When I was in high school my parents didn't talk much about the dangers of the internet. Once I think they saw something on the news and said "don't meet boys from the internet" and them promptly forgot the internet existed. We didn't have a computer in our home, only one (yes 1) of my friends did, kids never had cell phones and the few adults who did definitely never had a web browser on them. the need to teach internet and technology safety didn't exist for my parents. Lucky damn bastards
The technology that did exist I used against my parents every chance I got. My parents saw caller ID was a way to verify that I really was calling from my best friends house, it took my friends and I 5 minutes to figure out how to defeat caller ID with the aid of three way calling.
So now I have kids and the technology my parents had no need to fear is everywhere. Heck we have a computer in our dining room! In two years when my eldest hits grade 6 he will be given a laptop by the school. How the hell do I control his internet presence when the damn school gives him a computer? OK sure they can't access facebook on the school computers but you can get in plenty of trouble without facebook. Heck I remember going to my friends house (you remember me talking about that one girl that had a home computer) and playing on ICQ. In hindsight it was just sheer luck that we were not raped and murdered. Oh my god, we would be sitting there at 3 am talking to random internet guys while her parents snored away in the next room. Internet safety was something we taught each other.
How do I keep my kids from endangering themselves? Yes we have talked about not disclosing personal information with strangers, but how do I know he is listening? Right now he is ten and I have manged to convince him I am more computer savvy than I actually am. For example we have a rule. If you delete the computer history you loose all electronic privileges for month. That,s a great rule ... if I knew how to access my computer history. My husband does but I don't.
I am a technotard. I know just enough to grasp all the dangers and pitfalls but not enough to ensure my kid stays away from them. So with that said does anyone have any suggestions?
All suggestions are to be made in plain English. Any and all suggestions made in tech talk will result in the commenter being called extremely unflattering names.
Showing posts with label monitoring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monitoring. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
You're reading letting them read WHAT?!
What do you mean Harry Potter will warp my child's mind? I just heard your kid talking about Jersey Shore.
It is often difficult to judge what is appropriate for your child to read,watch, and play at what age. It is always a balancing act and in the end there will ALWAYS be someone who tells you that you are too strict, too lenient., or in my case downright crazy.
My boys are coming up on 10 and 2. My ten year old loves zombie movies, games and books. Now there are a lot of parents who feel that zombies are inappropriate for their 10 year old, that's fine their kid their choice.
Until my kid could grasp the basic concept of real vs make believe (about 4) he was limited to blues clues and elmo. He only watched shows that his reenacting wouldn't cause issues. I was often called crazy and over protective but I felt at 2 and 3 he couldn't yet differentiate between spider man beating up the green goblin and him beating up his best friend. That part of his brain that housed common sense hadn't developed yet.
Over the intervening years what he is allowed to watch has expanded greatly but my basic rules for censoring his screen time varied greatly from that of other parents.
I could care less if he watches a movie with nudity or even consensual sex (not porn mind you I am thinking more like Titanic) my reasoning being that I assume and even hope that one day he will have consensual sexual relationships, but the Simpsons are off limits. This has a lot of people shaking their heads at me but I don't allow TV that glamorizes sexism, racism, and stereotypes.
Killing zombies is ok, that is self defense, killing people for fun is not cool. That is why my kid owns land of the dead but we had a big fight when I told him he couldn't watch Saw even if all his friends had, I don't approve of torture porn.
My kid plays Call of Duty, Gears of War, and Left 4 Dead, I get a lot of shit for that but it doesn't really bother me since I am comfortable with my decisions. there is a legit reason for the killing in those games so I let him play and use them as a teaching opportunity to discuss why it is ok to shoot an invader but not the bully down the road, what makes it different and where our personal line in the sand is drawn. I am still the meanest mother in "all of everywhere" though because I refuse to let him play Grand Theft Auto because it glamorizes a lifestyle I disagree with.
It is a balancing act for every parent trying to find the line between over protective and exposing your child to potentially harmful material
It is often difficult to judge what is appropriate for your child to read,watch, and play at what age. It is always a balancing act and in the end there will ALWAYS be someone who tells you that you are too strict, too lenient., or in my case downright crazy.
My boys are coming up on 10 and 2. My ten year old loves zombie movies, games and books. Now there are a lot of parents who feel that zombies are inappropriate for their 10 year old, that's fine their kid their choice.
Until my kid could grasp the basic concept of real vs make believe (about 4) he was limited to blues clues and elmo. He only watched shows that his reenacting wouldn't cause issues. I was often called crazy and over protective but I felt at 2 and 3 he couldn't yet differentiate between spider man beating up the green goblin and him beating up his best friend. That part of his brain that housed common sense hadn't developed yet.
Over the intervening years what he is allowed to watch has expanded greatly but my basic rules for censoring his screen time varied greatly from that of other parents.
I could care less if he watches a movie with nudity or even consensual sex (not porn mind you I am thinking more like Titanic) my reasoning being that I assume and even hope that one day he will have consensual sexual relationships, but the Simpsons are off limits. This has a lot of people shaking their heads at me but I don't allow TV that glamorizes sexism, racism, and stereotypes.
Killing zombies is ok, that is self defense, killing people for fun is not cool. That is why my kid owns land of the dead but we had a big fight when I told him he couldn't watch Saw even if all his friends had, I don't approve of torture porn.
My kid plays Call of Duty, Gears of War, and Left 4 Dead, I get a lot of shit for that but it doesn't really bother me since I am comfortable with my decisions. there is a legit reason for the killing in those games so I let him play and use them as a teaching opportunity to discuss why it is ok to shoot an invader but not the bully down the road, what makes it different and where our personal line in the sand is drawn. I am still the meanest mother in "all of everywhere" though because I refuse to let him play Grand Theft Auto because it glamorizes a lifestyle I disagree with.
It is a balancing act for every parent trying to find the line between over protective and exposing your child to potentially harmful material
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