For Parents of teenagers?

Question

Do you allow your 13 year old have her own computer in her room? Are you worried about safety? She claims she needs it for homework. She types all of her assignments and does need peace and quiet to work. We have the extra computer, I do trust her.

Answer 1

Talk to her and tell you that some times people don't always tell the truth and what sites are OK to view and what isn't I have three daughters and I can tell you that one tested the waters and learned this the hard way. The other two added sites to my fave and I review them and I never found anything that I would approve. They are now 16 and 21 and still say then never had any one approach them. Just talk and ask her to show you what sites she is going on, you have to trust that you have raised her to know right from wrong and that she will tell you the truth.

Answer 2

I understand your fear. We allow the pre-teens in our house to use the PC in private, however we take steps to protect all of us. First of all we installed a good anti-virus program. Second of all we activated the parental controls on the PC. My husband is the primary windows account holder and the pre-teens each have their own account to use. We have set up controls that will block adult websites etc... We also check their "history" on the PC from time to time to see where they have been. We elected not to install software that would record every key stroke(you can do that) in favor of having serious discussions on a regular basis. We try to opperate on trust and respect verses assuming the worst. We let them know that we had the option to record everything they type (even in emails and IM sessions), but we decided to trust them to use good judgement. We talked to them about online predators and how easy it is to be dishonest over the internet. We let them know that we would be checking the history, and the settings were to be left alone. We explained the parental controls we activated and why. We also asked that they ask for permission before closing the door if they are online. The majority of the time it's quiet enough in our house, so noise isn't an issue... We told them we wanted to monitor what they were doing and how much time they were spending online.

So far they have been great about respecting the rules and things have went great. Only you can judge how mature your child is... I feel confident in saying that our children are honest (99% of the time) and now I know they are well informed. I feel they are aware of online predators when they are chatting, emailing, etc. Start by talking to your daughter and try to get an idea if she understands the dangers that are out there. Good communication is the key as we inch torward the teens. Good Luck!

Answer 3

If you are that worried, you can purchase a router (which allows you to connect up to 4 computers to access the internet), and configure it with parental controls. Within the settings of the router, you can block or allow certain websites and content on those websites. Both Netgear and Linksys show you how to do this. My recommendation is to use Linksys over Netgear since the software and security is better.. especially since Cisco took over Linksys. If you would like help in doing this, please feel free to drop me on line and I can walk you through this.

Answer 4

don't trust her. they will do anything at that age to get their way. if you do decide to trust her don't allow her to get an online account for that computer. there are thousands of online predators that are real slick at enticing youngstrs into doing wht they want.

some of these predators will send your child money to buy webcams and talk the child into removing their clothes for money. this has happened many many times. they have showed it on television.

no matter what you do it won't stop her from going to friends houses and using their computers.

if you decide to ignore my warning atleast get a keylogger program. it will record everyone of her keystrokes, passwords, usernames and you can get the program to email you at work when the child is online. put it in a folder and password protect the folder. don't tell them it is there or they'll find a way to disable it. kids are good at that.

here is a great site for parents
http://www.wiredsafety.com/

Answer 5

We had no problem with our daughter having a computer in her room.

It really doesn't matter if she'll use it specifically for homework or for entertainment. Everything you do on a computer, in some way, increases your knowledge.

I would however make sure there's no web cam or anything like that.

Answer 6

Both my daughters had their own computers. It never became a problem. I would say that if there's no problem there's no need to fix it. You build trust by trusting. Just pay attention to how it's being used.

Answer 7

I don't know how your home network is setup. I have a wireless network and my 16 year old has access to the internet through a wireless router. I can control from the router, when and what sites I want to block from his machine. You may want to make sure you can do this before you let her have it in her room...

Answer 8

If you trust her, go head. Maybe just put a firewall blocking out certain sites on the internet. And making sure she doesn't meet freaky guys on Myspace of whatever.

Answer 9

I have one in my room my parents trust me I even have the internet, my parents do check things randomly though just to make sure everything is I say it is. It's not they don't trust me they just randomly come in and say "hey whatcha doin" and I tell em'.

Answer 10

yes but still need to keep an eye and an ear out to be in the safe side never know who's in the other side talking or sending e mail's