Childproofing the Internet

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turbolapp

turbolapp

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Ok so being on wf always kind of freaks me out when I think about my almost 7 year old getting on the internet. Stuff like the skittles thread and the nsfw emo girl thread reminds me that I really want to keep my child off most of the internet for as long as possible. But there is still some educational and neat stuff out there for kids that I want him to see.

I know some of you have kids and you guys are the smartest and most up to date internet geeks out there, so what should I be doing with regards to parental controls? What's the best software for this stuff? Not only for now, but when he gets older and wiser to the ways of fooling the parentals?
 


There is only one way. Sit with him/her all the time... But that only works when they are at home. Eventually they will see pics of slaugthered people and teen titties anyway.
 
If someone wants to find offensive content on the internet, there's no way you can stop them. You may have the best lock down parental software out there, but that doesn't mean his friends' computer does too. So you'll want to influence their motives so that they choose for themselves not to view such things. Doing this will have a better long term effect in building their abilities to make good judgments.

You want them to agree with you rather than just obey you. Instead of bubbling them up into a world of mommies rules, try to build an understanding of why they need to be careful about what they are exposing themselves to.

I'm sure there's plenty of books on this kind of stuff, but common sense has a lot to do with it.

/I feel gay now, back to the skittles thread
 
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You can take the fun out of the internet, but you cannot child proof the internet. Sorry!
 
blueRAP said:
If someone wants to find offensive content on the internet, there's no way you can stop them. You may have the best lock down parental software out there, but that doesn't mean his friends' computer does too. So you'll want to influence their motives so that they choose for themselves not to view such things. Doing this will have a better long term effect in building their abilities to make good judgments.

You want them to agree with you rather than just obey you. Instead of bubbling them up into a world of mommies rules, try to build an understanding of why they need to be careful about what they are exposing themselves to.

I'm sure there's plenty of books on this kind of stuff, but common sense has a lot to do with it.

/I feel gay now, back to the skittles thread
Click to expand...

QFT!

My parents took the "mommies rules" approach and we all know how that turned out.
 
It's like when people not to swear in front of their kids - fuckem! Your kids will learn about all this shit one way or another.

You need to sit down with your kid and have a direct conversation about the dangers of the internet, and what's appropriate to view. Believe me they will be much more receptive to you coming to them and talking about it than when they see net-nanny pop up unannounced.

You can't stop you child from liking what they like. If they like emo shit, well not much you can do about it, some people love to cut themselfs. And as curious as kids are they want to explore what's out there, but if you do a good job of teaching them responsible safe use you have given them a head start.

Be the roll model, go ahead and show them examples so they know what to stay away from. Don't expect them to do it themselfs.

Speaking of tities, I'm off to collect them for my 1000th post.
 
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.
 
I would say don't worry about it too much, if the kid sees something crazy it's not going to fuck him up. It happens all the time.. censoring the internet is just stupid, I knew that I could get past any firewall or any stupid software or thing that was setup on my parents computer back in the day.. just don't stress it and don't make it a big deal too much.. it's really not, internet censoring is just plain.. no
 
sums it up best:

blueRAP said:
If someone wants to find offensive content on the internet, there's no way you can stop them.

So you'll want to influence their motives so that they choose for themselves not to view such things. Doing this will have a better long term effect in building their abilities to make good judgments.

You want them to agree with you rather than just obey you.
Click to expand...

Jon said:
You can take the fun out of the internet, but you cannot child proof the internet. Sorry!
Click to expand...


Rage9 said:
Your kids will learn about all this shit one way or another.

You need to sit down with your kid and have a direct conversation about the dangers of the internet, and what's appropriate to view.
Click to expand...

censorship is a cancer.
education is the cure.
 
At age 7, I think censoring what they view is smart. As they get older (teens) they should be less restricted. They will end up going to friend's houses where the Internet is unmonitored and they'll see all the sick and depraved stuff you're trying to protect them against.

As far as censoring them now, if they have their own computer, change the DNS on it to OpenDNS (OpenDNS > Home Network > Solutions). You can then whitelist the sites they can view without affecting your own browsing rights.
 
Thanks audax...that's more of what I was looking for.

I'm all about being open and honest with my child. He's know about sex and how babies are made since he was old enough to ask where babies come from. But still you don't want a 7 year old seeing half the crap on the internet. Hell I don't want to see half the crap on the internet.
 
cybersitter is still the most popular home use filtering system and it'll keep most of the adult stuff out of his reach and is a lot better than the parential controls in IE, but dear lordy I already set up so many unblockers and proxy sites just for kids like yours its all pointless.

I'm after your kid's allowance money. You can't fight me lauren, quit trying. :D
 
Or you could move to Australia next year... Kommandant Fielding (FFP) is hell bent on ensuring that we have a "clean feed" for our internet, which means nothing above X-rated... and that's at a federal level.

Man, when people joked about us selling the country to China, I just thought they meant the mineral rights.
 
My son is 10 and we try our best to censor his exposure to some of the less than appropriate, content on the web. That being said, he comes home every day (no joke) with a new Youtube video that his friends told him about or a website that he wants to check out because someone on the bus was talking about it.

I agree that its all about communicating to them as they grow up. Don't be afraid to get it all out in the open, but follow rule #1. Common sense.

In short, good luck.
 
I've got a 9 year old and 6 year old and they're not too net savvy so I can control them with this firefox frontend Glubble.

If you go this route make sure you remove access to other browsers on the PC.

I'm sure there's more that can be done, but for now it's enough.
 
When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to watch Married with Children. That really pissed me off, since everyone at school would talk about it all the time. You best believe if I had the luxury of the internet back then I would have been watching streaming episodes from some foreign website.

Then again, I think I was permanently altered after my first trip to Rotten.com.
 
I was the product of a "Cyber Patrol" household.
It doesn't work. If the kid is a techie, he will break the software, or break windows trying to break the software. If they're not techies, they still want it that much more, and become more willing to dig further to get it.

Be a parent or don't. Software is not your way out.
 
XMCP's got a good point.
If you think your kids are in anyway tech savvy, nothing's going to stop them, other than you being there to contextualize it all for them.
I really for sorry for you poor bastards with kids, and all the worry it entails.

When I was 10, I was already the one showing my parents how to use the modem to dial up BBSs and the W.E.L.L.
They tried to install some sort of content blocker in '96, so I removed their administrator privileges.
 
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