How Fast Kids Grow Up These Days

So you want a way to take a perfectly functioning computer and turn it into a … doorstop? I don’t even think that corporate IT has figured that out. How about glue in the USB ports?

If you are going to disable booting from the CD-ROM drive from within the BIOS, you might as well disable the drive altogether.

Or… you could use one or more of the freeware apps at http://www.intelliadmin.com/downloads.htm

Look at the Freeware Downloads. There are apps to disable the floppy drive, cd-rom drive and usb drives.

Hope this helps.

If I block everything from my son’s PC how’s he going to learn stuff. I’ve discussed it with him & we’ve decided to use the password protected parental controls in bitdefender internet security 2009. He has his own login with only user access but we have a games login with admin access that only my wife & I know. The parental control can be annoying but once you have built up a bit of a white list its pretty good. Some kids may be smart enough to get around this & as you said it doesn’t stop USB & cdrom access. But hey there’s plenty of print media out there…. It’s a difficult subject but we have to atleast communicate with our teenagers about it. Go to you local christian book store & you’ll find some great books on the subject.

Windows Steady State

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx

Do what was suggested about the DNS going thru ‘OpenDNS’ but then if you can change the router so that any DNS calls routing out will be blocked unless going to the ‘OpenDNS’ servers – only thing this will not handle is any other access points introduced into the system like a cell phone, etc. Then lock the router down.

What about Microsoft SteadyState?

I would say simply threaten to ground the hell out of the kid every time he’s caught doing something on the family computer he’s not supposed to. That should work a lot better than any technical solution.

Besides, I forsee a day in the future that disabling the CD/DVD drive and USB ports will interfere with the kid doing his homework. What then? I can see “Mommy/Daddy, I need to save my homework to a USB flash drive and the stupid computer won’t let me” getting tiresome.

Look i think you are blocking educational content, i think every kid deserves a chance to do better in bed… just saying, i mean we all do it, or at least 50% of us.

I don’t think any of that stuff is really useful. There is always a way to get around it and kids are more likely to find it. If someone wants to do something on a computer, they will figure out how. The real answer to the question is, talk with you kids. Teach them why they shouldn’t go to those sites. Take away the reason they would want to go, and then you don’t have to go through this constant battle.

Parental filtering never works and if parents need to use it that is a failure. The kid will always have means to bypass restrictions – either by bringing a friend’s laptop or going to a friend’s unrestricted house. There are *always* ways in which such software fails, just because kids are so resourceful these days – with the parental filtering software’s name in hand and a search engine she or he will always find bugs and cracks in the locking.
Or just imagine the kid buys a hardware key logger (very cheap these days) and finds all the parent has typed at the computer including the password protection.
Don’t police the kid because that never worked in human history. And if restrictions do work they will result in a frustrated kid that hates his parents for not letting her/him do things that they do.
This is what I would do: talk with the kid early on and tell her or him everything that she/he needs to know about sex. You can keep him out of porn only if she/he knows all there is to see about it. Self decision to opt out of porn is always stronger than any external restrictions imposed over her/him by parents or teachers. And she/he will have a healthy attitude towards sex and condoms and…
And then, show her/him you trust his judgment about what is good and bad about porn.
If you don’t talk frank to them, you end up with teenager parents: surprise, surprise, “why my 16 year-old daughter is pregnant? Oh, I’ve taken such good care of her!”. That is just a turd!
So, to dramatize it a bit… if people go down the route of parental filtering of the Internet, make sure they also have one or two chastity belts around (kids grow, he/she will probably grow and wil need 2-3 during their teens). Preferably one that prevents masturbation too… Oh, don’t forget the iron bra!

PS: Oh, I’m 26 and I live in Eastern Europe if anyone is interested in demographics. And, to me at least, it’s obvious I know more about being a kid in the age of Internet than many other parents.

Using such control solutions are only treating the ill effects of the children’s natural and healthy curiosity. It’s the parents that need to update their education to this day and age to satisfy their children’s need for knowledge, not the other way around.

I’m not saying being a parent is in any way easy and some people just do it wrong. It’s just that bringing up a child has always been demanding, now it has just got more demanding. Or less so… Child-parent education seems to have gone more peer-to-peer.

I hope I didn’t use any inappropriate words that would need censoring, as this is something that the children should read too (see the peer2peer note up).

Guys and gals,
What’s your opinion on my pitch? Do you agree? Why? Why not?
I expected some feedback on it, such as rotten tomatoes and cabbage or a few words about defending your opinion.
Or is my comment spot on and you are speechless?

I truly fail to see the problem here.

1.) Put a password on the machines
AND/OR
2.) Tell the parents to get over themselves and stop being prudes. No matter what parents like to delude themselves into thinking 12 is sexually mature.

PLEASE tell me the flaw in either of these options.

As in all things, there should be an equilibrium in parents actions: 12 is not mature, but soon at 16-17-18 kids will start experimenting even with sex.