Monitoring Your Children Online - To Tell Them or Not?
If you have already decided that you want to or need to monitor your child’s Internet activity, the next question is whether you should do it with his/her knowledge or secretly. While the decision ultimately belongs to each parent, there are many factors you will want to consider and benefits on both sides. Being up front about placement of parental controls can prove beneficial. Any child who is using the Internet on his/her own must do so under some set of guidelines that you establish for them or together with them. Everything from the amount of time spent online, to the acceptable times for surfing and other Internet related activity to what is and is not appropriate content, should be covered. Some parents choose to not tell children that there is protective or monitoring software controls in place.
Many do inform their children and use it as an opportunity to address the various concerns, so that the child will understand that there are real and valid concerns. Parents’ best resources are their own kids for information and education on Internet safety since children today are often far more Internet savvy than their parents are. Many problems can be avoided if parents have an ongoing dialog with their kids about their Internet activity. Of course many parental control software applications can not actually be hidden from a child since the moment they do try to go to an illicit website, the software (such as Optenet PC) blocks them and they see a blocking screen. This in itself can be educational — a sort of reminder that some sites are not appropriate for them, even if they thought they were. In the case where a parent suspects some problem, it can be helpful to take a look at what a child as been doing online. For example, a parent may discover that their teenage daughter is frequenting diet sites and/or sites that act as support groups for anorexia (supporting the phenomena not recovery!) and in this way, learn about a very serious problem early enough to take preventive action.
One of the challenges the Internet presents to us as parents is the easy access our children have to non-filtered information. In the same way we can trust that the local library does not provide our children with books providing tips on how to take drugs, we should be able to create an Internet environment in our home that does not provide access to such information. Keep reading here for more information on how to manage your family’s Internet access.
I agree - an open dialogue with your child on any subject is the best way to ensure they’ll come to you when they have a problem or question.
Internet safety should be a high priority for all parents right now. With sites like MySpace, etc. only gaining in popuarlity it’s important to make sure your kids know what is and is not appropriate online and where to turn to if they feel like they’re in over their head. In addition to ongoing discussions and making yourself available as a resource, I recommend Cybertipline for older kids - it’s a site that lets you report anyone sketchy they may meet by their screen name or email address and then they follow up with local law enforcement. (www.cybertipline.org). The more options kids have to talk to a trusted authority figure about these sorts of things the safer they’ll be.
I also recommend MySpace’s parents safety tips page (you don’t need a log in to access, just scroll to the bottom). They have a lot of good resources and tips for parents with kids using the site.