Archive for the ‘Parents & Technology’ Category
Internet Safety Contract
If your children are using the Internet, it’s good to set rules so they know what’s acceptable when they are online. Bsecure Online has developed an Internet Safety Contract for you.
Download the Internet Safety Contract, read over with your children explaining why it’s important they obey the rules, then post the contract in a visible place as a reminder.
How do I choose an Internet filter?
Protecting your family online is vitally important. Using an Internet filter is a great tool to help keep your family safe online.
There are many Internet filters to choose from and some can be downloaded online for free. How do you know which one to choose? When choosing an Internet filter, consider the following questions:
- How many categories does it provide for blocking inappropriate sites?
- Does the filter allow you to log in to your control panel from any Internet connection so that you can check activity and make updates from wherever you are?
- Does the filter force Safe Search on all the major search engines and re-force it on if someone attempts to turn Safe Search off?
- Does the filter allow you to schedule when your children can be online?
- Does the filter block Phishing, Malware and Spam sites?
- Does the filter have social networking protection?
- If so, does it only cover Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, or does it cover over 80 social networking sites?
- Does it give you exclusive access to the child’s social networking accounts?
- Does the filter allow you to set the MPAA and ESRB ratings for online TV, movies and games that your children are allowed to view and play online?
- Does the filter send you real-time text messages and/or e-mail alerts when suspicious activity is happening?
- If you are struggling with temptation of inappropriate sites or have an addiction, does the filter have a no-override option where you turn over the password to an accountability partner and cannot override any blocked sites or uninstall the software?
- How many computers does the filter cover and how many computer users will it cover for the base price?
- Does the company give you a money back guarantee?
There could be numerous reasons you are looking for an Internet filter today. These reasons could range from proactively wanting to protect your family from the bad stuff that’s out there to your child stumbling upon pornography unintentionally to needing help with overcoming an Internet addiction. Whatever the reason, find a trusted Internet filter that can be tailored to meet your needs, and grow with you.
Do you know who your daughter’s role model is?
What do Montana Fishburne, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson and Jenna Jameson all have in common? All of these are women in the main stream media and have released porn movies in recent years. Some of the movies were “leaked” tapes of the women, but that doesn’t negate the content. And apparently Heidi Montag has a video on the way. These women are all names that, chances are, your daughter knows. Montana Fishburne has been constantly in the news over the past few weeks promoting the release of her porn movie. She has even said that fans as young as thirteen are telling her she is their role model. Do you know who your daughter’s role model is?
A Google search of Montana Fishburne turns up 2,560,000 results. A search of Amelia Earhart only has about 1,490,000 results. One of the most noted women in American history, an aviation pioneer, turns up over a million less results than the porn star. It is no wonder young girls are confused as to who they should look up to.
According to Enough is Enough’s Internet Safety 101 Rules ‘N Tools Booklet, girls as young as eight to ten years old “may be influenced by media images…especially those that appear ‘cool’ or desirable.” By the time girls are between the ages of eleven and thirteen they “may try to imitate provocative media images and behaviors.” The main stream media images can be detrimental to a developing girl’s body image as well as her views on the expectations of women. According to the images we are surrounded by, a woman must look and act in an overtly sexual way in order to be famous and make a lot of money, the apparent markers of success in this society. Unless you tell your daughter differently that is what she might aspire to be.
You can’t make your child live life blind folded but there are some measures you can take to limit and monitor her media exposure:
<ul><li>Visit sites like pluggedin.com to get media reviews that will help you make age appropriate choices for your child</li>
<li>Make sure she watches age appropriate TV shows, movies and music videos</li>
<li>Know the music she listens to and what the lyrics are about</li>
<li>Install a trusted internet filter that will keep her from inappropriate sites online</li>
The best way to help you daughter is to talk to her. Tell her your expectations of what a young girl should be and show her what a woman should be by becoming a role model for her. Tell her how you feel about the images she is being bombarded with and ask her how she feels about it too. Talk to her about the women you admire in your life. What you think matters to her more than you realize.
SEC Employees Surfing Porn Sites At Work
News has traveled quickly after hearing that some SEC employees were viewing porn sites during the 2008 financial crises instead of focusing on their job duties.
Employees have admitted to viewing porn at work for over a year and viewing porn on SEC-issues laptops while outside of the office. One of the staff accountants was extremely persistent and tried 16,000 times in one month to access porn sites and filled his work hard drive with inappropriate images. And, a senior attorney admitted to sometimes spending eight hours per day searching for porn. (See the article by MarketWatch)
Here’s a dose of reality. The people in the news lately could have very easily been you or me. It’s easy to say “I’d never do that”, but, the truth of the matter is that you never know what might happen. With all the inappropriate sites out there today, it is so easy to accidentally stumble upon one by mistake. Maybe you type in the URL wrong, or innocently click a link in your search engine and it bring up a bad site. Then, that image stays in your mind and you keep thinking about it until your curiosity gets to you so you tinker a little bit. Then, before you know it, you’ve fallen into that slippery slope.
We are all tempted in different areas of life. And, because we are human, we are not perfect. Therefore, we need to place hedges around us to help us fight off those temptations. I’d like to challenge you to get an accountability party that you can talk to on a regular basis to help you through whatever struggles you are facing. Secondly, I’d like to challenge you to be proactive in placing a hedge of protection around your virtual world by installing a trusted Internet filter. Just as you wouldn’t live in a home with no locks on the doors to protect yourself from physical harm, don’t let you and your family live unprotected from inappropriate sites on the Internet that could harm you or your family’s mind.
Is your child sneaking onto the Internet at night?
I was talking to a mom the other day about her 10 year old son, whom she was very concerned. The other evening when she woke up in the middle of the night, she found her son in the living room on the family computer at 2:00 am. At 9:00 pm, she had tucked him in for the evening. She didn’t know how long he had been up or what he was looking at on the computer. She went to browse the history, and he had already deleted it (yes, a 10 year old).
She isn’t very computer savvy, and is already trying to catch up with her son’s computer knowledge. However, she knew that something had to be done and that her 10 year old on a computer with no supervision was out of the question.
I’m sure this parent is not the only one that has had to deal with this issue. Whether you are computer savvy or not, there are simple, effective tools out there that can help us in keeping our kids safe when they are on the Internet and keep them off the computer when they should be sleeping.
A great solution is parental controls software will that will allow you to set the time of day when each family member is allowed on the computer. Sleep better at night knowing your children are safely tucked in their beds and not sneaking on the computer “after hours”.
.xxx: A false sense of security?
The Internet corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board recently voted to postpone making a decision on their proposal to create a “.xxx” domain for adult Web sites. In the meantime, the CEO and general counsel of ICANN are to draft a “report of possible process options” over the next two weeks which will then be posted online for 45 days. The proposal will then be rediscussed at the June session.
Although having a “.xxx” domain for adult sites sounds great on the surface in protecting people online from inappropriate sites, there is still the issue of porn sites choosing not to change over and people outside the porn industry that post pornographic photos, videos and other content.
Stay informed. Know that even if the “.xxx” domain is passed in June, this is not guaranteed protection from inappropriate material. We still have the responsibility of protecting our families online.
Keeping Digital Copies of Cyberbullying
by Mary Kay Hoal
Technology is great. It makes our lives easier, more manageable, and more fun. However, bullies have found a way to take that same technology and turn it into a medium of harassment. If your child has a cell phone, a laptop, a Facebook page, or even a blog, he/she is susceptible to cyberbullying–a form of bullying that lately, has overshadowed “traditional bullying”.
Cyberbullying has all the same side-effects that traditional bullying has, and more. As I’m sure you know, consistent bullying of any kind can create serious emotional damage to a child. Their life can be turned into a nightmare. Among other things, their reputation at school can be destroyed because of humiliating videos on YouTube or snide comments on Facebook/MySpace being exposed for their other friends to see on the internet.
The purpose of this blog post is to leave you and your child with some tips and tools to aid you in case cyberbullying happens in your family. There are multiple ways to handle the situation, some are better than others. Read on and see which methods I feel are the most productive:
For E-mails
Always keep hard copies and digital copies of cyberbullying emails, don’t reply to the email as it will only add gasoline to the fire. In extreme cases where you or your child feels your lives are being threatened, call the police.
How To: Don’t delete the email, keep it in an email sub-folder so it stays organized. (See image below)
G-mail settings
Yahoo! settings
Children emails: Make sure to give them or tell them to create gender neutral email addresses so that random bullies don’t know if the email recipent is male or female.
Always create strong passwords: do not use your/your child’s first or last name anywhere in their email password. Refrain from using easy passwords such as pet names or best friends’ names. Make sure there’s a good mix of numbers and letters as well. For a great-password-making tool, check out: http://www.passwordmeter.com/
For Text Messages:
Don’t delete the text message, and just like emails, don’t respond to the text.
Keep it in your phone and if the bullying gets too serious file a formal complaint with your cell phone provider, or again, in serious instances, call the police.
Any internet related cyberbullying: (social networks, emails, chat rooms, YouTube, etc)
Below I will show you how to take screenshots. This is one of the best ways to keep digital copies of any type of harassment. On the other hand, most big sites like YouTube, Facebook, and AOL have some sort of service that allows you to file a complaint. When you do this, they will most likely ask you if you have evidence of the harassment–this is where the screenshot comes in handy.
Windows based:
On any Windows based PC, you can take a screenshot by pressing the “Prt Sc” key on your keyboard.
This will create an image file of exactly what you see on your computer screen. After pressing the “Prt sc” button, go to an image program such as Paint (comes with any Windows based computer) and once you have the program open, just click on “paste” or press Ctrl + V.
Now save the file somewhere on your computer where you can easily find it.
Mac OSX based:
If you have an Apple Mac, press the Command key + shift + 3 to send an image file straight to your Desktop.
Make sure you save the image to a folder that you’ll remember (maybe make a new folder titled “cyberbullying”) that way you can easily find the proof that you need when things get too serious and you decide to report it.
Free screenshot software:
In a previous blog, I gave some advice to one of my friends when her daughter was being cyberbullied on Facebook. I told her about a great application called Jing. With Jing you can easily document screenshots or video recordings from website activity–this is a great way to generate some evidence of cyberbullying. Check it out at http://www.jingproject.com/download/
This video will show you how to capture video:
____________________________________________
Mary Kay
Hoal is the founder of YourSphere, the first social networking service for youth that parents can embrace. A proud wife and mother of five children (both biological and adopted, ranging in age from 5-18 years old), Mary Kay faces the same challenges every parent does: keeping her kids safe; raising them to be good, happy and well-balanced people; and providing them with the tools and support to create their own future. Mary Kay and husband Ted live in Davis, CA.