MONEY MORAL DILEMMA. Can kids buy anything they want?

Mary_Hartnell

Teenage years are a difficult time and the net is getting to be an ugly place.
(My son & daughter were under 18 in the 1990's and now 10 years on have turned (back?) into very reasonable humanbeings; inspite of finding all sorts of unsuitable stuff on the net).

We were lucky enough to have a spare bedroom that became the computer room, with no door and the PC was everyone's. Simple rules, sharing and discussing the politics of what if found on the net is the best method. Does the teenager really need their own kit (with all the hassle & expense of maintaining it) or would their own memory stick be enough ?

SusanCarter

I'd say that having a lap top is not an issue, the issue is the internet access. As some people have said, it is possible to come accross harmful things and dangerous people accidentally. This means it is not purely a case of whether or not you feel you can trust your child. There is also the issue of parental responsibility to protect the child from danger. Even if the child can get unsupervised internet access elsewhere, by not allowing it at home, you are still reducing the risk. I would say that the judgement would have to depend on 1) whether you trust the child and 2) whether you feel they are able to protect themselves from potential dangers (this is different from whether you trust the child). The options available are either a) no internet access in child's room, b) monitered access in child's room or c) unmonitered access in child's room. Personally, I think it is wisest to have all interenet access monitered/recorded by the computer even if you aren't actually checking it as that way there is a record which can protect against malicious accusations. I would therefore choose either option a or b. I would also say that the child should be aware that the internet access is monitered.

nixxibabe

I think compromise is in order here.

I do agree it is the parents responsibility to protect their child from the dangers on the internet and I think that can be acheived.

It's up to parents to talk to their kids telling them of the dangers and their concerns as they need to be aware of these, once they've done that there is no reason why a compromise couldn't be introduced. In this case I'd be inclined to say that use of the internet be restricted to other parts of the house and not to be used initially in the bedroom alone (maybe there is an older sibling that could offer some of their space to help monitor use) and along with netnanny (or whatever other programmes are out there) build up some trust in the child. Then over a period of time offer a bit more freedom.

I think honesty is the best and only way to go with kids. It allows a mutual respect to build and an open relationship to develop.

In the end it depends on each child and family. After all, we are all different!

That's my plan...................wonder if that will work!!!!:rotfl:

pjayt

Thinking back to 1978 - 82, my formative years, living in middle class suburban England. I was not an overtly inquisitive teenager but I new where and how to get access to a lot of stuff that my parents would have gone apoplectic over had they known. 'Magazines' at school as I recall where quite the money spinner for some of my more enterprising peers.

Like many of the preceding comments, encourage discussion and be open. Avoid the child isolating themselves. Don't let then feel the resentment towards you that our nanny surveillance mad society may have you feeling towards it.

zebrabing

You are absolutley responsible for your childs welfare, not your child. A child may save up hard for drugs but you wouldnt let them have them, would you. Therefore if a child has access to a computer and has the ability to bypass the protection then YOU as parent have a duty to check what sites she/he has visited to ensure the child is safe and in a healthy mental environment.

Edinburghhonestman

There are a couple of isues here if she's anything like my 12 year old son. He has a laptop in his room but it is protected using Cyberpatrol (which benchmarks as the best of the parental control filters). He also has anti-virus, anti-spyware and a personal firewall so he and the PC are pretty secure from either deliberately or inadvertantly hitting anything he shouldn't. It can also control how long and during what timeframes you allow internet access so you can throttle back the surfing if you want to.

More of a problem for us was that he spent all of his time in his room and we never saw him. We have now encouraged him to bring the laptop downstairs and he seems to be accepting it. Last night he and I were both sitting at the table - him surfing and me working on my laptop and chatting about what we were doing.

littleange

Edinburghhonestman wrote:

More of a problem for us was that he spent all of his time in his room and we never saw him.

This is what teenages do - I can't remember spending any time with my parents when I was a teenager, I was either in my room or out with friends.

Darksun

I think that installing monitoring software on a computer without informing your child is disgraceful and undermines any kind of trustful relationship. Would you think it appropriate to place a bug on your childs clothing so you could monitor all their conversations while at school.

I also think that Filtering software is not a good idea. Not only is it probably a waste of money (since all filtering software is easily circumvented), it can be counterproductive. See http://www.peacefire.org/info/why.shtml for arguments against filtering software.

Danni

I had completely unrestricted and unmonitored internet access at the age of 10 (I'm 20 now). I was well aware of what could happen on the internet, and until 15 I mostly stuck to kids moderated chatrooms (I didn't like the unmoderated ones) and talking to people on MSN. At 15 I met all 3 of my boyfriends online, but only saw the first with my mum the first time (one was younger than me and lived in Milton Keynes, the other two were best friends and live oop north where I live now).

I was quite able to get around any blocks put on the internet (and did at school and the library ) but was always sensible because I'd been trusted.

nappentass

Coincidentally my SO is trying out free demo's of internet cafe software, which may help some parents out
- install the server account on the parents PC and Set up a user account for each child and credit time allowed (perhaps they can even 'earn' time for their sessions)
- install client on the child's PC and it can be set up so that users cannot even access the PC unless the Server (parent's PC) is running which controls the access completely (unless they know the password of course!) loads of variations and they seem to work very well; also most have details logs of what has been used/accessed.
So far we've looked at cafezee (free demo with 2 clients) and cybercafe and best of all they're free!

HTH
J