We made a big mistake a couple years ago. We allowed our daughter to have an Internet connection in her room so she could listen to Odyssey at bedtime. Our local station had discontinued it. That was all the connection was to be for. We were kind of stupid and naive.
Before we knew it, she was doing email, creating web sites, Google chat, Google Talk, blogs, gaming, surfing the web and who knows what all.
I began to read horror stories of kids who had Internet access unsupervised and how it all began innocently enough.
My daughter's school work suffered last year because of all the time she spent on Google Talk and other Internet pursuits. My son began to beg to have Internet in his room too. We decided we had to put on the skids.
Our daughter no longer has her Internet plug. All the plugs are under lock and key now. We installed a trial of Net Nanny and it seems to working good. The kids are now limited in what they can do on the Internet and how much time they can spend. I can track what they are doing by frequent reports that I get and have access to.
My daughter is not happy about it but she seems to be accepting her lot. We sat her down and explained why we did it....not to punish her but to protect her, help her manage her time better to get her school work done this year and to be fair to her brother since he will not have Internet access in his room either now.
All of this is more inconvenient for me since I now must share the computer with two kids and a husband instead of one kid and a husband. But the peace of mind it affords me is well worth it.
As time goes, I'll tell more about Net Nanny and how it is working for us.
1 comment:
We need to look into Net Nanny. Our kids don't have internet in their rooms, but even with a computer in a main room, I can't always be there.
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Blessings!
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