Parental controls and monitoring programs can be a sort of electronic nanny for your kids. Here are a few tips to make sure that these controls actually do the job they’re supposed to.
Television
Program blocking. Many television providers’ channel guide screens allow you to select individual programs and block them by date and time in addition to channel. For example, on the Comcast cable system, press the menu button then highlight the parental control feature. Press “OK/Select” then follow the directions to setup a parental password. Programs with content you designate as needing the password will be blocked unless the code is entered.
Tip: If you don’t want to block whole channels 24-7, this service comes in handy. You can block pay-per-view at times you know you’ll be out of the house.
Channel blocking. Accessed through your cable or satellite provider’s setup menu, you can select one or more channels to block. When one or more channels are blocked, the only way to view them is by entering a personal identification number.
Tip: Make the code something only the adults know—and avoid birthdays and anniversaries of anyone in the house. (Older kids know enough to try those numbers.)
Ratings blocking. You can also program your channel guide to ban all shows and movies with certain ratings. This’ll help keep kids from punching up R or worse movies.
Tip: Some systems also allow you to totally blank out listings of adult-rated shows so the kids won’t even see the titles on the program guide.
V-chip blocking. Any television bought in 2000 or later will most likely have a V-chip, which reads signals in TV programming, allowing you to filter what programs are appropriate for your family. To access the V-chip, use the TV’s remote (not the cable system’s remote) to access the television’s setup menu. For example, on a Samsung television, click the remote menu. Then scroll down to the “setup” screen and highlight the V-chip line. You’ll see the menu to enter the password and the option to turn the chip on or off.
Tip: Because the V-chip filters content based on ratings and age, you can block content based on how old your child is, instead of deciphering the ratings system.
Internet
Search monitoring. When a child is researching a paper, who knows what kind of results they’ll get back from most normal search engines.
Tip: To screen your preteen searching, set the home page to yahooligans.com or askforkids.com. These sites will only bring back G-rated results.
Surfing monitoring. While programs such as CyberPatrol (cyberpatrol.com) or Content Barrier (contentbarrier.com) can keep track of where your kid surfed, a lighter touch may give you better results. Researchers found that young teens who weren’t as strictly monitored about computer usage had fewer delinquent behaviors than kids whose surfing was highly controlled.
Tip: Allow your child access to a computer only in a common area of the house, such as the living room. After repeated rules violation, tell your child a monitoring program will be installed.
Social network monitoring. Sites like myspace and facebook allow kids to chat and e-mail each other and get constant up-to-the-second updates about their activities (OMG, I met my BFF at the mall!).
Tip: Ask your child to give you a tour of her social network page, and if you find anything objectionable, have the child clean it up within a day. If you think your kid has secretly created other accounts, look into programs such as Spytech’s Realtime-Spy (spytech-web.com) or Spector Pro (spector.com), which allow you to remotely monitor what’s typed and track Web sites your teen visits.
Have you found an easy way to monitor and control what your children view on TV or the internet? Share your tip or any other “watch-outs.”
