Parental control of digital dangers

By David Hakala

Print Story | Email Story
Add to My Digital Landing

Related Articles

• 2009 Holiday Gift Guide: For the Women
• 2009 Holiday Gift Guide: For the Men
• Introducing Twitter Lists
• Building a Website: Website Design 101
• Building a Website: Selecting a Domain Name and Host

Many parents wrestle with the ethical issue of whether or how much to monitor and control their children's use of computers, the Internet, cell phones and television.

Your children's cooperation in this effort is vital; nothing devised by adults is childproof! Children share among themselves their collective knowledge of how to beat parental controls. You are up against a vast, highly effective conspiracy! You need your children on your side.

Never use parental controls to punish; it only teaches children that parental controls are to be avoided. If school grades are unacceptable, help your child learn to use study time more effectively; don’t take away digital playtime. Use parental controls only to protect your children.

Now, let's see what types of parental controls are available. Some, you'll find, are more suited to your style than others.

Cell phones

Choosing the right calling plan for your children's social lives can keep talking charges under control. If all else fails, most carriers let you limit minutes used per month. It’s the "extras" that get you: text messages, ringtones, games, etc. Some service providers let you turn off these money-gobbling luxuries. Others do not. Ask what "features" can be blocked or limited before signing a cellular service contract.

Some phones let you control who talks to your children. The Sanyo SCP-2400, for example, lets you enter up to 20 phone numbers in its phonebook and block all other inbound or outbound calls. Blocking can be turned on or off via a password-protected menu button. Sprint and Qwest offer this phone, and other carriers have similar phones.

In mid-2006, Sprint introduced Family Locator Service, a Web-based system that lets you enter up to four enrolled phone numbers and displays a map showing where each compatible phone is at that very moment. Verizon's Chaperone service also sends you a text message if a child roams out of a preset zone. Soon, most carriers will offer this Global Positioning System (GPS) Locator Service.

The Sanyo SCP-2400 phone for Sprint lets you control who can talk to your child; restrict access to expensive á la carte features; and let you know where your child is right now.

Really cool parents let their children surf the Web on their cell phones. Smart parents enable the Web content parental controls buried in the settings of a phone's Web service menus.

Next, we look at controlling computers and the Internet. You have lots more control over what's in your computer than you have over what’s out there on the Internet. The trick is to keep bad things “out there” and wisely manage the good things in the computer.

Controlling computers and internet access

The home edition of Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest operating system, adds Family Safety to its User Accounts category. The Macintosh has had something similar (check System Preferences/Accounts) for several years, too.

This is where you should set up user accounts, each with a password, for yourself, spouse and each child. Then all members of the family have access to the programs and data they need, plus privacy for their personal information. Think of the computer as a house: Each user account is a person’s room with a locking door. The administrator (parent) has a master key to all rooms. 

Clicking on Parental Controls presents a list of user accounts. Note the selections available in the left-hand frame; these options apply to all users. You can choose a game rating system similar to the TV rating system. You can also select the types of notifications that the administrator (parent) should receive of each user's activity.

Click on a user's name to set controls for that user; turn the controls on or off; start or stop recording of information about the user’s activities; and view activity reports.

Activity reports tell you not only what a child did, but also what he or she tried to do! In this example, Tamara's parents might want to ask her why she wanted to visit tobacco maker Phillip-Morris, among other things.

The Time Limits control lets you determine which hours of each day of the week a user may use the computer. The user cannot log on at all during blocked hours.

Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft’s latest Web browser, has its own parental control options that complement the Web-related controls in Vista. IE 7 can be downloaded free for use with Windows XP, Service Pack 2. It does not work with older versions of Windows or with XP systems that do not have Service Pack 2 installed. 

Depending on the settings in Vista’s Web-blocking option, Vista may block an entire site, such as www.playboy.com, or only specific elements on a Web page, such as the image www.playboy.com/images/June07Playmate.jpg. When all or part of a Web page is blocked, IE 7 will give the user the option to ask an administrator (parent) to unblock that element. You will receive a list of such requests like the one below. You can review each item and unblock or continue blocking it.

Third-party parental controls

For instance, changing the computer’s clock time is a simple way to circumvent time limits. You just fool the computer into thinking it is 4:00 p.m. instead of a.m. But Safe Eyes ($49.95) keeps its clock and user account restrictions on a remote server, where children can’t get at them. 

Compromise often creates new parental control needs. You may be persuaded to unblock Tamara's instant-messaging application, but only if you can record and review such online conversations. Many third-party parental controls can do that, and more. 

Be careful when shopping for third-party parental controls. If a "review" site sells software, you know its reviews are not objective. Stick to impartial computer magazines and e-zine sites for fair and balanced guidance to third-party parental controls. 

Finally, think about how much time you want to spend monitoring and controlling every little thing your children do with digital tools. Wouldn't you rather take them fishing, camping or to a museum? The Internet is a wonderful place for helping with schoolwork or for learning the answers to questions virtually instantly. The key is to moderate computer use to mitigate exposure to inappropriate activity.