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Rules for Teenage Internet Access?
Kent Brewster writes "Despite dire warnings, we've gone ahead and put computers with Internet access into our adolescent (11, 12, and 15-year-old) childrens' rooms. We've got a nebulous set of rules, which include several like these: Keep the door open when you're on the computer. Don't quickly exit from everything when we walk past. Don't ever lie to us about what you're doing. Unfortunately we've had instances where all of these rules - especially that last one - have been broken, so now we are looking at getting more specific. We'd be very interested in hearing from both sides of the fence: parents with Net-connected progeny, and those who are chafing under their rule. Parents, once you're past making the huge mistake of actually letting the kids have computers in their rooms, what's a reasonable set of guidlines? Non-parents, what are the rules that chap your hide the worst? Do they actually make a difference in your behavior, or do you just sneak past them anyway? Finally, and this is sort of a meta-question from an exasperated dad, does everybody lie about what they're doing on the Internet?"
I am really concerned about the "no-big-deal" attitude that so many on Slashdot seem to have.
You're concerned if they weren't looking at porn?
So it's fine if your 15 year old sees images that are incredibly degrading to women?
You don't have a problem if your child stumbles upon some of the most depraved things out there? Things that used to require an embarassing (and perhaps risky) trip to an adult store, but which are now available at the click of a mouse?
Porn hurts people. It hurts those who film and participate in it. It hurts families and has robbed so many people of innocence. I know I'll be flamed a ton for this post, but I am tired of reading over and over how porn is completly normal.
If it's so normal, why do we instinctively hide our tracks?
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READY.
Sounds like you don't want kids anyway. Do us a favor and keep out of the gene pool, it'll make all of us happier.
Hmm, yeah, let's let our pre-teen kids be exposed to the adult world, learning to emulate adults at the age of 5. Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do it all in the name of trust.
but who said pedophiles want to be Irish? Eonugh people are going to hate them already for being pedophiles; being Irish on top of that? I'd almost feel sorry for them.
I disagree with this--it's more like having the phone company send you a full list of all calls made from your number in a given month. A closer analogy to what you suggest would be keystroke logging software, VNC, etc, which I wouldn't suggest at this point, unless things are REALLY bad.
s html" versus "212-555-8942").
I assumed that you suggested looking through the proxy cache at the end of the month, like some other posts mentioning squid had suggested. Nevertheless, the phone call list anology is not entirely accurate, either, since a URL inherently carries more information than a phone number (consider "http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/opiates/opiates.
The internet is also a far more diverse medium than the phone network; your analogy would have to include a listing of every book, magazine and pamphlet your child reads. Actually, make that every chapter, article and paragraph; due to the request-response nature of the internet, if a page is in the logs, it is reasonable to assume that the user has read (or at least expressed interest in) it -- which is far more than one could say about the contents of a magazine, for example. This, in my opinion, is overly intrusive.
Additionally, his kids have shown by their actions that they are untrustworthy in this matter. Suggesting your kids will not trust you because you will not allow them to abuse your trust seems like a dodge. You can't always be your child's friend, sometimes you have to step up and be the parent.
This particular situation isn't very clear, but a desire of privacy on the net is only rational. I know of several cases where a person does not wish the parents to know the url of his or her blog (you must admit, a parent logging urls would not hesitate to read through it), for instance. Collapsing my work whenever someone walks by is only natural for me, and many others I know, because we are (or I am, at least) embarassed of our spaghetti code and poor writing. Perhaps it is a general teenage paranoia, but being uncomfortable about one's surfing, even if it's perfectly legitimate, seems fairly normal to me.
And with regard to blocking ssh access, I am 16, and I use ssh very heavily for coding on school computers for my systems class, monitoring school network integrity, get mail, do remote backups, even chat with friends (using ssh and write), and so forth. Blocking it at the firewall is really not such a great idea IMO.
Yes, let them cherish every scar on their body as a lesson from their kind, wise, noble parent.
your crime is creating that of bland boring children who know how to kiss the systems ass and pay it proper respects. children who will continue the proud tradition of posting "Of course, if being honor students, gifted muscicians, eagle scouts, and a 4 of the damn nicest people I've ever had the joy of knowing is "messed up" I'm also damn glad I don't take this view." on message boards.
your kids will look back during their mid life crisis and see what bland boring lives they've lead. they will have a nice house, a wife, and two gifted honors students, both musicians because they were forced to learn an instrument- for their best interest. they will be the perfect children, successful by every definition. they're going to be so engratiated into the system their best way to embrace this strange feeling inside is going to be to go buy themselves a sports car, or god forbid for the real rebels a motorcycle. thats success, being able to opiate the pain with some new toy.
we can never learn how to deal with ourselves unless we are given that choice from the start.
Genocide - A word invented to describe what the Turks did to the Armenians in 1922.
we all know that repressive households are responsible for all of the worlds strippers and porn stars, and who doesn't love them?
I'm glad to see you have something to hang on to.
On a realistic point of view though, the most successfull people in this world have been through a thorough and tough education.
Porn stars and strippers are actually the result of families that didn't give a shit.
Let's not mention the irony of your reference to the inflation being so high by the time you're age 50, meaning my theory of you being around 12 years old seems to valid, in which case you yourself are a kid and are using these arguments so that your mommy and daddy may one day let you post white-trash jerry-springer-reject shit nobody cares about without having to switch back to your AOL homepage when they drop by the door.
It's a tool designed to put a hole in living tissue,and more often than not it's used against other humans. i'm not an anti-gun nut, heck, I even learned to shoot when I was 10 and got got my 5-in-a-dime badge when I was in boy scouts, however I'm not gonna religiously pull something over my head to keep me from realizing that guns do generally equal violence.
Banaaaana!
After reading so many of these posts, and even one from a supposed "parent of 10" (bullshit), I've got news for the overwhelming majority of you slashdotters:
Pornography isn't Sex.
Its not even Sex Education.
Perhaps its time to _put_the_computer_down_, get outside, and see that there is a great big world out there. Real people doing real things.
D00d, try out for a sport. I bet my 14 year old daughter could kick your ass - and therein lies the problem. Since you have no capacity to interact with normal people on a daily basis, you revert to porn. Because my daughter can kick your ass, you have to revert to "women" who have no capacity to say "no", or comment on what a pathetic loser you are.
While running rampant as a majority on slashdot, you're in the vast minority in your highschool. Probably just waiting for a chance to go Columbine on all those who done you dirt, don't give you no respect, etc.
Grow a pair, and grow up. Mummy and Daddy will on ly pay for your cable modem for a few more years. GET A JOB.
He needs to repent and become a Christian.
Arrr!
BTW, on a lark, I posed as an older female one time to chat with my son and one of his friends. It was enlightening (to say the least) some of the language I saw. I offered to "teach them a lesson. They eagerly agreed. My lesson? "Never ...
Never ...
Never ...
chat the way you have here, unless you are certain you know who you're talking to. This is your dad. Go to bed."
These types of posts always baffle me. My first reaction to an unknown individual attempting to IM me is, and always has been "Who the hell are you?" followed by a block/kick from the channel/squelch/being added to killfile if they fail to verify their identity. Any sexual motives without an established idenitity of someone I know (very well) get a "Smeg off!" and a block right away (well, ok, any sexual motives period, seeing how I'm here on slashdot).
No one had to tell me to do this. It's just logic. Not being stupid, as it were.
Yes, that's precisely what I'm saying. Block ALL IP traffic unless you have an exemption for it. For example, Disney.com or other sanitized web sites could be permitted while search engines like Google could be allowed by just blocking the cache URL. Very easy actually. Remember, I'm talking about your children, not adults here. I have every right to prohibit my children from seeing anything I don't approve of. As for the SSH tunnel, again, that would be denied since it's not explicitly allowed.
By the way, putting a computer in any teen's room is just suicide and asking for trouble. Computers should be in an open family area where there's no way to lock a door to prevent others in the family from monitoring the content. I spent enough time sitting alone in my bedroom with my computer as a teenager to know what kind of sick fucked up shit a teenager will do. Pornography, warez, hacking. It's not something I'd want my kids to be doing.
I could just point you to the bible and say "go read" but, i think that would do little good. Rather i will give you a few specific references, and point you to a book that does a good job of covering the topic of Lust (and suprisingly isn't aimed at only guys).
Some bible references : James 1:14, Matthew 15:19, 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8 and Ephesians 4:19.
The book : not even a hint (guarding your heart against lust) by Joshua Harris
Or if you are interested in a fictional story that illustrates this, read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. It is an allegorical story about a ghost of a man afflicted by lust. Lust is incarnated in the form of a red lizard that sits on his sholder and whispers seductively in his ear. When the man despairs about the lizard, an angel offers to kill it for him. But the fellow is torn between loving his lust and wanting it to die. He fears that the death of the lust will kill him. But, that is only the start... read the book to find out the rest!
If you are really interested, and check my references out, they should answer your questions