Keeping your child safe on the web

Developing a strategic plan for children's Internet access
The Internet. It was a technical haven -- a place that allowed the family to stay connected, to find the information we needed to do our homework and to become fully self-sufficient and efficient. Before the internet, we would have had to suffer through long line-ups to make purchases, to book time off from work to run errands or to wait on hold for someone to answer a simple question. Now we have the freedom to book our vacation online, do banking, make bill payments all without having to leave our home. Though this techy age has been a real blessing for single parents, such as myself, allowing us to buy more time doing likeable things, there arose some new challenges because there was such little time to monitor their use.

The computer essentially became a silent babysitter that kept the kids preoccupied for some time. But with it, the children soon discovered ways to have their own kind of "fun" playing games, chatting on messenger with friends, sending out chains of email jokes and spending endless hours surfing. Like the TV, it became the babysitter. The only time I had peace and quiet was when they were busy on the Internet. The funny thing is, I felt guilty. It's not that I'm completely opposed to kids using the Internet for games, but when I see them becoming socially withdrawn and developing an addiction to this machine, I became slightly aggravated.

I attempted to convince the kids that the Internet is a "privilege" not a necessity. After many struggles of trying to get the kids to sit down to dinner on time, to complete their homework, to regulate their access time, to prevent them from being exposed to nudity, to maintain an interest in other extra-curricular activities, I finally decided to confront them by negotiating access time. It didn't work. So I decided to take various measures and became vigilant about its use. Once they were hooked, I had to use a combination of methods and tackle it on a graduated approach to change their habitual use of the Internet:

Regulating excessive use
1. Weekly Activities Chart: I built a weekly activities chart for both the kids that identified time for play, homework, physical activities and use of the Internet. I made it clear that Internet use for play is allocated only 30 – 60 minutes on school days depending on homework load and is a reward for completion of homework or for accomplishing other priorities on the list.

2. Distinguish use of Internet: I explained to the kids what the different types of Internet uses are. I ensured they understood when and how they can use it as a research tool for their homework or as an information resource to satisfy their curious minds.

3. Restrict access by use of login: I enlisted the assistance of my tech savvy brother to help me restrict their access to the main screen through a login with a password requirement. By naming yourself as the administrator, you obtain the user rights to override, to modify, to access and to set parameters of other users. This allows you to have full control of when they are allowed to use the Internet or let alone the computer.

4. Strategic modem placement: The modem provides you with multiple line access of the Internet. If you have one and have two or more computers hooked up, you can either disconnect the party you want to restrict access to, or, in extreme cases such as mine, place the modem in a room where you can lock it up "unhooked".