We, as parents who love our children want to do all we can to protect our children. Things as simple as making sure they don't jump in the bath tub holding a plugged up hair dryer, or jumping bikes off the roof of the house, to keeping them safe online. While most parents automatically make sure there are no hair dryers in the tub or bikes on the roof they don't always monitor their kids online activities. I have heard many times parents make comments like "I trust my child completely", "my children know what is ok and what isn't", "my little angel would never do something like giving out their name and address online" or simply "I can't watch everything". Well my response to those comments are "Folks, times are a changin'!" With the internet our children are exposed to things that were once considered to far out of reach for the normal kid. There are web sites out there that can teach you how to make a bomb, or teach the facts of life in vulgar and disrespectful ways.
I have been allowing my children to get online and surf the internet for almost 2 1/2 years now. I am an AOL user and prefer AOL for it's simplistic use. Each of my two older children have their own screen names and email boxes. AOL provides me with the ability to regulate what they are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. I can set it up so that they cannot recieve Instant Messages, or who they can or cannot recieve those IM's from or to and the list of availabilities goes on. I have learned that the AOL service is a wonderful resource for my family.
Am I censoring things from my children? The answer is an unequivocal yes! I do examine what they are looking at, reading and participating in. If I deem it inappropiate material I remove it. It is that simple. The other day while looking for Halloween costume ideas we came across a site that AOL would not allow entrance too because it contained questionable material. My daughter got a message that told her she couldn't access it because of the parental controls set for her screen name. I have never been so thankful that I took the time to sit down and set those preferences. What if that had been a site full of naked people? My 8 year old daughter and my 3 year old son would have gotten eye fulls of stuff they are not ready for.
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4.
Oct 20, 2002 6:22 AM
In response to message posted by campbellde87:
I am leaving this message only because it may potentially interest someone. I ...
-- posted by Willow4
3.
Oct 19, 2002 3:16 PM
You want your children to be safe right? But what about protecting your children from sensitive files, applications, directories, etc.? What if you do not want your children going into the Windows dir ...
-- posted by campbellde87
2.
Mar 18, 2001 5:42 AM
In response to message posted by bwheather:
Hi Heather, thank you for your kind words. I'm very glad you liked the article. ...
-- posted by Willow4
1.
Mar 18, 2001 12:24 AM
It's almost a swear word, isn't it? I'm glad to see other people with their heads screwed on right. My kids aren't too interested in the internet, but I suppose that will eventually change. Great arti ...
-- posted by bwheather
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