This is a little bit controversial so try to keep it clean.
Also I dont have kids, im just interested what people think.
When is too young to be on the internet?
We are in the internet generation its about as common now as electricity and water. Its in everyones homes. Kids who are growing up at this time are a lot more exposed (than I was in my sheltered childhood). I didnt have the internet till I was about 16 but some people who are a lot younger are being exposed to the world. I dont need to tell anyone how dangerous the internet can be. Not just in terms of privacy but also the information that can be accessed by internet users.
So what should parents do?
1. Let their kids go online unsupervised
2. Watch them like a hawk
3. Get programs to watch them
4. Dont let them on the internet at all
The problem I see is parents who go with option 1. The internet isnt bad but some of the people who make websites or use social networking etc are bad. Plain and simple, if young people are left to their own devices they will explore. Which isnt a bad thing most of the time but the nature of the internet means this exploration can be a bad thing.
Then we look at option 2. This isnt a bad option but you cant watch them all the time and even if you can they probably wouldnt like this one.
Option 3 is good but restraint is needed. In my opinion we should only report certain information. Saddly there is no complete solution available to do this well in Ubuntu or GNU/Linux in general.
Option 4 should be used for most kids below 13 years old. Maybe allow them to use google for school projects etc. I think in the sensitive years kids should be sheltered from the world because it is big and bad.
Id love some comments because im just very interested in this issue.
I heard it’s a good idea to set the family computer up in a public place …
Filters might help to keep shocking and unpleasant things from being viewed (some of the time). Ideally they’d be filters that everyone wants to have there for their own use.
I don’t like the idea of monitoring software. It tells children that they don’t have any power or privacy. It’s not healthy for human beings to feel that way I think.
When its for their own protection I say the ends justify the means.
So you’d like to live in a police state? After all, it’s only for your own protection.
Nope, I think kids need protection if they are on computers. They shouldnt be unsupervised. That being said they may want to be on the computer but the parents cant be around all the time. So there needs to be some way to keep both the parents happy (that there kids are safe) and the kids happy that they can use computers without their parents looking over their shoulder.
Well, I have 5 children and 7 pc’s in the house, all Ubuntu. All I do is keep logs of my kids who are under 8, and let the teenagers get on with it. I don’t believe in net nanny type software.
The only thing I am strict about is the amount of time online and that they do their homework in between all their youtubing and facebooking.
We all ‘look in on’ the younger one’s who now seem to have a penchant for Youtube and Michael Jackson songs.
To be honest, I wouldn’t worry. A casual look through the browser cache will avert any fears you may have.
I will be the oddball in this group, going for option 1. As a member of the “internet generation” (just barely), I was allowed to use the internet unsupervised probably since I was 8 or so, when my house got internet.
I did get into some bad things, but so what? It isn’t any different than them seeing an R-rated movie (which they will, I guarantee it).
Letting the child find their own way lets them satisfy their curiosity and find new things. I would never be into many of the things I now enjoy if not for unfettered access to the internet.
Give kids a chance, and trust them. They’ll be fine.
Very young, sit with them and help them Google or whatever. Preteens, have a public computer. 13+, let them do their thing. Filtering sucks, monitoring sucks.
If they aren’t capable of handling things they might find online by the time they’re teenagers AND aren’t comfortable coming to me about it, I’ve done something pretty wrong as a parent. Telling them I don’t trust them at all by locking down everything they do isn’t going to improve anything.
I don’t have kids or plans for them yet, but I’d like to trust my kids and have them trust me. I’ve known too many people whose parents regarded them more as out-of-control pets.
I just have my 4year ol on the new, but only when I supervise her, as she isn’t good enough at reading yet.
She started at about 3. I do run a large ip and dns blacklists on all but the wifes computer (blocks her coupon sites).
I may add some logging on the router in several years to log http requests and the like, but dunno if lazyness will overcome the idea and practice of reading its logs.
I once bought an expensive child-protection-suite and it was as useless as it could be. It had 2 main features: web-filter and resticting time of usage. The filter did work well enough, but time-restriction didn’t work as soon as a fullscreen-game was started
Well, I still think those 2 points are rather important for children but didn’t really spend time to investigate how to set up linux for those features. My 10 year old nephew uses the internet quite frequently, but only when one of us adults is around. In the future, another solution will be necessary as his privacy gets more important.
Heh, it was Doug Stanhope who made some jokes about this. One was quite good: he was stating that, as long as pedophiles are ON the Internet they cannot harm your children IRL.
I don’t have children so its easy to talk perhaps. Still, what I’d do is keeping a good relation, so they feel comfortable talking with me about what they experience (including about the Internet).
I believe that, then, what happens is 1) they’ll enthusiastic tell something which raises the eyebrows or 2) they’ll express something horrible they seen. And in either of these cases, they were safe in home, because its ‘just the internet’.
Yes, even works with teens, but they will have their own secrets too, ofcourse. Better live with it and accept it. Usually when this issue comes up though, there is already a lot of fracture and distance in the relationship.
Then again, I’m a European, and I don’t think its bad if a kid sees a nipple of Janet Jackson, yet we see so much violence and mean behavior in cartoons. What is bad is privacy related issues, but the government here is educating people (adults, primarily) about this.
Its pretty much a given that letting your kids do whatever they want _or_ controlling them sheltered from any harm is _both_ bad. Life is full of positive and negative experiences, and children should learn its not always about beautiful roses.
I don’t see why you have to ‘shelter’ kids from harm – I’m fourteen, I’ve had free reign to browse the internet for the majority of my life, and I’ve been all the better for it. Obviously, if it’s starting to have an impact on your children’s schoolwork then some banning should be required, but otherwise I think it’s just being overprotective – and honestly, I can’t help but feel that you’re underestimating children in general. They don’t really need to be ‘protected’ from the world – would you forbid children from leaving the house as well? After all, god forbid, they might meet some unsavory stranger outside, too!
Its a lot easier to run into bad stuff on the internet. I didnt say they couldnt go outside, in fact I encourage it because kids dont go out as much as they did before tv and computers.
I’d just like to add that something valuable for all the groups, but especially group 1 is this:
Go in the opposite direction of filtering / restricting. Give them *really* easy access to information on the subject you’re concerned about, but make it information from a perspective you’re comfortable with.
Worried that they’ll find porn that degrades women? Make sure it’s even *easier* for them to find info on sex that is compassionate and gender equal (eg “The Joy of Sex” by Dr Alex Comfort). Worried they’ll stumble across Nazi hate groups? Make sure it’s super easy for them to find movies / books / webpages about the Jewish experience of the holocaust (eg The Diary of Anne Frank). The concept is pretty much the same regardless of topic. It just requires some creativity and providing stuff one-two steps ahead. It also requires letting go of them following your timeline on when they grow up.
On the plus side, it’s easier to feed a child’s curiosity that to block it. They’ll be more consistent about ideas they’ve adopted for themselves. There’s not much for kids to rebel against if whatever they get into, you’re helping them into it. BONUS: You also don’t need to hide who *you* are (yes, Mum and Dad had sex) so they’ll know you better as an adult.
Damn, I’m a libertarian.
I have 4 kids between ages 3 and 9. We have set up the
“family” computer (which the kids use — my wife and I have our own), in the family room attached up to our TV.
I have found that the kids are only interested in a few things online at this stage — the boys want to look at the Lego Bionicle website, and the girls want to get online to download pictures for various art projects using google images (they’ve also gone shopping for horses). So far, they haven’t even thought of venturing near a social networking site…
I gave my oldest daughter an email address 2 years ago, and she hasn’t really started to use it at all (yet).
I think your last point is pretty ridiculous. There’s no way you can keep someone off the internet until they are 13. Not only would this be bad for several reasons but it would be unenforceable anyway, unless you are going to ban them from going to their friends houses as well.
You have to appreciate we will soon live in an age where people surf the internet on their wrist watch. Well maybe not, but you get the idea… in the developed world the internet is fast becoming as ubiquitous as running water.
Imagine if a kid was banned from reading books, watching tv, watching films, or socialising with anyone else after school. You take away a kids internet in this day and age and that is kinda what you are doing to them.
Lots of people dont have the internet or tv. So its not so ridiculous.
If you would like to restrict the internet access there is a good solution under linux:
http://dansguardian.org/
It’s easy to install and the default installation filters are a good starting point.
There is a middle ground between states 1 and 2. Letting kids loose “on the Internet” is the equivalent of letting the them go off for hours on end roaming town and countryside. Old hat now, I know, but it was the done thing when I were a lad. I got into some scrapes. I even had a scare or two. But my parents cared enough to let me go, and to be there to pick up the pieces when they were needed.
Parents know their children. Parents know when they are acting furtively. Or at least they should, and I think there’s the problem. What matters are parents who teach responsibility and good sense; who are supportive and approachable. Only parents who don’t care don’t bother, but some are over-protective which is almost as bad. Freedom is a key feature of our development. Children need to explore. They need to extend boundaries. Even break the odd rule – maybe getting caught, maybe not. But until they develop a degree of maturity they also need the security of knowing that they will get hauled in when they step too far, and that they will be protected if required. Until they reach that point, simply don’t allow Internet access anywhere that you wouldn’t allow them to interact with a complete stranger in person.
The Internet is just a reflection of our world, and our world can be dangerous. Perhaps opinionated, but in a social sense i do not believe the world is any more dangerous than it was in my youth, but with modern technology events are reported faster, wider, and in grosser detail. We see more of the danger, and perceive it as more pervasive, but in truth it changes very little, even under the influence of technology. Patterns change; the dangers don’t. The Internet can bring some aspects of that danger all the way into the home environment. But remember, some of those dangers have ALWAYS been close at hand, but under wraps. Every anorexic; every bully; every con artist; every paedophile is a person somewhere.
The world has not changed that much – the real dangers are still the same as they ever were. Not getting run over. Not falling in a river. Not sticking your fingers in an electrical socket, or breaking your neck running down stairs. We learn these things from our parents, and they keep an eye on us until we are mature enough to be trusted to understand the risks.
Ah – no paragraph breaks… Looks awful.
I know, its a problem with the theme, im going to change it soon.
Give them liberal access to the internet with the following guidelines:
1) No Facebook, ever. (Myspace and similar sites too.)
2) Very strict time limits on “webertainment” (youtube etc.)
3) Very strict time limits on chat. Chat only allowed with people known in real life.
4) Screen always in a public place (living room, coffee shop)
5) Very generous time allowed for research, learning, and homework.
Good luck. The cultural tides are against you.
Problem – With 2 teenage boys we have been trying to watch them like a hawk by putting the computer in the family room. I was never happy with any of the cybersitter or netnanny type software. I wanted a Barracuda type solution like i used at work.
Solution – i found a internet filter called OPENDNS http://www.opendns.org . They offer a free solution for home use. Very easy to set up. Basically, you point your DNS services on your router to their service. You login to your account on their web-page and you can control what activities and content can be viewed from your home. FREE is good.
We’ve gone with a family room PC and openDNS.com content filtering approach. Our kids are all under 7 and are not allowed on the internet without Mum or Dad. We’ll relax this when they’re mature enough, which won’t be until they’re 13+. I’m not a fan of kids on social networking at all. Windows 7 has some good parental controls around which applications are allowed to be run and when the accounts can be accessed, openDNS allows the custom site filtering based on community rating and doesn’t seem to affect internet performance. Tried DansGaurdian but found it to restrictive and a huge performance hit.
Until you care enough to make them a whitelist, let ‘em master the computer until you plug it in a public network.
Let’s see how far I get taking my own advice here.
Just set up OpenDNS on your router and then you can filter their traffic without installing any software on their computer – ie. cut off porn, tasteless shock sites, etc.
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