software to monitor child internet use

Beliavsky wrote:
On Jan 11, 12:13 am, Jeff wrote:
My nephew, who is 7 1/2, was reporting other people (presumably mostly
kids) as using inappropriate language on an internet gaming site
(supposedly fairly kid safe). Those kids, who did nothing wrong, may
have had their accounts suspended or gotten warning messages from the
game people.

Good! If those kids did not do anything wrong, the owners of the site
won't punish them and lose users.

It's not "good". If the other kids had done nothing wrong, then the
owners of the site would still have had to waste time checking out the
emails.

And there is also the risk that real reports of inappropriate language
get lost amidst the spurious ones. At the very least, it will take the
admins longer to get to them.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

"Jeff" wrote in message
news:OVChj.13905$sH.13041@trnddc04...
My nephew, who is 7 1/2, was reporting other people (presumably mostly
kids) as using inappropriate language on an internet gaming site
(supposedly fairly kid safe). Those kids, who did nothing wrong, may have
had their accounts suspended or gotten warning messages from the game
people.



Why does a 7 1/2 year old have access to any kind of chatty site without
adult supevision, I would wonder? There are many strictly web based game
sites that don't have any chat interface.


He didn't seem to understand that those were real people on the other end.
Actually, this is quite common. Teenagers will often say really nasty
things to or about other teenagers on the internet; things that they would
never say to their face or about their friends they physically know. Yet,
when other teens do the same thing to them, they get really upset, not
realizing that they did the same thing to others.

So you have to be sure that their behavior is appropriate towards others,
as well. It's hard to realize that the others on the net are real people
when you just see screen names.

Jeff

Sue wrote:
To be honest, I don't think a toddler needs to be on the computer,
especially the internet. I know I never let mine on the computer until they
had a pretty good understanding of what was going on. When I did let them on
the computer, it was games and not on the internet.


I was beginning to think I was the only one who didn't see the need
for a young child to use a computer. Yeah, my toddler loves playing on
mine, but I can't imagine giving her access to it until she has a
mature understanding of what it involves.

There are plenty of other things for her to play with.

Some of the games we
had, had a feature that would lock the rest of the computer out so they
could not do any damage to anything on the computer. I don't have any
monitoring software on the computer, my girls are old enough to not give out
their personal information. I definitely would not let a child have an email
address. My girls at 15, 12, and 11 certainly don't have an email because in
my opinion, that is where all the inappropriate stuff comes in. I have all
kinds of rules set up to get rid of the inappropriate stuff and still naked
women still show up, so no email for the girls until they can set up rules
and I can be confident that nothing bad shows up.


I will probably let her have an account at some point mainly so she
can communicate with her cousins spread across the globe. My teen
nephews and nieces communicate with me via email and it's great.
However it won't be without lots of discussion about appropriate use.

As for spam, I have an account I use for Chat groups and online
ordering which can get spam and then an account I give only to people
I want to email me. That account has stayed fairly spam free (problem
came when a friend used it in evite). I also have another account I
use only for online banking.

My work account is entirely separate and has loads of firewalls and I
use that only for work.

On Jan 10, 11:29*am, Jeff wrote:

snip

IMHO, 4-year olds do not need to be on a computer.

Even my 2yo enjoys playing with the computer with me. I open Notepad
and he has fun typing letters and then identifying and counting them.
He has also learned the punctuation marks. If he initiates the
activity, enjoys it, and learns from it, I am sure it is not harming
him. After ten minutes he moves to something else.

And they should not
be on a computer without close supervision.

I took your advice in a different message and created separate
accounts -- before we all used the Administrator account. Now I can
lock the computer, and since only my wife and I know the password, our
son cannot unlock the computer and surf when we are not around.

cjra wrote:

I was beginning to think I was the only one who didn't see the need
for a young child to use a computer.

I don't think anyone here thinks that a young child *needs* to use a
computer, but that strikes me as reminiscent of the old argument against
breastfeeding a child of that age. Of course a child of that age
doesn't *need* breastfeeding/a computer (barring unusual special
circumstances), but that doesn't stop those things from being enjoying
and potentially beneficial.

I realise there are dangers to Internet use that don't exist with
breastfeeding, but I, for one, wouldn't want to prevent my son from
doing something that he enjoys hugely and gets quite a bit of benefit
from just because there are potential risks. I'd rather work on
minimising the risks.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

On Jan 12, 5:01*am, cjra wrote:
Sue wrote:

snip

My girls at 15, 12, and 11 certainly don't have an email because in
my opinion, that is where all the inappropriate stuff comes in.

Certainly not "all".

I have all
kinds of rules set up to get rid of the inappropriate stuff and still naked
women still show up, so no email for the girls until they can set up rules
and I can be confident that nothing bad shows up.

I will probably let her have an account at some point mainly so she
can communicate with her cousins spread across the globe. My teen
nephews and nieces communicate with me via email and it's great.
However it won't be without lots of discussion about appropriate use.

Another use of email would be for kids to keep in touch with friends
that they no longer see regularly, for example former classmates who
are now at a different school and/or moved away. I hope my children
will stay in touch with more of their classmates than I have. Of
course there's the phone, but some people, especially shy ones, will
prefer email.

Sarah Vaughan wrote:
Of course a child of that age
doesn't *need* breastfeeding/a computer (barring unusual special
circumstances), but that doesn't stop those things from being enjoying

Enjoy*able* smacks forehead

My proofreading has so gone downhill lately...


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

In article , Sarah Vaughan says...

Sarah Vaughan wrote:
Of course a child of that age
doesn't *need* breastfeeding/a computer (barring unusual special
circumstances), but that doesn't stop those things from being enjoying

Enjoy*able* smacks forehead

My proofreading has so gone downhill lately...

But I thought "being enjoying" had a certain....poetic....panache.

"cjra" wrote in message
...


Sarah Vaughan wrote:
Sarah Vaughan wrote:
Of course a child of that age
doesn't *need* breastfeeding/a computer (barring unusual special
circumstances), but that doesn't stop those things from being enjoying


Sure, my 18 month old likes playing on my computer, but I am not
likely to buy a 4 year old her own computer. She can use mine, which
requires me to login, and I'd be around to see what it's being used
for.
As she gets older (school aged) she'd likely use it more
independently, but I will be discouraging its use as a game/constant
distraction as I really want my kids not to get addicted to it.

Just like TV use, it won't be forbidden but its use limited with a
focus on other activities. Of course that requires me to be involved
a bit more.

A 4 year old doesn't really need to surf the internet, and if she
wants to email friends, she can do this with my help.

I think I'm the only one who has said that my child has her own
computer-and, as I mentioned, the only reason she does is that we always
have extra hardware lying around. Her computer is only on when she has
permission to use it, and it's not atypical for it to go days without being
on at all, just like the TV. It's simply one toy in her collection, and it's
one of the few that requires extra effort for her to use, so therefore isn't
used much.

The main reason for setting up the internet for specific sites is that my DD
outgrows/gets bored with many software packages quickly, and that there's a
range of games available on PBSkids.org and the like which are of similar
quality to the purchased packages where if she plays it a few times and gets
bored, it's no big deal. It's similar to TV programs. She has a few she'll
watch when they're on and there's nothing better to do, but, really, there
haven't been many that would be enjoyed enough to make it worth buying DVDs
of them.

In article
,
Beliavsky wrote:

On Jan 11, 12:13 am, Jeff wrote:
My nephew, who is 7 1/2, was reporting other people (presumably mostly
kids) as using inappropriate language on an internet gaming site
(supposedly fairly kid safe). Those kids, who did nothing wrong, may
have had their accounts suspended or gotten warning messages from the
game people.

Good! If those kids did not do anything wrong, the owners of the site
won't punish them and lose users.

But the kid who was wrongly dobbing the other kids in might be banned.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/