Safe internet and email for kids (vanity)

Killermosquito | 06/30/09 | killermosquito

[killermosquito]

I've got two kids (12 and 10) and we are moving about 800 miles away from their friends. They want to be able to stay in touch so I am thinking about letting them have email addresses BUT with conditions.

Is there a safe way to allow kids this age to surf the web and email? I just looked at my gmail spam box and I'm having second thoughts.

What are your suggestions? Spam filters? Web filters?

Is there a way to only allow access to specified incoming email and specified web sites? I'll take all the help I can get.

[TChris]

Dell makes crappy hardware.

That has not been my experience, and I have maintained literally hundreds of Dell machines.

Dell hardware is normally very reliable.

[Tribune7]

Sorry about the garble:

Make sure they understand that it isn’t “their” computer and that you will use it every now and then.

[Still Thinking]

For your needs you could probably set up their email accounts as a whitelist (opposite of a “black”list of objectionable addresses) where only email from a designated group of addresses gets through. This usually isn’t practical for adult/business email accounts because you correspond with too many people sometimes including people whose emails you don’t know till after receiving them, but for this situation it should work well. Don’t know if Outlook will do this. If not, try Thunderbird from the same people that bring you Firefox.

[Frogtacos]

Get them cell phones, and let them text with their friends. I did, it works great. (Mine are 9 and 13, we just moved across country 2 months ago.)

[Travis T. OJustice]

Get them cell phones, and let them text with their friends.

WOW! Excellent solution!

[antiRepublicrat]

A Mac with the built-in parental controls will do it all. You can control what programs they run, who they can email and who they can chat with. It also has automatic web filtering with block and allow lists. It’ll even cleanse the built-in dictionary of unsavory words and set times of day and amounts for usage.

[Frogtacos]

Not sure if you were being sarcastic or not, but guessing you were I challenge you to go to just about any middle school (I was a substitute for 2 years before we moved) and ask the kids by a raise of hands how many actually send emails on any semblance of a regular basis. Then ask them how many of them have cell phones and use text messaging.
I wasnt going to get one for my youngest until I found out most of her classmates and friends already had their own cell phones.

[Travis T. OJustice]

Nope, wasn’t sarcastic. The only people who would contact them are freinds who would have to be given her number to text her. Eliminates a lot of potential BS and parental worries.

[arfan]

I've got 2 girls, ages 14 and 12.

If they have to have internet/email:

Always have the computer they use in the most wide open spot in the house, where everyone can see it.

Create a username for them, but do not tell them the password. Set the screen saver password option on, and/or the standby mode password option on.

Create an email account that they do not have the password to. When you log them in, you will see their inbox.

Yahoo used to have email accounts for minors - don't know if they had different rules for spam for kids.

Read up on a free software product called K9 web protection - it's a free block (that the kids can't turn off unless they know the password) to all the "bad stuff" on the web.

If you have broadband, you can limit the hours of the day that they can get online via your router. Eventually they will figure out the screensaver/power settings password controls.


Texting via cellphone is a great thing. Our kids have Tracfones, and they have to pay for their own time, or the phone does not work. Period.

[Big Giant Head]

Get them on a LINUX distribution. Please. No viruses, no crapware! Email and browsing then are safe from at least those problems.

[SaraJohnson]

Have their pen pal mail sent to a separate account you control. They can go through you to access the account and you can filter out the trash. Don’t read their pal mail.

I’m kind of “mean” about internet privacy for younger children. They have none. I was with them on the internet or they were not on the internet. It requires a lot of time just like overseeing any activity they do. It is worth it, though.

When they get older, set up a computer area that everyone uses and that way an older kid never knows when siblings, mom or dad might be coming in to do his/her computer thing. Every little bit helps.