So I'm talking to J about this weekend. Telling him how much fun we're going to have, riding snowmobiles...yadda yadda. He stops me and asks what a snowmobile is. Oh my gosh! Of course he doesn't know what one is, he's never riden one. So I get the bright idea to show him a photo of one online. He comes with me to the computer. I google it (the safe way ya?), then click on images. 20 images of snowmobiles fill our screen. One of them has a girl on them...she was pretty much unclothed. I think she may have had a light colored bikini on or something. I hurry and move the window to the right hand side of the screen so nasty lady is hidden. Not seconds late, he says: "mom, there was a naked Barbie on that snowmobile". Uh...ya, a Barbie, Ok, lets go with that. "Ya, weird huh, I think she had a swimsuit on, but that Barbie was definintely immodest!". He says nothing else.
It was actually really funny and showed his innocence, thinking it was a Barbie. BUT this FREAKS ME OUT. It is absolutely NO wonder why we are asked to keep computers in common areas of our homes. We have that down pat- a computer in a bedroom or private area is just asking for trouble. I limit their time on the computer, and my kids have their own desktop with only 4 sites that I put on their favorites bar that they can go to. They don't yet know how to do anything else on the computer...I like it that way. :) There is so much crap on the internet. Boys as young as 9 get addicted to porn. NINE!! So much. crap. Scary how much. Our parents didn't have to worry about these things...they had to worry about magazines, bad movies, etc. Even my 4 yr. old knows if you want to look something up online you just enter the word with a .com afterwards. I'm just glad they can't type yet. It makes me sad that I have already had conversations with a 4 and 6 year old about bad images on the computer and what we do if we happen to come across one on accident, and that it's time to think more and more about heavy duty filters. Having said all of this, there is so much GOOD as well. My kids love LDS.org, they can listen to the scriptures, or play really wholesome games that teach them the gospel. It's amazing! The children coming to earth at this time have the most amazing spirits. Full of fire, enthusiasm, tenderness, ability to feel and recognize the spirit, and a whole lot of drive. They are born strong. I want nothing more than to keep them strong.
So what do you do in your homes? Or what is your plan of action? How do you safeguard your little ones from coming across anything that's harmful when they're old enough to use the computer on their own? How often do you (or plan to) have conversations about it? And have any of you come across any filters that actually work well?
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Oh my gosh- so horrible. I know- I find myself hiding things from Elias occasionally (the Victoria's Secret catalog that shows up mysteriously in the mail - the whole reason I NEVER order anything from them, so they won't send me their catalog, the occasional sidebar with some bikini chick on it, etc.) Good for you for talking about it with him- about modesty. It's important to take any chance to preach and teach truth.
Jace and I already have a rule of no computer when the other person isn't home. My mother in law always keeps a password for her desktop so she has to be home to monitor her kids computer use. I used to think she was a little over the top for doing that because most of her kids are adults, but now I get it. I think I'll do that when my kids are old enough to get on the computer. It is scary. I had a roommate in college. So innocent. The sweetest girl. Well we were in the computer lab at the college and there were tons of people around. She accidentally pulled up a porn site and the poor girl was tramatized forever! It's crazy that you don't even have to search for it. IT comes to YOU.
Try netnanny.com. We've had it for over a year, and it blocks things pretty well. You can set it up so that you have to have a password to go on the internet, and you can even set up an account for each child with time limits, sites they can and cannot visit, etc. I'm sure there are a lot of good filters out there, but check this one out.
We have an awesome
web filter, its free and Bec is the only one with the password. Also Google has a kid safe search engine you could use.
I worry about this also. It is everywhere on the internet. Simple, innocent searches bring it up- like you just experienced. I think it is becoming such a problem- especially within our religion. I have noticed over the past few years that there have been many articles in the Ensign about it- and about addictions. I have a relative whose husband is addicted to pornography. It has torn apart their marriage and done so much damage. It leads to so much worse things.
We currently don't have any filters on our computer, but I think I am going to look into one. I check the history regularly- but that can be erased. Now that I have a teenage boy in the house I'm going to have to take safeguards. Cami and I were just talking about this subject a few weeks ago and she brought up the question- How do you protect your kids when they are in other people's homes? You can safeguard your own home- but not everyone elses. Now days- you just don't really know people..
There is a program for parents on pornography at Bingham High School this month. I was going to do a post on it on my blog to see if anyone wanted to attend. I think it's on March 19th if you want to go.
I read a blog post about something called the iBoss - it's supposed to be great for blocking stuff. This is the kind of thing that scares me when I think about Kaylee getting older. There is SO much they can be exposed to by accident. It's so scary.
We have the filter and the computer out in the open, but what has really helped was a talk by John Bytheway. I don't remember the name of it now, but I will look it up and post it. I had the kids listen to the talk and then we did a few FHE on the subject. It has really helped our family make sure we are extra careful.
I put this on my sidebar,
I will allow no one to walk through my mind with their dirty feet! ~Mohandas Gandhi
Corbin does not want to pollute his mind so I won't look at the underwear ads in the newspaper. m
So scary - I worry about these kids growing up in times like these!!! SCARY!!!!!
We also have the computer in a common area and so far the kids aren't allowed on it... mostly because they are great at breaking things and we can't afford another one!
My kids are big into the modesty thing, after watching HS musical 3 Emma said, I would have liked it more if the girls had modest clothes on. Russ is the same way! I just hope it lasts!!!!
We have a seemingly good filter on ours. I guess it's a filter. We've selected which kinds of sites can and can't be visited. Christian wasn't too thrilled when he couldn't even visit his itunes account without permission. We did this recently when Carlo changed the operating system. They all have passwords that we know and Carlo and I have to give permission for certain sites to be visited. The boys used to visit a site called "addicting games" and that's no longer allowed. I just thought it'd better to be safe than sorry. I feel good about this. youtube is a definite no no in our house. Bad things pop up on the side...even when you're looking for Alvin and the Chipmunks. Good for you for getting on this early!
We have our computer in a common area, I am the only person in our house that holds the password and we have an internet filter that is free, it's K9 by Bluecoat. I pretty much don't let the kids on the computer though and they rarely ask. We have had talks about it though. I heard once that instead of teaching your kids to click out of the site, they are supposed to hit the moniter button so that the screen just goes black. Sometimes sites can be tricky when you try and click out it will do the exact opposite and just continue to bring more crap up. It's such a dirty scary world!
Such a good post Jen! You know, since our kids are still pretty we haven't had to worry too much about what they see on the Internet. We have two computers, one in the family room which is connected to the Internet, but you have to have a password to get onto it. And then we have another setup in our living room upstairs that is just for the kids. It's a cast-off from our church building's family history center, but it works perfectly and it handles our kids' games without problem. so far this has been our solution, but I just read recently about lds.org's resources and would really like to check them out. We also limit the time they can be on the computer and I think that once they start wanting to do more on the Internet they'll already be used to a time limit. That's our solution for now. Hope it helps!
Trina
Such good ideas, thanks ladies! Allyson I totally agree with you on the no YouTube! There is waaaay too much garbage on that site!
I wanted to share a bad experience we had in our home. Last summer I came across a bad site (it was obvious by the name) in our history. Mike was just as shocked as I was because we both thought we had a pretty good filter. Without going into detail, we wrongly confronted someone else who had used our computer. It turns out it wasn't him and was actually our occasional babysitter. He was a sweet 13 year old boy from an amazing family. NEVER would have suspected. We realized it when my 6year old son casually mentioned that the babysitter had checked the computer for "chess moves" to teach them. This boy had just watched the boys for us for 2 hours the day before. So Mike & I immediately had the same thought and I ran to check the history. Sure enough. Mike got in touch with his dad and the 2 of them talked with the boy (because Mike & the boy are pretty close and the dad wanted the help). I can't express over email just how devastated I was because it wouldn't have happened if WE had better filters. We felt completely at fault. Just be careful because even the best kids get curious. Better to be safe than sorry and just get GOOD filters in place.
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