As a parent does the internet scare you?

[Pearls18]

The internet is amazing, I love it, DH and I would barely function without it lol. We have it at work, on our phones, on the iPad, on our laptops, we we not technophobes and fully embrace it for fun, for school, making life easier, socialising, whatever.........


But oh my goodness I'm so worried about how to handle children and the internet. I always used to say when my children are older we will have one computer, it'll be supervised and strictly controlled. This seems so unrealistic now, the internet is a daily tool, I picture my boys having their own iPads in childhood for school, I want them to be confident users but how do you protect them from something so new and under regulated? Especially having boys I do worry about porn, it is so normalised nowadays when I was growing up it seemed much more taboo (maybe I'm niave and it was just me and my age) but it seems so easy and normal to access now, don't get me wrong I'm not completely against porn but it does scare me what is out there, how easy it is to access and how that can affect young minds and their expectations and relationships. Not to mention all the social networking issues. I keep thinking maybe by the time our boys are old enough there will have been a resolution, maybe filters will be better, it'll be policed more....I don't know.

Am I the only one worrying about this? Do you already have a plan?

 

[Bex84]

it does worry me a lot. I was teaching and my dh is a secondary teacher and children seem to get exposed to this stuff so young, my gosh it is even just the music videos, they are so explicit. My sister was telling me about her friends 6 year old who they let use ipad for you tube and found out he was looking at lots of inappropriate stuff and was talking about sex and swearing lots. Children are so pressured and everything seems to be documented on the internet. I worry about the bullying aspect as kids don't just seem to say well people are being horrible to me so I wont be friends with them, the amount of times you deal with online bullying at school along with kids talking about inappropriate photos they have sent, at least when we were at school if you were bullied it ended when you were at school, if you talked to people it was on land line, then when I was 16 and got my first mobile you could play snake, txt and call people and that was it lol. Mind you I suppose we had msn but it took so long to sign in on dial up along with just one main desk top lol. I will be putting parental blocks on everything lol

 

[Bex84]

as you said it is hard to plan as they have access everywhere I think it will be child locks, been honest and telling her that there are things we should not access, on social media she will be friends with us so we can make sure its used appropriately, set time for use of stuff. I know people who have there children's passwords for things. I hope to have an open and honest relationship with my little girl. I know I cant shelter her from everything but I want her to be able to talk to me. I certainly wont be access on her own from an early age and lots of inappropriate things can come up on innocent searches

 

[Ceejay123]

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[Pearls18]

I don't know how I feel about monitoring, I would hate for them to think I don't trust them which is what you are potentially doing by monitoring what they do, I would love to think we would have an open enough relationship to not feel like doing that but I know how niave that sounds. I'm not sure if monitoring is the answer to the source of the problem, but never say never.

 

[MoldyVoldy]

i plan on being brutally honest with my son. right now he is monitored with his use and i have locks and filters up the wazoo. in a few years though, he's probably going to have his own laptop/pc in his bedroom. in which case i'll have to decide what to do about filters etc. then. but....

the way i see it is that i'd rather teach him how to be safe and what to expect and how to conduct himself in an appropriate way (and that he can always come to me for help/ask questions no matter how embarrassing) rather than he see/find things on his own or worse, at a friend's house.

the fact is, is that technology is here to stay. and we have to be proactive in educating our children.

just my 2 cents!

 

[calm]

I don't think monitoring its not trusting. We wouldn't let children expose themselves to everything that is happening in the real world or experience it for themselves, so I don't see why we would let them do so through the internet. They are children, or teens, and they have to be protected until mature and educated enough to access it all. Its protection.

 

[Bex84]

I feel the same. When LO is a teenager I would not want to be logging into her email etc as I will want her to have privacy. Its really hard as to be honest if they really want to look at things they will especially as technology becomes more sophisticated. My lo doesent have much to do with technology at moment. She has an innotab 1 I picked up for £20 which she can use on long car journeys to watch a film or play a game, she watches cartoons or our lap top so as she would be rather playing with toys than on a computer any way. She isn't really even into the toys that are noisy, she likes things she can use imagination with. It will be interesting to see how into technology she is as me and her daddy arnt overly worried about it, we have one lap top which is used primarily for facebook though neither of us regularly update just used to talk to friends and family, email, baby and bump and then dh with sports stuff. He has a work laptop for planning etc... for school. We both have smart phones but that's only been in the last year lol. We use it and are preety savy especially since I have taught IT but it isn't a huge thing in our lives.

 

[Pearls18]

I don't think monitoring its not trusting. We wouldn't let children expose themselves to everything that is happening in the real world or experience it for themselves, so I don't see why we would let them do so through the internet. They are children, or teens, and they have to be protected until mature and educated enough to access it all. Its protection.

I guess, I mean I am happy to do all I can with filters and safe searches etc to stop accidental stumbling and well I guess even deliberate searches. But there is something about actually going through the history or using software to specifically see what they have looked at as a breech of trust, I'm thinking more for the teenage years now though not childhood I wouldn't feel guilty about it then I don't think. I know what you mean though, I am not an easy going person so I couldn't just "leave them to it" but I haven't quite decided where I stand with monitoring in terms of morality, trust and how far to take it.

 

[calm]

There will always have to be a degree of trust together with monitoring, of course. One thing is monitoring, another is control and rigidness, which I don't think is advisable

 

[Bex84]

I think its important for teenagers to realise what they put on internet will be available in future meaning potentual employers can see or people who they do not know. Having seen some photos of teenage relatives although they are lovely people posing in your underwear for a selfie is not something i would want my daughter to be putting on internet in future. Maybe im old fashioned lol

 

[Pearls18]

Yeah it's getting the balance, tbh I am just glad I have very young children (plural soon at least lol) and not teenagers now, just because I think it is only really now "adults" are realising the potential harm of the internet on young people so I hope that by the time my children are older there will be more of a precedent as to what we can do to attempt to control things. Fingers crossed!

Yeah Bex it's hard not knowing firstly how they will like technology and secondly how it is going to change by the time they are older, they'll be using it more and more potentially for things we do now "manually". I don't want technology to rule our lives, I want DS to read a book, spend plenty of time outside and not get all his entertainment from a tablet but similarly I want him to be savvy enough to know how to utilise technology to enhance especially his learning but of course his day to day life because it is just becoming ingrained in much more of what we do. I'm probably over thinking things, I've watched too many channel 4 documentaries recently I think!!

 

[calm]

I think its important for teenagers to realise what they put on internet will be available in future meaning potentual employers can see or people who they do not know. Having seen some photos of teenage relatives although they are lovely people posing in your underwear for a selfie is not something i would want my daughter to be putting on internet in future. Maybe im old fashioned lol

I saw this is the mindful magazine about teens and the internet

How many friends do you have on Facebook? For teenagers who use the social media site, the median count is about 300, according to Teens, Social Media, and Privacy, a Pew Center report released last spring.

That’s a lot of rapid-fire, non-face-toface communicating. Add in an adolescent’s proclivity for impulsivity, and you can land in the world of sexting and cyber-bullying pretty fast.

“Adolescents are biologically more prone to making decisions that are not well thought out,” says Tristan Gorrindo, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital. “The part of the brain right behind the forehead, which controls judgment, is at that time undergoing a rapid period of development,” says Gorrindo, who is studying the way families use technology. In the process, he has created a practice called W.A.I.T. It’s designed with teenagers in mind, but for anyone living in today’s digital world, these questions could prove valuable:

W = Wide Audience
“Would I say this in front of a school assembly?”

A = Affect
“Am I in a good emotional place right now?”

I = Intent
“Might my intent be misunderstood?”

T = Today
“Today, tomorrow, or the next day? Can this wait a day?”

Evaluating the urgency of what we’re about to say can provide a helpful injection of perspective. Why is it so urgent? What will happen if I wait? And if I wait, might I feel differently about it later?

https://www.mindful.org/mindful-magazine/wait-a-minute

 

[alicecooper]

My DD is 8 and we got her a computer for her birthday 2 months ago. She was over the moon :

actually it was my old computer but she doesn't realise that because we stuck a red cover on it and wiped it with a fresh install of the OS, and bought her a "new" desk and chair (second hand from gumtree) and a new mousemat and red mouse.

DH set it up so that it uses the inbuilt Mac parental controls and filters. Dodgy sites are filtered out, plus we have a time limit on it so that it just logs her out of it at bedtime and she can't get back on without knowing administrator username and password (which she doesn't know of course).

We also pre-loaded it with games, and stored appropriate websites on the favourites thing so that she just clicks on them without having to do any unnecessary google searches.

The only thing she does google search for are photographs of white tigers (she's a little obsessed with them at the moment).
It's in the living room.

DS1 is 6 and he's getting a mac for Christmas (second hand but he won't realise that). Same as that except with a blue screen and blue mouse mat and blue mouse and blue chair. We'll be doing the same sort of set-up for him in terms of parental controls and filters. That one is in the dining room.

My desk is in the living room so I keep an eye on DD, whereas DH's desk is in the dining room so he will keep an eye on DS1.

Now DS2 has got DD's old netbook. It's only a little pink thing (he doesn't care that it's pink) :

He's only 4 and can't read yet so to make things easier for him DH just preloaded a couple of games onto it. He can't use the internet yet.
When he gets older he'll end up with a mac as well. (Can you tell we're a mac-loving family? lol). It, too, will be supervised and have proper filters set up on it.

DS1 and DS2 also have tablets. They bought them themselves with birthday money.

Now DS1 has full access to his tablet, we've not set up any filters, but to be honest he doesn't really go on the internet with it. The only thing he does on the net is watch bloody Gangnam Style music video. Other than that he plays pre-loaded games.

DS1 however has his laptop set to load up zoodles https://www.zoodles.com/en-US/home/marketing
it's a "safe" kid-mode. So it just automatically loads up into zoodles and then he goes onto the games which can be found on that - age appropriate ones.
We had to pay for zoodles access for a year but it's worth it. It's not very expensive.

When they get a bit older I'll decide how much internet access they can have. DD uses the internet to search on wikipedia for things to do with homework. For example she researched a famous author (she chose Enid Blyton) for her homework a couple of weeks ago.

None of them will be allowed on any social media sites until they are 13. No question about it. Even then I'll try to dissuade them but I won't stop it. I will, however, insist that I and DH are accepted as their online "friends".

DD has her own email account but only me, DH, my dad, and my aunt have been given the address.

I trust my children but I don't trust that the internet is a safe enough place for them to be unsupervised. They may not go looking for trouble but it could find them regardless. Children end up being bullied on social networking sites even if they are minding their own business. They end up stumbling on porn or violence even if they typed in something they thought was innocent. (I heard of one girl who liked cats, and innocently typed in "cute pussies" into google. That was a bad move).

I don't allow any electronic equipment to be in their bedrooms at all. Not just for monitoring purposes, but I just don't agree with it. So no TVs up there either.

As for mobile phones - I've told them that when they're old enough to take a bus with a friend and go to town without me or DH, then that will be when they're allowed a phone. It'll be a PAYG one too - I'm not having a huge phone bill run up.
And it won't be a smart phone! I've read too much about the pressures of "sexting" that young people find themselves faced with these days.

 

[Bex84]

I think thats a good way to do it alicecooper, i definetly agree with social media. I can remember friends of mine putting themselves in iffy situations when we were teenagers with chat rooms. We hadent grown up with internet and i can remember friends not being internet savy especially around when we did a levels so 2001-2003 as people had access to cars. Ahh for the days we used encarta lol. We will use pay as you go phone to and that will be when she starts secondary school and goes on bus i think. My lo will use a computer but i dont want it to be be all and end all

 

[Pearls18]

Thank you alicecooper it's interesting to see how a parent with older children is managing the technology. I like the no technology in bedroom idea we will be doing the same, I wasn't allowed a tv in my room until I was 13, obviously some people will disagree with even that but I will definitely be implementing that as a minimum!

 

[lhancock90]

Absolutely.
I think up to a certain age i will want their passwords etc so that if i have any concerns i can access, not that i automatically will.

 

[NerdyMama]

I will probably filter until about 13. I know way too many of my friends that had filters and knew how to hack by that age. Then it will be more personal lessons about what is on the internet and who. It'll be hard addressing things like porn but again i know to many people that were youngand got a hold of it some way some how. I think waiting until an appropriate age and having one of the most frank conversations us as parents in the tech age can have that not only encompasses sex, predators, misinformation and cause. and effect of social media. And a continual lesson as well. I just know that now it is so integrated kids will most likely learn programming they will understand the basics of security and will be more advanced than us older folk lol. my daughter is two and knows how to work her tablet like she's had this knowledge since birth.

 

[MrsVenn]

To OP: No we're not BUT we both work in police IT on a national level so know our stuff. Like another poster has said, it's about education as technology is only going to evolve.

 

[MrsVenn]

Thank you alicecooper it's interesting to see how a parent with older children is managing the technology. I like the no technology in bedroom idea we will be doing the same, I wasn't allowed a tv in my room until I was 13, obviously some people will disagree with even that but I will definitely be implementing that as a minimum!

My husband works in security and that'll be the rule in our house. It was the rule for both of us growing up, it was extreme but my Mum works in the same field and didn't let me have a laptop until 18. PC stayed in the kitchen and visible at all times. DH had the same treatment until 16.

We will be doing the same with madam, modem off at points etc too. I'm more concerned about it being a distraction from school work and other important tasks like I witness with my cousins all too much (Apparently revising for your A Levels involves posting far too much info posts and photos on FB...)..