Easy Steps To Protect Your Kids Online
Written on by Kay
The Internet (the world wide web, specifically) can be a wonderful place full or nurturing knowledge all within reach of your fingertips. It can also be a place chock-full of unseemly content inappropriate for minors. If you’re a parent, you might have misgivings on letting your child surf the web unattended. But the fact remains that it’s virtually impossible to monitor your kids’ surfing habits all of the time. Worse still, with every new iteration of Internet Explorer and Firefox, the browsers’ developers are making it easier to cover up one’s web surfing tracks, leaving you more in the dark about where your children have been going online.
A Part of the Decision
It’s not always best to assert an iron fist, dictating that they cannot go to this or that website. Chances are that they will rebel without actually understanding why the content is inappropriate for them. If you let them become a part of the decision making process, allowing them to voice their opinions, then they’re more likely to view the decision (the one based on opinions from both parties) as fair. There is software that simply blocks access to websites that you deem inappropriate, but it’s a better idea to track your kid’s surfing habits, as brute force blocking will blindly tell them “NO” without informing them on why such content isn’t for them (a stepping-stone in making choices for themselves).
Norton’s OnlineFamily
The Norton line of applications are very popular (anti-virus, security suites, etc.), in large part because they are so user-friendly and ubiquitous. What’s awesome about OnlineFamily.Norton (https://onlinefamily.norton.com) is that it allows a level of transparency between you and you kids, a very important element to building a trusting relationship.
Instead of blocking your children from questionable websites, OnlineFamily.Norton will display a warning stating that the website in question is against the rules. As of this writing, there are currently 47 categories that you can choose from to ban a particular website. The warning page gives your kids the opportunity to write a message so that they can express why they feel they should be able to access said web page. This transparency opens up a dialogue between parent and child, strengthening the trust bond even further.
There are many ways to configure OnlineFamily.Norton (cumbersome name, I know) to fit your needs. For example, you can configure OFN to display a warning page, giving your kids the option to proceed to the website anyway. You can tweak out the security settings to your liking. In addition to transparently blocking websites, OFN can also block Instant Messages, intercept specific search queries, and control the amount of time your kids spend online.
Most of Norton’s security suites and application aren’t lightweights, but OnlineFamily.Norton possesses a small footprint and runs quietly in the background without drawing attention to itself. You are given the option of checking your kids’ activity via the OnlineFamily.Norton website or you can be alerted by way of e-mail.
If you desire a less Draconian method of keeping questionable content out of your kid’s heads on the web, then give OnlineFamily.Norton a try. It fosters an open, transparent environment with your children, so that they not only learn which websites you approve or disapprove of, but you also teach them how to make good choices for themselves in the future.
