Childproofing the Internet

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I have a fifteen-year-old, and when he was younger his mother was crazy for censorsing the net, while maintaining a bookshelf that would have sent the local book burner/bible thumper crowd into a froth. It's silly to think that preventing your child from seeing something is the same thing as protecting him from it. You're not literally trying to protect his retinas from Skittles -- you're trying to protect his mind from getting warped into believing that "that's what girls do as a general rule, this is what girls are for." Right? Protect him right by heading off the attitude, not the imagery.


Frank
 


fm1234 said:
I have a fifteen-year-old, and when he was younger his mother was crazy for censorsing the net, while maintaining a bookshelf that would have sent the local book burner/bible thumper crowd into a froth. It's silly to think that preventing your child from seeing something is the same thing as protecting him from it. You're not literally trying to protect his retinas from Skittles -- you're trying to protect his mind from getting warped into believing that "that's what girls do as a general rule, this is what girls are for." Right? Protect him right by heading off the attitude, not the imagery.


Frank
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^winnar.

Anyone else remember when mistyping a (non-adult) domain meant your screen would be assaulted with horse cocks and naked women?
It didn't make people think it was 'normal'...it made [most] think 'ah ew' and go on with their lives. That includes the youngins.
 
HarveyJ said:
... so I removed their administrator privileges.
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HAHAHA.

By censoring you are only delaying when you are going to deal with the problem. A 10 year old child nowadays may know more about this shit than a 17 year old 10-20 years ago. When children are interested in these things, censoring the internet may turnout to do more harm than good. It could become a long term goal for them, which translates into an addiction when they are grown.

What you could do is talk to him, try to gain his trust. So that he will come to you to talk about anything. Eventually he will try to explore things on his own, and you will be there for support and advice. Let him know that it's wrong, but don't explicitly prevent him from doing what he wants. By instinct, we love what we cannot have.

Also, you have to lead by example. They can make the connection when you were unreasonable with something else. They'll assume that you've been bullshitting them in everything you've said in the past. So don't let the parent's "ego" get in the way, when you tell him/her not to do something, you better be prepared with solid reasons that they can comprehend.
 
We are visual creatures. Attitude comes from imagery. (amongst other things)

It's funny that parents get blamed for so much but you only really get them for their first 4 years and that's about it. After that it's peers and the internet/social media. If I can delay all the depressive crap that's out there for another 5 years then that's a jump he'll get on his peers.

I would rather over-shelter the kids then to raise them without boundaries. They may rebel, but it will be brief. Whereas if they go through life without any boundaries they spend their whole life trying to find them.
 
I think censorship is a good thing. I would not like to be responsible for scandalizing a child.

Wish I could install something like that on my TV; gettin' tired of profanity, violence and titillation as a substitute for creativity.

Ms. Turbolapp, the others have mentioned some programs [Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol] I've heard of before, so they're probably OK.

Something you just install, click a few boxes, and gets updated regularly. Having to whitelist sites sounds like a chore.

My brother has something similar for his kids. So far wickedfire hasn't been added to its list, so I can't recommend it [grin].
 
Ah, interesting. I wonder if they have it in the UK?

What 'they' really need to do is just bleep the profanity and fuzz out the dodgy visuals. Probably make for funnier programs e.g. The Osbournes was funnier when they bleeped stuff.

Scariest film I saw was about a ghost which was obsessing some kids to the point of death; somehow leeching the life out of them(?). You never saw it; just people's reaction to it. English film, I think. Can't remember the name.
 
turbolapp said:
I would rather over-shelter the kids then to raise them without boundaries. They may rebel, but it will be brief. Whereas if they go through life without any boundaries they spend their whole life trying to find them.
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I totally disagree. My parents set minimal boundaries and empowered me to set my own. As a result, I'm a successful, mature adult and have never been in trouble with the law, drugs, etc.

On the other hand, an old friend was raised by over-sheltering Christian fanatics. By 18, he had fathered two illegitimate children and was arrested for breaking into a police impound yard to steal back his own car.
 
audax said:
I totally disagree. My parents set minimal boundaries and empowered me to set my own. As a result, I'm a successful, mature adult and have never been in trouble with the law, drugs, etc.

On the other hand, an old friend was raised by over-sheltering Christian fanatics. By 18, he had fathered two illegitimate children and was arrested for breaking into a police impound yard to steal back his own car.
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Christian fanatics. Nuff said.
 
Two different examples prove nothing.

Also: 'Fanatic' suggests a maelstrom of negative emotion right there. Truly Christian homes are peaceful.

A classic retort to any attempt to suggest a moral standard these days is to say: "But my children grew up beautifully well-adjusted in a lesbian co-op dude ranch".

Also: we only have the speaker's opinion about how well-adjusted his example is. In the UK, kids are stabbing each other with knives. Kids from broken homes: the girls tend to get pregnant early and the boys get into trouble with the law. It's statistical probability; gambler's odds.

That shuts down your life options fairly quickly e.g. getting in the US or Australia or many jobs with a criminal record. Or going anywhere with a baby in tow.

Doesn't happen to everyone, but you need only one wicked family or three for four tearaways to bring misery to an entire housing estate.

I think the key is to have a loving family with a Mum and Dad who agree on a set of rules and don't undermine each other e.g. Dad says No to Junior but Mum says Yes; cue an argument and a confused (and/or conniving) kid.
 
I allow my 10 year old daughter on the net only if I am sitting there with her. Otherwise she is limited to clubpenguin, disney channel and the like.

She likes to search Google but I will not let her unless I am present.
 
I think the first time I saw porn was when I was about 12. And when I saw it for the first time, I was like WOW.......Is this for real?. Infact I used to download tools that would delete all my internet activity like searched terms, browser history etc so that nobody would find out and nobody did. Once I was watching porn at midnight when all my family members were asleep and my mom suddenly walked into the room. Thankfully I had a solitaire game running on the side so i quickly switched to it and told her that I was having trouble falling asleep and was just playing the game. Whew!

Of course this was all 8 - 9 years back. Now i watch whatever shit whenever I want. Hell! most of the time I end up watching porn that I don't even want to watch
 
jenzkc said:
i wouldn't worry about it since he's boy, not a girl. IMO, the worst that could happen is that he'll look at porn instead of doing homework. when i was 13 we used to get on the local BBS to download cindy crawford pics and porn .gifs after school. the net these days would have been like a gold mine.
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haha, i always think about that too. my older male cousins would have loved having todays porn content and accessibility 5-7 years ago. but as for childproofing, i think u will have a better chance at just handcuffing ur kid to the headboard of his/her bed and make them watch reruns of snowhite.
 
the first thing that comes to mind when i think of childproofing is the public library computers in the children's section of the library. its impossible to perform search's even for innocent stuff that may included "bad" content. if the kid is looking for "breast stroke" for his school project about swimming, but it limits his search because it contains the word breast. trust me, your kid will find breast somewhere else if u filter his computer.
 
I think most responses to this thread are b.s. People are assuming a child would actively go looking for images of people having sex. Children are, I hope, still innocent.

I was on the internet for a year and a half in the late 90's. When I told people about this new and exciting medium, they said "Ho, ho, you must be looking at porn a lot".

Actually, I hadn't seen any. As a result of this joking, I did go looking one day. I wish I could unsee the trash that I found.

That stuff corrupts your heart. It is not harmless. However, at least in my experience, if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.

A blocking program is a good way to filter out that stuff. Also putting the computer in the main communal area of the house would be good. No pc's in your children's bedrooms. That should do it.
 
I work in adult porn, I raised a daughter, she had full access to the net at age 13, I checked her history every once in a while, she was mostly going to fan fiction sites for harry potter. She's in the navy now, never had a single problem with the net
 
tigertom said:
I think most responses to this thread are b.s. People are assuming a child would actively go looking for images of people having sex. Children are, I hope, still innocent.

I was on the internet for a year and a half in the late 90's. When I told people about this new and exciting medium, they said "Ho, ho, you must be looking at porn a lot".

Actually, I hadn't seen any. As a result of this joking, I did go looking one day. I wish I could unsee the trash that I found.
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Yes, you quickly learn to avoid certain kinds of sites.
That stuff corrupts your heart. It is not harmless. However, at least in my experience, if you're not looking for it, you won't find it.
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Once again, I remember old school typo squatting leading to a lot of flurries of panicked ALT+F4s in the media center at our school. Yeah. You don't have to be 'looking for it'
A blocking program is a good way to filter out that stuff. Also putting the computer in the main communal area of the house would be good. No pc's in your children's bedrooms. That should do it.
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This is a good idea, at least until they're older. It won't stop it really, but in my opinion rules function best when they force caution/control/a healthy level of paranoia about getting caught, and this really would do that.
 
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