Parental Controls

If it were but that simple.
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By Terry Orr

We have an awesome and challenging responsibility in providing our children with the right tools, guidance, love, respect, understanding and leadership to grow up to be the best they can be and to learn the important skills to help them raise their own children later in life.  The bad news – our challenges grow nearly every day and it is difficult to fully understand them and take the corrective measures needed. The good news – there are significant resources available to help us. We must be proactive.

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Parental controls are features which may be included in digital television services, computer and video games, mobile phones and software. Parental controls fall into roughly four categories, content filters, which limit access to age appropriate content, usage controls, which constrain the usage of these devices such as placing time-limits on usage or forbidding certain types of usage, computer usage management tools, which allow parents to enforce learning time into child computing time, and monitoring, which can track location and activity when using the devices. (Wikipedia)

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The Parent Coach Plan offers the following regarding Parent Responsibilities.

Nobody ever said that children were easy to teach your child morals and they don't come with guidelines or instructions, and they certainly don't come with a "pause" button.  What they do come with is a crucial set of physical and emotional needs that must be met. Failure of the parents to meet these specific needs can have wide-ranging and long-lasting negative effects.

The following outline provides eight essential responsibilities that parents must adhere to in order to foster their child's physical and/or emotional well-being:

1. Provide an environment that is SAFE;
2. Provide your child with BASIC NEEDS;
3. Provide your child with SELF-ESTEEM NEEDS;
4. Teach your child MORALS and VALUES;
5. Develop MUTUAL RESPECT with your child;
6. Provide DISCIPLINE which is effective and appropriate
7. Involve yourself in your child's EDUCATION; and
8. Get to KNOW YOUR CHILD.

For additional information on parent responsibilities, please visit http://www.parentcoachplan.com/article3.php.

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Parental Controls for Streaming Video (just another opportunity for us parent to over come)

Streaming video online is a wonderful and convenient way to watch all your favorite shows and movies – and it’s far less expensive than cable. Unfortunately, if you’re a parent, these services don’t often provide safeguard measures to block certain content from your children.

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Bottom line - we as parents, grandparents, caregivers and or adults must set the example for our young people.

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Parents - Cell Phone Useage

Cell Phone Parental Controls

Although much of the focus concerning internet dangers has been on computers, few parents seem to realize that many of today's cell phones are basically mini-computers when it comes to the kind of access they provide to the internet. Take, for example, the iPhone, which includes an e-Mail application, web browser, and an application to watch videos on YouTube. Kids can also use it to send text messages, take and send each other photos, and of course, talk.

How do you supervise and protect your kids when they are using a 'smart phone,' especially when it has access to the internet?

The first thing you should do is learn how to turn on and use whatever parental controls are included with the cell phone, however limited they may be. This might include parental control software that is actually part of the cell phone and others that can be added as features of your cell phone carrier.

• AT&T, for example, offers a 'Smart Limits for Wireless Parental Controls' feature for an extra fee a month that allows you to restrict when a phone can be used, block or allow certain numbers that your child can send/receive calls and text messages to and from, and restrict inappropriate content, etc. This service doesn't work with the iPhone though, which includes its own parental control software.
• Verizon (Verizon Usage Controls and Content Filters), T-Mobile (Family Allowances and Web Guard), and other cell phone carriers offer similar services.
• Many cell phone carriers also have services to let you locate your child at any time if they have a supported phone. For example, the Verizon Family Locator service (formerly called Chaperone) will let you view your child's location and can even send you a text message when they arrive or leave a certain location, such as school or a friend's house. AT&T (AT&T Family Map) and Sprint (Sprint Family Locator) offer similar services.
• Did you know that you can monitor your teen's text messages too?
• While there is mobile spy software that you can secretly install on your child's iPhone or Windows mobile based smart phone, such as Mobile Spy, that monitor text messages and phone calls, cell phone carriers don't provide this service themselves, no matter what some parents may report. SMobile Parental Controls is another program that can monitor what your child is doing with his phone, including allowing you to view your teen's pictures, text messages, emails, and location, etc.

Spying on your kids is very rarely a good idea though, and if you use this type of software, you should actually let your teen know that you might be reading some of his texts or emails as a condition of having the phone. If you don't trust your child to use his phone, then he either shouldn't have a phone, you should turn off the cell phone's internet access or ability to send text messages, or get him a basic phone that doesn't have these types of features until he earns your trust.