Good Email For Kids? 489
mgessner writes "My kids are starting to want email accounts of their own. Even though gmail does a pretty good job of filtering spam, it's not perfect. Searching the web the other day for kid-safe email, I found a few sites that say they can do the job. What do others do for their kids' email? Pay for it? Just use a free service like gmail or yahoo? I don't pay for email accounts out of my own pocket, so I don't really see the need, but if the cost was a few bucks a month, I'd do it."
What the problem with Gmail? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then don't let them have an e-mail account. There is no perfect spam filter ... except you filter it by your own. Another question, why does an 5 year old need to have an own e-mail account by itself??
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is another reason not to use GMail for this. You cannot auto delete anything in GMail, only send it to the trash.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's what the proxy is for..
Anything not white listed never gets to Gmail..
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think any e-mail solution for kids should be done with whitelisting. Not just for filtering out spam, but because there's no reason that anyone you don't know should be e-mailing your kids.
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:4, Interesting)
The spammers will get into the inbox. You need to be there too if you want to make sure your kids learn the appropriate response to spam.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You need to be there too if you want to make sure your kids learn the appropriate response to spam.
Ahh, the low-tech solution. Or, as I prefer to call it, good parenting.
Bravo.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Think you're smart, eh? What happens when grandma is a promiscuous porn star with digital Tourette syndrome and a highly inappropriate image based email sig!?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a good idea...
However, if you aren't fond of the idea of whitelisting (which would mean that you would be the keeper of your kids address book), then I would suggest you think a bit about the addresses that they use.
This slashdot article [slashdot.org] discusses some ways to form less spammed email addresses.
Of course, whitelisting techniques are the only ways to filter all spam. Other techniques will let some through. I would personally suggest that education is the most important component if your kids are us
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Anywho, he's asked for an email address because some of the content on the disney.com, nick.com, and cartoonnetwork.com require registration
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then don't let them have an e-mail account. There is no perfect spam filter ... except you filter it by your own.
One solution offers the answer to both of these problems. Maia Mailguard [maiamailguard.com]. I'm a huge fan of that project and it is, in my opinion, the single most underpromoted open source app out there. It should be on every sys admin's (at least) radar.
With Mailguard you can set up customised filtering levels (based on spamassassin score). Want manual spam filtering for somebody's account? Set up two email a
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither of which requires that they have their own e-mail address.
When I was 5 I got letters from grandparents and other family members. I also didn't have my own street address and, unless asked to, probably didn't check the mail box on my own. Those letters went to my parents address and were probably even addressed to them in some circumstances.
If you really want, I'd suggest setting up an address for the kid and not yet telling them the password. At 5 it's not like they should be using the computer without supervision anyway.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
At 5 it's not like they should be using the computer without supervision anyway.
Why not? Worst case scenario, they get linked to goatse. Do you really think that's going to damage a kid for life? No, they'll just say "Gross!" and go back to their cartoons or video games.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I normally don't bite on the "think of the children" attitude, but goatse... plenty of adults have been permanently scarred from that. I'd hate to think what it would do to a five-year-old. For all you know, he might take it as a challenge, which would be, uhh, not a good thing. This isn't normal porn we're talking about, here (if you could call goatse porn... I can't think of a better word, but I sure as hell don't want to meet someone who gets off to that kind of thing).
Seriously, five-year-olds should
Re: (Score:3)
plenty of adults have been permanently scarred from that.
Oh please. Exactly one adult has been permanently scarred from that. The rest are just being melodramatic.
Not that I'm advocating showing goatse to kids. It's not a good thing. But by all reasonable measures you should feel safer leaving your kids to play on the computer alone than leaving them with your brother in law for the day. Most molestation happens within the family, and computers never touch anyone inappropriately.
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:4, Insightful)
At 5 it's not like they should be using the computer without supervision anyway.
The computer? Why not? You might want to restrict their internet access, but watching over their shoulders while they play 'Reader Rabbit' on the computer is a bit much.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
At 5 it's not like they should be using the computer without supervision anyway.
Should I be worried that whilst I'm on the loo my 3 year old can put on the computer, load up firefox and go (via bookmark) to BBC iPlayer in order to get his fix of "The Owl" or "Bob the Builder" or whatever?
Sometimes he'd rather play gcompris but mostly it's iPlayer that grabs him.
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And with Gmail, much as I love it, there's no feasible way to auto-delete spam. I've asked for the very same feature myself, but Gmail confirm that (currently) you cannot auto-delete spam.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As per my earlier comment: this just moves it from Spam to Trash. So the stuff is still accessible.
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know it's convoluted, but you could set up two accounts: one as a proxy account which forwards non-spam to the kid's actual account. Set the kid's actual account in Gmail to use the from address of the proxy account. The proxy account is his public email address.
littleJimmy@gmail.com
Rule: !is:spam
Forward: jimmysSecretAccount@gmail.com
jimmysSecretAccount@gmail.com
From address: littleJimmy@gmail.com
As an added bonus, if someone ever hacked littleJimmy@gmail.com, they wouldn't be in his real email account (and you could use rules at littleJimmy@gmail.com to auto-trash all messages, so only his last 30 days would be accessible in there).
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds a lot like "GMail: I'm too lazy and or busy to watch what my kid is doing, so I'd like you to do it for me"
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, the problem here seems to be that the guy wants an e-mail company to do his (the parents' job). I totally agree, get them a free Gmail account (I RARELY have spam get through - maybe once every couple of months), and then police their e-mail accounts. They are YOUR kids, it is YOUR job to keep them safe, not the responsibility of the e-mail provider.
Now, I do have a bit of a tradeoff when I police the kid's myspace and stuff. They can have it, but I want access to it, otherwise they do not have one at all (they do not even get on the computer). The tradeoff is - if I know who your friends are, and I trust them, I won't dig through your mail. You can have your privacy. But if you are an underage girl, and have several older guys (even if they are minors) on your friends list, then we have a talk.
So, yeah, setup an e-mail account for them. You can set it up with whitelist only options. Go through their accounts if you have to, and if you see something in there you don't like or someone you don't know, read it or delete it. As the kids get older, and show you they are responsible, you start looking over their sholder less, until one day, you don't need to. But for the love of God, don't give a seven-year-old an e-mail account, never look into it, and expect a provider to filter everything for you. 15-year-old, a bit of a differnet story.
Re:What the problem with Gmail? (Score:5, Insightful)
"[I]t is YOUR job to keep them safe, not the responsibility of the e-mail provider."
So, looking for technological tools to help you accomplish a task you're given (or that you've volunteered for or been volunteered for, whatever) is suddenly verbotten? Look, the OP isn't looking to force you to use any particular email provider, he's doing some work in looking for such a provider for himself. And if there already is a good choice out there, why not take the short-cut and use it instead of re-inventing the wheel?
It's not as if he's asking for all email providers to provide such service, thereby denying you the choice to get your porn spam. Just a shortcut.
Seriously, the answers here have given me a few good ideas on eventually giving my daughter an email account - but I have a domain, and can thus put something into postfix's queue to actually enforce a whitelist on the way in. But it *would* be nice to have a good solution already available.
Re:It's the Ads! (Score:5, Funny)
Girls In Underwear Pics
Find Fresh Girls' Underwear Info. Fast'n Easy.
-someunderwearwebsite
Meet Vampire Males
Meet Local Vampire Males Near You. View Profiles 100% Free. Join Now!
-somegothwebsite
Those ads have a lot more to do with what Google knows about you than what your friend sent...
But thanks for sharing!
Re:It's the Ads! (Score:4, Funny)
Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
That should be a fairly simple conclusion from the fact that (almost) anyone anywhere in the world can send email to any email address.
Re: (Score:2)
Ehh, you can white-list their email accounts so that only friends and family can get through to them. Easy enough to do through Hotmail, I would assume that gMail has similar functionality.
-Rick
Re: (Score:2)
Just do what your parents did.. (Score:5, Insightful)
People anymore are so paranoid about everything anymore, it is a wonder society can even function. If you are THAT worried about it, then DON'T get them an email address.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but every parent wants their kids to turn out BETTER.
Of course, this often results in bumbling parents making roughly the same amount of mistakes their parents made, only different.
Re:Just do what your parents did.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And before that there was time when there wasn't tv to corrupt the kids. And before that there was a time when weren't any "bad" magazines. Every generation has its own new "evils" which didn't exist when they were young and from which they think they need to protect their kids.
Re:Just do what your parents did.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So, you're advocating putting flak vests on our kids, so we can improve their odds? After all, anything to keep them safe!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Ummm...
Unless the OP is really young, his parents did not have to grapple with this issue. My first child is still a baby, and when I was old enough to know what a computer was, spam was definitely still canned meat.
OP is not exhibiting paranoia--he didn't say "Oh god! Fear the internet!" He's looking for a reasonable solution to a real problem that doesn't have a long history of solutions.
As for a solution, I agree with those who say auto-delete the spam and supervise email use for a few years.
Re: (Score:2)
I hate to point the obvious, but I kind of doubt the guy's father created him an e-mail account when he was 12.
This being said, he should just create them a Gmail account and be prepared to answer to such questions as "Daddy, what's Vi4gR4?" or "Why do all these people write to me in gobbledegook?" or even "Can you lend me $29,000? That's for a friend in Nigeria.."
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The last thing I want to think about when I'm "seriously" looking at porn is my parents encouraging me.
Re:How old are they? (Score:4, Informative)
Situation where a whitelist is good (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd recommend looking for a service based on a whitelist rather than a service with great spam filtering. This will help you two ways:
1) Probably no spam
2) You can actively monitor and controlwho your children get email from (which is OK, these are children not adults!)
A tool every parent needs... (Score:2)
If you are a parent, you should be monitoring *everything* your kids do on the internet. Until they are at least teenagers, they don't even deserve the "right to privacy" in their IM/chat conversations.
At a certain age, you should probably start backing off on monitoring their chat, and then what sites they visit. But until they are 18, there is *no* reason why you shouldn't be monitoring all of their social networking profiles. You should be sure you have "friend" access to look a
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow, that is some hard core invasion of privacy there. Why not install a key-logger while your at it, or take snapshots of the desktop every 2 seconds? Even in the OP's case logging every PACKET sent or received or sent might be a bit much, but suggesting doing that until the kid is 18?? thats pretty crazy and shows no trust at all in your kids. If you need to resort to packet logging to make sure your 16 year old is not doing incredible stupid things on the internet you really havent done your job as a par
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but that doesn't make you any less of an obsessive control freak asshole.
Yes, because setting appropriate boundaries for your children based on their maturity is the true sign of a fascist overlord.
Nowhere did I say that I would ban viewpoints that I didn't like or agree with. Nor did I say I would brainwash my kids. Nor did I say I would implement any sort of blacklist. Stop putting words into my mouth and sounding like a spoiled 15 year old at his daddy's computer.
I am saying that I would keep an eye on what they are doing. I didn't say that I would obsess over the logs, c
ISP (Score:2)
What I would do as a parent ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I had an email account when we first got internet (local ISP started by the local newspaper, which eventually got bought out by mindspring, which eventually got bought out by earthlink). I think I was maybe 10 or 11.
It was the beginning of widespread public internet access, and I was the first kid on my block with it. I don't recall who I traded emails with back then - I was on 3DRealms' bbs a lot though. And then came WBS.net, and made some friends through there. I think my first introduction to porn came
If you want "GOOD" email service.... (Score:2, Funny)
Try looking at Motorola? http://www.good.com/ [good.com]
Zoobuh (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Your own domain (Score:2)
Worry about IM! (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheers,
DCobbler
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I discovered that my wife was sleeping with her best friend (who is a lesbian). You should take a look at it.
So you're saying an IM filter can eventually lead to a 3-way with my wife and her friend? Awesome!
Ummm... (Score:2)
Do you filter their web access as well? Otherwise just face the fact that once they're online, they're probably going to see some shit you'd rather they didn't see once in a while, live with it.
Best you can do is sign up to something like FastMail [fastmail.fm], jack up the spam filtering to aggressive or whitelist-only (bit nazi, but if you really want control...).
"Overprotectionism" (Score:5, Insightful)
What, exactly, are you trying to protect your kids from?
The natural tendency to make the world this warm, safe, fuzzy place for our children cannot be refuted. If we didn't look out for the basic well being of our infants, our survival as a species would be highly threatened.
But, I think that we as a society are suffering from over-protectionism. We take this natural urge too far. In order to learn that actions have consequences, they need to make some mistakes. Letting your child get a minor burn their hand on the stove when they are young prevents them from major burns later on. Letting your children make a few dumb mistakes when they are young and suffering the consequences results in mature, capable young adults.
But we aren't letting our youth make mistakes. When they do a few dumb things, we pass laws that say that you can do X until a later age. You can't drink until you are 21, and enforcement of these laws has result in a host of 21 year olds that are unable to deal responsibly with alcohol - the number of alcohol poisonings at the local college has been rising year after year.
And the response? "Don't let them drink 'till they are 25!". Not that this solves anything, because somehow the drinking age is just 16 in Germany and they don't seem to be having the problems with alcohol that we're having.
If you want kids that will grow up capable of handling the real world, you gotta give them a good taste of the real world so that they can work it through. If you want them to deal with sex responsibly, you have to let them see what sex is and does and what the consequences are of it. Don't hide them from hookers, let them see the real damage that prostitution does to marriages and families of those who engage with prostitutes. Let them see it for what it really is, rather than leaving them free to romanticize due to lack of information.
Sure, get a decent email host, with decent spam protection - that's just self respect. But don't think that if they see a picture of a penis pump, that they'll be ruined forever. Just answer their questions clinically and accurately, and trust that they can figure it out.
Remember, that kids tend to live up to your real expectations. If you expect them to be able to handle (for real) then they most likely will do just fine. And then, as adults, they'll be that much better equipped to handle all of reality.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"Overprotectionism" (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand your point of view. I plan to talk to my kids about sex and treat is as a "normal" part of our existence. However do you see a difference in these two things:
1) Factual, non-taboo discussions about sex, relationships, and even nudity.
2) Porn spam in their inbox, showing nearly gynecological views of women "ready to make you shoot your load" or "watch me get it on with a horse".
I really don't want my 5-year old kids exposed to this level of graphic imagery. Call me crazy. Everything I've read on the matter does indicate it can have a somewhat disproportionate affect on them in later life.
of course you can overprotect (Score:2)
you can also underprotect
the balance is a gray area that a lot of people have a lot of different opinions on. but there are some clear and obvious areas of society you do not want your kids exposed to
especially with regards to sex, because there are adults out there who will prey on children for sex
this is not overprotectionism, this is not hysteria, this is not fear. this is a real and valid concern: predators who will sexually abuse children. they exist, and they are not rare
and if you in any way belittle
Is it necessary? (Score:2)
How about (Score:2)
Seems cut and dry to me. Unless your kid is crafty enough to bypass your preventative measures, then the point is moot.
What about (Score:4, Interesting)
If you used something like Gmail, but "filtered" it again through yourself to make sure nothing unwanted gets through. Say, you setup the kids Gmail, but do not tell them the password or how to get on it via the web, and just set them up a Pop3 client on the computer that will get the mail for them. I think GMail will let you pop in? I do this on my Verizon phone anyway so I assume it's possible, and I don't see my spam folder stuff come down that way. Perhaps in combination with some security on the OS front on your home PC (kids can't log in without getting you, can only use it at certain times, etc) you would have ample time to review what they're getting in their GMail, kill what you don't want to get to them, then allow them to "check their email" via the pop client and (hopefully) still allow them to have at least the feeling of freedom that comes with checking their email and such.
Whitelist services (Score:2, Informative)
GMail Spam (Score:2, Informative)
GMail is not pretty good at sorting spam, it is the worst I've ever seen. Not only does it let tens of spam-emails through every day, it randomly tags one non-spam mail as spam every week. My former spamassassin only let 1-2 spams through a week, and false positives was limited to 1-2 per year. Compared to spamassassin; GMail is horrible. How can it be that bad, when it can compare so many emails and just check for duplicates????
Remember the RFC: Be liberal in what you accept... (Score:5, Insightful)
... since your children will interpret censorship as damage and route around you. As soon as you make a decision they don't agree with, they'll be at Google registering their /real/ account...
And right after that, they'll learn to keep a slow flow of garbage to it they won't mind you catching, and then they'll learn compartmentalization, and by the time it gets far enough where you get suspicious, they'll already have so much damning evidence in their second account that they won't hesitate to lie to you about its existence, rationalizing it as being no worse than having indirectly lied to you these last few months, and...
Hmm. You know what? I wouldn't give them an email account. There's no way your expectation of control will match their expectation of privacy -- and for the purposes of this debate, I don't care what rights the parent has or has not, it's what the child expects that's important. If you want to teach your kids to lie to you, by all means, manage their email account. We've already got an industry trying to make a common good scarce and using fear tactics and hamfisted legislation; if you want your children to regard you with the same warm affection we give the RIAA, this is definitely the way to go about it.
Let them register an email account on their own. It's perfectly reasonable to reserve the right to extract the password from them, by force if neccesary -- but they should expect you won't do that unless you feel it's worth what it'll cost you. If you constantly snoop, you'll be snooping garbage inside a week.
Stop cushionning your kids... (Score:2)
What's the point of cushionning young eyes from the reality of life? You think your kids do not have it in them to cope with life? if it's the case you'll be considered an old fart sooner than you think.
My 2 cents. (Score:2, Informative)
I have 3 girls, one who's 18 now, so she's old enough to handle herself as she's going into IT anyway. But my 2 youngest (12 and 9) aren't. My 9yo doesn't have an email account yet, mainly because anything she needs me or my wife will handle. My 12yo however, is another matter. In this case, setup Gmail (or hotmail or whatever, I do prefer Gmail's filters, though) to ONLY allow email from people listed in contacts.
That way anything else gets dropped.
education banning (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Citadel (Score:2)
Get a Wii (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably not what you're looking for, but one option is to get them a Wii. Each Wii has an associated email address of w[friend code]@wii.com, and you have to whitelist any addresses on the Wii that you want to be able to receive email from. Spam-proof, "child-safe", and you can play bowling on it!
Bluebottle worked for me (Score:5, Informative)
My daughter had an email address with bluebottle.com, which worked perfectly for the 2 or 3 years she was using it. They use a whitelist-only type system which requires new incoming email addresses to reply to an authorization email before their messages will be delivered. When they discontinued the free service, we did not sign up again, but it's probably worth the 10 bucks a year. Now that she is in middle school, she is more interested in using IM services and rarely uses email anyway.
As for the internet not being safe for kids, I've never really found it to be an issue. The kids learn by example and osmosis to behave responsibly. Up to a certain age, we always made sure a parent was around when they were on the net. In the dozen or so years of having internet in the house, the worst incident I can recall was one of my sons searching for she-hulk images and finding a naked drawing in the results. Big deal. He's in college now, and if he wants to find naked she-hulk pictures, at least he knows how to find them.
What I Do -- It's a little involved, but it works (Score:4, Interesting)
I have 3 kids under 8. When they are old enough to read (or starting to), I give them an email account to practice reading and writing.
My solution requires:
First, I setup a mail account for each kid. I'll use family.com as the example. The account for each kid is their first and middle names (jilljane@family.com). Then I setup a mailing list at jill@family.com, and deliver that mail to her account and to my wife and I. Nazi style.
Next, I setup the mailing list names with a postini mailbox. I was running without this for a while, but one of my kids leaked their address to an email marketing firm and the spam started pouring in.
Next, I setup Mail.app. I turn on parental controls, and have all inbound messages request permission from me to land in the kid's mailbox. This way nobody gets in unless I explicitly say it's OK. I setup her client account to return jill@family.com as the identity email address, so replies to any message she sends automatically copy me. No one even knows the jilljane@family.com address exists (except me).
The last step probably won't work for older kids, but I have Mail.app default jill@family.com as a BCC address for any message she sends. This gets me and mom copied on her outbound mail. If she ever figures it out, she could delete that from the BCC field, but so far so good. It also means that I have to manage my own mailbox a little bit. I setup a couple of rules that look for jill@family.com and route that into it's own IMAP folder, just for tidiness.
If you are interested in finding a reasonable host for your own domain with IMAP and Postini support, I strongly recommend BlueHost [bloehost.com]. Just finished switching over to them, and they have been great.
Just teach them (Score:3, Interesting)
Why are you trying to shelter your kids from spam? How old are they? People keep saying "5 year old kids shouldn't have such and such", but there's no age given.
If your child is old enough (which is some age less than 15 but more than 10):
Kids are eventually going to see spam and you need to teach them how to handle it. I have the same argument about trying to filter your kid's internet access. They're going to find it anyway, either get around the filter, or to go a friend's house, or whatever.
The solution to children seeing porn online is to teach them about sex. The key is that they know the difference between sex in real life and porn. That sex is something you should have when you're ready, and that porn is something done for completley different reasons than sex. It's stupid to expect that children will never see porn, and to believe that your children will never be exposed to it is ignorant, you need to teach them how to handle it properly.
Likewise, teach them that spam is all garbage. It's stupid and ignorant to believe that kids are never going to see spam. Honestly, it's not that big of a problem though, it's just like junk mail, it's not some horrible moral dilemma.
However if you're kids are too young to see "increase penis size" in emails then they're too young to see the viagra commercials on TV, and they're too young to allow to use the internet.
Use GMail with Postini (Score:3, Informative)
I just went through the same thing as you in that my children as they are learning to read and write, are wanting their own email accounts. At the same time, I have found GMail to be quite good at trapping spam, the spam does end up going into the spam folder, and much of it is not the type of email I want my children to see (pr0n, member enlargement schemes, pharmaceutical recommendations).
Since GMail is one of the best around, I recommend you use that with Postini [postini.com], which just so happens to be another Google company. Postini is a pretty good spam filter that you point your MX records to and it filters your emails and sends it on to your email provider. It costs just $3.00, per year, and I still have yet to get any offensive emails that I would not want my children to receive. I have to say that my gmail spam box is mostly empty. The nice thing here is that you can monitor a spam inbox on Postini that your children will never see, and you can ultimately decide what can and cannot go through to their GMail account.
Why does this argument always come up? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't bubble your children. Teach them about the REAL world. Currently 17, I've been lucky to be granted home internet access for around 10 years now (remember the good ol' days of AOL 4.0 :D). Throughout the whole time, my connection has never been filtered, monitored, or logged. Over the time, I have visited sites that many parents would not want their children visiting, but as a result, I have learned.
Every 13 year old boy has a burning curiosity about the opposite sex. A little bit of porn never hurt anyone. Moving on, I have a very strong feeling that the teachings of DARE (drug avoidance class tought in public school via typical propaganda) and sex ed. (here in the US, complete abstinance is all they teach in school. By law.) gloss over a few very important facts and don't provide an accurate understanding. Through the uncensored internet, I was able to research these subjects farther, through unbiased sources, and make better decisions as a result.
I have done research into political ideologies that many people don't understand or just consider to be evil. Instead of just calling communism or facisim evil, I have a more complete understanding of them and have my own views about where they succeed and where they fail. I can also detect when these ideologies effect our own precious capitalist state (which unfortunately isn't a very ideal implementation of capitalism anymore)
Through many of the darker memes of the internet (goatsetubgirldetroithardcore2girls1cupbmepainolimpics, stereotyped memes, and the darkest depths of /b/) I have learned to be much more laid back. I am no longer homophobic (though strait) and I find incredible pleasure in goatseing homophobes. The penis is a body part. Get over it. I understand steriotypes. They exist because they are true, but I understand they do not apply to everyone - everyone is unique. It is easy to separate the black people with no interest in education who play with their $350 phones all day from the black people who live in the real world. I strongly dislike the former (call me a racist), but associate with plenty of the ladder. As an individual, you can't complain about steriotypes when you prove it true yourself.
That rant went off topic and covered a bunch of bases. Thinking about it though, it all comes back to where I started. I am who I am because my outlet to information was never blocked, cencored, or distorted. I think I am better off as a result.
Biased conclusion :-) (Score:3, Insightful)
Apart from the possibly biased conclusion (just winding you up, relax) I agree with you 100%
Two main arguments:
1 - my job as a parent is to ensure my kid can exist in this world. That means building awareness of right and wrong (moral compass), respect for others (instead of being politically correct) and developing his senses for where danger may lie and what to do about it.
2 - I'm not always around (neither is any other parent). Choose your preference: the kid standing a chance on his own because he kno
Re:Is it ok to keep kids off the internet these da (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a parent, but if I was, I'd have an age when they could get on the Internet. The internet is not a safe place for young kids in my opinion.
As a parent, I am already planning what to do when this situation comes to light. My answer: moderate their internet usage. That's right. Me or the wife will be watching what sites they visit. I will set up a laptop just for them, with their kid games and such.
It will mean a lot of work, but it will avoid more problems than it causes. And as a bonus, it is spending time with the kids.
Re:Is it ok to keep kids off the internet these da (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
K9 is the best I have tried for Windows, and free (Score:5, Informative)
If you are using a Windows box for your kids, try K9 [k9webprotection.com]
It's free for home use and the database is the best I have found, with very few of the false positives that you get from other filters (like finding source code examples on somebody's random blog).
It allows you to block video and file sharing sites, P2P, social networking sites, etc., as well as gambling, violence, hate, sex, nudity, etc. so it has a lot of options to turn on or off, giving the parent control. Apparently, it's very hard to uninstall without the password, too.
I don't work for them or anything, just a Dad with kids on the internet.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not a parent, but if I was, I'd have an age when they could get on the Internet. The internet is not a safe place for young kids in my opinion.
As a parent, I am already planning what to do when this situation comes to light. My answer: moderate their internet usage. That's right. Me or the wife will be watching what sites they visit. I will set up a laptop just for them, with their kid games and such.
It will mean a lot of work, but it will avoid more problems than it causes. And as a bonus, it is spending time with the kids.
This is exactly what needs to happen.
The Internet is no more kid-safe than the rest of the world is. When you give a kid unfettered access to the Internet you're giving them access to the absolute worst kinds of hate, propaganda, and pornography you can imagine. And regardless of what kind of filtering you set up, eventually something will show up that you wish they hadn't seen.
If you think your kid is ready to handle pretty much anything the world can throw at them, go ahead and turn them loose on the In
Put computer in the living room (Score:3, Insightful)
The number one thing I did was put the computer in the living room, facing out toward the room.
That way Mom & Dad can quickly glance at what Junior is doing as they walk by doing other things (dinner, laundry).
The PC is out in the open, letting Junior know that everything is potentially visible.
The screen faces so that anyone can see it. Once again no hiding.
If I let them put it in their rooms (like mine, pre-Internet days), they could pretty much do anything. And in the days of modems & BBSes, I
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It will mean a lot of work, but it will avoid more problems than it causes.
Yeah, but one problem it might cause is extreme awkwardness. You're increasing the chances that you'll have to use the line "Well, at least I know now you're not gay." Do you really want to risk those type of situations? Sure your kid might grow up with unhealthy views of sex, but at least you won't know about it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you rather have your kid sneak on when you're not around?
I say, force the kid to go online (assuming the kid is reluctant, which I doubt), and make sure you are always with them when they are surfing. I'd rather be there when the kid stumbles upon a bad site, than have them find it when I'm not around, or being told ignorantly what it is by the other kids with them (before, during, or after the visit).
Re: (Score:2)
heh, that reminds me of some parents' attitude towards their children smoking weed/drinking. not that i disagree with either, it's just amusing that this sort of harm-reduction philosophy makes perfect sense when you apply it to other risky behaviors but parents still have such a hard time grasping it in regards to drug use.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is it ok to keep kids off the internet these da (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a parent, and sucessfully raised two daughters, the youngest is 21.
Well, maybe not so sucessfully since they haven't made me a grandpa yet, but the 21 year old manages a GameStop store and neither of them have been arrested. They used computers since before I got on the internet in 1997, the youngest was ten then.
I watched their internet use, the computers were out in the open. Patty was a Jazz jackrabbit fanatic, and one of its artists once sent her a drawing of her as a rabbit.
I never saw anywhere unsafe. You want unsafe? The mall is sunsafe. Church is unsafe. School is unsafe. The youngest got her head bashed in at age 10 by another kid with a bottle. A high school coach here was busted for "inappropriate touching", it's in today's paper. You read about clergy molesting children all the time. In fact, if a child is molested, in most cases it's by a family member; I know a couple of women who've told me they'd been molested.
Your kid isn't going to get run over by a car on the internet, or have her head bashed in. She might break a leg on the swingset or her bike, but she's not getting any bones broken on the internet. The danger is in the real world, not cyberspace.
In the years of watching my kids and paying attention (I read to them, played whiffle ball with them, played dolls with them, played Quake with them, watched TV with them; they're "daddie's girls" now =) not once did I witness anybody trying to harm them - except other kids.
Re:Is it ok to keep kids off the internet these da (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a parent...
... but let me go ahead and give you parenting advice.
Yeah, because it takes a parent to have good ideas about how to look after kids! It's not like anyone can have children without having to prove their competence as a parent.
I would have thought that /. of all places would be free of this kind of bizarre logic.
Re:Is it ok to keep kids off the internet these da (Score:5, Insightful)
Parenting is something you learn by doing and learn by consulting people who have done. No offense, but most parents discount the advice of the childless because 1) we used to be one and remember how clueless we were, and 2) they come up to us all the time and tell us their clueless ideas. I won't say it's impossible for people without children to give meaningful parenting advice, just unlikely.
For example, the advice about setting a minimum age for using the internet is completely useless. First of all, what age do you set? When they start asking for their own email account makes a lot more sense than an arbitrary age set before you even know if they'll be interested or capable at that age. Second, you don't generally dump kids from 100% oversight to 100% independence when a certain birthday hits.
The OP has made the judgment that his kids are ready for an incremental amount of independence provided that they won't accidentally be exposed to inappropriate spam. He knows his kids better than anyone and doesn't need people to second guess that decision. The decision is safe email with occasional supervision or continuing to share the parent's account under close supervision, and like most parents, he wants to find a way to be able to say yes.
If you don't have your own children, you have probably only seen the end result of good parenting, not all the effort that goes into it. What looks like a child doing something merely because a parent asks is actually the result of a long period of constantly adapting discipline and diplomacy with the most immature, illogical, demanding, self-centered, and emotional people you have ever met. That's not an insult to children, it's how we all start out. It's not something that most people can grasp only by learning about parenting, observing parents, or babysitting.
Re:Is it ok to keep kids off the internet these da (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
COPPA doesn't restrict what kids can do online. It restricts what information you're allowed to collect from kids online.
As a result, many sites choose to simply not allow kids under 13 to register, so they don't have to risk running afoul of CO