnings and have our computers set up in our living rooms. I look to one side of the TV and I have a direct view of the computer screen.

My children share a laptop and that is loaded with website recording software. I have the passwords to everyone's email/web accounts. And I do monitor what my children's internet usage.

I also joined my children's school parent/teacher group that discussed internet usage and took part in writing the school procedures as well as selecting monitor software for the school.

I've had near raging arguments with other parents regarding this issue. People telling my wife and I we are being intrusive of our children's rights.

Well I have absolutely no problem distinguishing between my children's rights to privacy and their rights to safety. It's an issue we discuss in our household and one that we constantly work at.

Again, thanks for a great heads-up post.

Edited March 25, 2006 by GuestHouse

[jdinasia]

Being aware of your children's behavior online IS important.

Knee-jerk homophobic reactions probably aren't.

Maybe you are right ... but in Thailand being identified as gay will not kill your chances for education etc .... and unless you had access to all the conversations etc .. well .....

[bbigman21]

I can't read Thai But thank you just the same

[stumonster]

Guesthouse,

all the monitoring will not help if the child is tech saavy and determined - running a powerful OS off a USB memory stick is quite easy to do nowadays. As you said , discussing and explaining is the best option .

[Phil Conners]

Lots of software available such as cybersitter, netnanny and others. Install and let it "disappear" and you can check activity through a LAN or when your kid is in school or whatever.

As stumonster said, there is of course only so much you can do if your kid is savvy enough but in that case I'd expect you have discussed the use of the Internet and made the kid understand the pitfalls.

[zzap]

I 'incidentally' discovered our daughter uses the nic "phone sex" for some chatline... Did it freak me? No, up to her, I don't want to know.

But then, she's 21, would feel different about a teenager.