Tommy and I have always been pretty careful to keep up with what our kids read, watch and listen to. I've had my share of "discussions" with teachers and librarians about required reading, believe me. It seems, though, that as the kids get older (18, 16 & 10) we are not able to keep up as easily. We are older too and they can simply move faster than we can. :)
We have always taught our kids the "garbage in, garbage out" concept and that you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. So they can own some responsibility for their actions but as parents, what lengths do we go to when it comes to internet security?
This week, we set out on researching Parental Control software in order to protect our kids from the weirdo's and meanies out there in cyber world but we've come to a realization that alot of the softwares out there are more like spyware. You can watch what sites they visit, monitor their chats, take screenshots of things they view and even monitor their every keystroke even when they're not in the internet. That all sounds good in theory in the name of protection but is it too much?
We trust our kids. Tommy and I trust each other. We have no reason not to. But how far do we go to protect our kids and each other and balance that with respecting privacy? We all need some accountability in this area.
What if we did nothing more than what we do now, which is verbal communication and having basic security settings on our software that we currently use? What if our kids stumble across something and it causes them to stumble? I mean, that can happen by typing anything on google images. No software is going to filter google images. It's just impossible to be completely safe.
I would feel like a horrible parent if I found out we could have done something and didn't but I also feel like a horrible parent if we "spy". Of course, if they know we're doing it then it's not spying. On top of that, though, the software is expensive and still not the perfect solution.
What's a parent to do???
I recently put word out among my facebook friends and asked what they do and what they recommend. The consensus was basically to "do what your gut tells you to do and do all that you can to protect your kids. You'd rather having them mad at you than hooked on porn." I can go for that but we want to maintain a healthy and honest relationship with our kids as well. Our job as parents is to influence and train them to make good choices because one day we will not be around to protect them from everything.
So, we're still not sure what we're going to do longterm. We think for now that we're going to tell our kids that they aren't allowed to delete their history until we've looked at it. That we want access to their history and it better not be cleared or there will be consequences. They know that the demons are out there. Anna, our 10 year old, being a little more naive, will need more firm guidelines. She can only go to sites that we say she can and others will need to be by permission only, like google images. We will put our computers in a walk through area as best we can be more aware of what is on the screen. Our kids have always known that if we walk through and they hit the minimize button, that's no good. And they know we're watching.
So, going with our gut... we just can't afford to be lazy in this area so we'll pay closer attention and have more conversations with our kids about where they're going on the net and go from there.
We're not "buck passers" and we certainly can't "fix the internet"! But we can pay attention. Parenting is a tough business and leaves no room for laziness or complacency in any area but must be balanced with love and trust.
No comments:
Post a Comment