I'm a freshman in college, and spent my high school life shuttling between a residential school with relatively unsupervised high-speed internet on the weekdays and home, with a slow AOL dialup line tightly controlled by my parents, on the weekends, so I've experienced both ends of the spectrum of discipline regarding internet usage.
To condense three years of school into one sentence - basically, Internet at home with lots of restrictions that didn't make sense to me = I find a way around them, my parents and I get mad at each other. Internet at school with very few restrictions = occasionally I'd go overboard, but the vast majority of the time, I understood I was responsible for monitoring myself (and the consequences if I didn't), so I think it worked pretty well. When I made mistakes, I learned.
(Keep in mind this is a kid talking here, but) Generally, give your kid a little more freedom than you think he/she should actually have. I guarantee it'll be less freedom than the kid thinks he/she should get, but that's what a compromise is. Part of the responsibility of a parent is to teach their child to handle his/her own responsibilities, and a few slip-ups will happen, but that's the only way they'll learn. Personally, as a kid, I don't respond very well to "You want to do X? Well, first you must Prove Yourself." It's much nicer to hear "We're not sure about this, but we trust your judgement, and think you can handle this." You feel a lot more obligated to keep up that responsibility.
Coming down hard with rules without discussing with your kids why you're setting them - and making sure they understand why you're setting them - is just going to make them find better ways of covering their tracks. I'd sit down and have a talk with each one separately and ask them what they think are reasonable guidelines, then try to go from there. This summer, my parents and I finally agreed on one that's pretty good for both of us. (The last two rules fixed our two biggest problems - that I wouldn't get off immediately when asked because I was "in the middle of something," and that they kept on peering at the monitor to find out what it was that I was in the middle of.)
1) Priority for the phone line goes like this: Mom and dad's business, my schoolwork, recreation. If you're not using the 'net for school or work and someone else needs to, you get off. Immediately. However, their business doesn't interrupt my schoolwork, and my schoolwork doesn't interrupt their business work on the internet.
2) There is a time limit for how long I can go online each day. (More on weekends than on weekdays). I can choose how to partition that time throughout the day (as long as it's before midnight.) When time is up, it is up. Extensions may be requested. If I go overtime, there is no internet the next day. (This is their favorite rule. It's eased a lot of tension.)
3) Mom and dad trust my judgement on what I'm doing on the internet. (We had a discussion on what was and wasn't appropriate.) Consequently, they don't look over my shoulder unless I invite them to. (This is my favorite rule. It's eased plenty of tension, too.)
Standard disclaimer: Of course, it completely depends on the kid, and you know your children better than anyone else... (but hey, ask your teenagers. They probably know themselves and you pretty well too.)
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I'm a freshman in college, and spent my high school life shuttling between a residential school with relatively unsupervised high-speed internet on the weekdays and home, with a slow AOL dialup line tightly controlled by my parents, on the weekends, so I've experienced both ends of the spectrum of discipline regarding internet usage.
To condense three years of school into one sentence - basically, Internet at home with lots of restrictions that didn't make sense to me = I find a way around them, my parents and I get mad at each other. Internet at school with very few restrictions = occasionally I'd go overboard, but the vast majority of the time, I understood I was responsible for monitoring myself (and the consequences if I didn't), so I think it worked pretty well. When I made mistakes, I learned.
(Keep in mind this is a kid talking here, but) Generally, give your kid a little more freedom than you think he/she should actually have. I guarantee it'll be less freedom than the kid thinks he/she should get, but that's what a compromise is. Part of the responsibility of a parent is to teach their child to handle his/her own responsibilities, and a few slip-ups will happen, but that's the only way they'll learn. Personally, as a kid, I don't respond very well to "You want to do X? Well, first you must Prove Yourself." It's much nicer to hear "We're not sure about this, but we trust your judgement, and think you can handle this." You feel a lot more obligated to keep up that responsibility.
Coming down hard with rules without discussing with your kids why you're setting them - and making sure they understand why you're setting them - is just going to make them find better ways of covering their tracks. I'd sit down and have a talk with each one separately and ask them what they think are reasonable guidelines, then try to go from there. This summer, my parents and I finally agreed on one that's pretty good for both of us. (The last two rules fixed our two biggest problems - that I wouldn't get off immediately when asked because I was "in the middle of something," and that they kept on peering at the monitor to find out what it was that I was in the middle of.)
1) Priority for the phone line goes like this: Mom and dad's business, my schoolwork, recreation. If you're not using the 'net for school or work and someone else needs to, you get off. Immediately. However, their business doesn't interrupt my schoolwork, and my schoolwork doesn't interrupt their business work on the internet.
2) There is a time limit for how long I can go online each day. (More on weekends than on weekdays). I can choose how to partition that time throughout the day (as long as it's before midnight.) When time is up, it is up. Extensions may be requested. If I go overtime, there is no internet the next day. (This is their favorite rule. It's eased a lot of tension.)
3) Mom and dad trust my judgement on what I'm doing on the internet. (We had a discussion on what was and wasn't appropriate.) Consequently, they don't look over my shoulder unless I invite them to. (This is my favorite rule. It's eased plenty of tension, too.)
Standard disclaimer: Of course, it completely depends on the kid, and you know your children better than anyone else... (but hey, ask your teenagers. They probably know themselves and you pretty well too.)