Have you ever wondered where your kids go on the Internet? Do you know who they are emailing or instant messaging? As you have likely come to realize, the virtual world is very different from life at school or on the bus, where your kids are interacting with friends you've met or at least know who they are.
As parents, we constantly struggle with the balance of watching out for our kids (when they go online or otherwise) versus spying on them. The good news is there are a variety of tools available -- both free and fee-based -to help you stay plugged in to what your kids are doing online. Some may be more "invasive" than others, so I recommend you review the options to learn which tools align best with you own parenting style and family mores. This post on Parental Controls Basics can help you decide which type of software would suit your family needs.
One of the leading free solutions is from my company, AOL, which has been a leader in online family safety since pioneering parental controls in the early '90s. AOL Parental Controls are now available to everyone as a free download. Using any e-mail address, you can sign up, download the software and start protecting your kid or teen online.
Many a time, I have had to play bad cop (and we all know how much fun that is!) to get my boys off the Internet. With AOL Parental Controls' online timer feature, I let the computer be the bad guy! If I allocate only 30 minutes of online time for a specific day, then that's all they get. This works out great for us (more for me than them!). The best part of the software is that I get an Activity Report, sent to my email or available on the Web, that tells me which sites my kids visited, which ones they tried to visit, and to whom they sent emails or instant messages to. (My kids are still too young to be communicating via these services, but I'm bracing myself for when that begins!). Having installed the software on every computer that my boys use, my mind is at ease, as I know that they can only go to places on the Internet that are appropriate for their age. AOL's age-based filtering takes out the guesswork for parents like me, automatically allowing good sites and preventing access to the bad ones.
Follow this link to get the brochure on how AOL Parental Controls can keep your children safer on the Internet.
AOL's free parental controls software download is just one option. I recommend you look around and install some type of parental controls software on your kids' computer to help you stay involved in their online world.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mari 1-25-2009 @ 5:13PM
I actually would suggest taking a look at Ez Internet Timer: http://www.internettimer.net. No matter how much of a worry wart the parent is, this thing blocks and monitors really well. With just a couple clicks I can easily change the programs settings (add/remove time on any particular day). It can stop all kid’s on-line activity and block Internet browsers, e-mails, ftps or messengers according to my daily schedule.
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Arizona direct mail 1-27-2009 @ 5:32AM
Guidance from parents is necessary in order to make the children safe from any dangerous sites. http://www.marketmailing.com">arizona direct mail
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Cyndi 2-11-2009 @ 1:04PM
I need to know that My foster teen boy (15) is not at my PC as soon as he is home alone. I found that he is does not obey me to stay away from it and that he was on a porn site recently. I had to disconnect the mouse and hide it from himthe last time I left for an hour. I knew he went to it as some item was moved that I left for this reason. Is there a way that he cannot even get on this PC at all? Thank you, Cyndi
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