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Tracy Mooney
Chief Cyber Security Mom Tracy, a mother of three from a Chicago, Illinois suburb, is a regular mom with the same ...
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Checking your kids browser history
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This week, I would like to discuss an item that was brought up in a comment on my first blog by Parry Aftab, McAfee’s Family Internet Safety Advisor. She told a story about a cybersafety video she shot in England with a network security administrator who was also a mom. Parry asked her to do a quick shot on camera showing how to check the history and cache on your computer. Unfortunately, the network security administrator was in for a shock when she found porn sites in the history on her computer. It turned out her teen son was visiting some sites without her knowledge.
The truth is that kids are curious – it’s natural. Why shouldn’t they be? Not a day goes by that I don’t hear something about porn on the Internet. Kids are not immune to that and there is so much that they can see by just doing a search. From personal experience, I remember accidentally typing whitehouse.COM rather than whitehouse.GOV and got an eye-opening experience. Instead of a wholesome, informative website, I got porn. It is a simple mistake that kids make often, I bet.
One of the questions I ask moms is if they check the history on their computers to see what kids are surfing. Surprisingly, many moms I spoke with did not even know how to check the history. So I thought that I would explain the process.
There are a couple different ways to check the history on your computer. Using Internet Explorer or Firefox, you can click Control (CTRL) and H or you may simply click on the “History” button on the top of your browser page.
This will open a sidebar on the left of the browser that shows you what has been viewed. There you can see the last ten pages viewed. You also have the option of seeing the four recently closed windows. Good to know if you walked in on the kids and they did the quickly close the page trick. Just make sure that the settings in Firefox are not set to immediately delete the history when the page is closed. You do this by clicking on Tools > Internet Options > Privacy. Then uncheck the boxes under “Private Data.”
Please keep in mind that if your kids are older, say in high school, they most likely already know how to clear the browser’s history. Based on the most recent McAfee study, 35% of teens clear the history after they use the computer. When I told my teen about these results, he felt that even though 35% clear the history, closer to 100% know how to clear the history!
If you do check your computers browser history and find that your kids have viewed inappropriate material, take a deep breath and think before you talk to them. My initial reaction would be to yell at them and you may have that thought too. When it happened to my family, my husband stepped in and talked to our boys. First, he made sure they were all right. He made sure they understood that what they viewed was not a healthy depiction of sex and that although he understood they were curious, it was not okay for them to look at those types of pictures again. He set clear boundaries and opened the path for future talks with them.
Next weeks blog will be about social networking. Don’t forget to send in your questions to cybermom
mcafee
com (cybermommcafeecom) . Also, join our Mom’s Against Cybercrime group on Facebook.
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Tags: Cyber Security Mom
Comments (4)
Dear J,
While I do not personally use monitoring software, I certainly have my opinions about their use. The conversation logging and monitoring tools typically are not recommended due to privacy concerns, although they are useful in certain situations, it’s generally time consuming and tedious to go through tons of data and turns out to be not so useful to the parents anyway.
Kids today are certainly very smart when it comes to computers and they know ways around all kinds of blocks that are put in place. Teens as part of their nature are trying to rebel, find out who they are, become adults and experience life – and all way too fast! I have always compared kids jokingly to the velociraptors in the film “Jurassic Park” – constantly checking the electric fence to see if the boundaries were still in place. Kids are constantly checking us to see what boundaries are in place. Sometimes they test those boundaries when they think we are not being fair rather than trying to keep them safe.
The parents I know who use monitoring software feel secure that they know all that their kids are doing. They say things like they feel it is a necessity today. I even have had one parent laugh as he told me he was amazed at what his kids do knowing the software is on the computer. The kids that I know whose parents use these tools and regularly check them as a way to “catch the kids in the act” are resentful and hurt. They have a strained relationship rather than having a close relationship with their parents because the trust was broken.
While I have checked history and occasionally sock drawers when I felt something was not right with my kids behavior, nothing has worked for me better than talking to my kids. My goal as a parent has always been to deal with a potential pitfall with my kids before they get to it. That has included talking to them (even as toddlers) about predators, talking to them about drugs and giving them things to say if they are offered drugs by friends. We have even given them codes to use when they call home if they are with friends and need to get away so we will know they need help. I feel that giving the kids the tools they need to be safe not only protects them should a situation arise but also shows them that you trust them to make the right choices.
My children have come to my husband and me on several occasions to discuss issues that were uncomfortable. They trusted that even though we might be upset at first, we would help them through whatever the difficult situation was and offer solutions. Having this level of communication has eased my fears and allowed me to give up a little of that control that we parents are seeking in this scary world.
If you decide to use monitoring software, I suggest that you put it on your computer and forget about it. Talk with your kids about safe online behavior and set rules for internet use. Let your children know that they can and should come to you if anything happens (accidental pornography site pops up, cyberbullying/someone threatens them, online friend wants to meet them in person, etc) that makes them uncomfortable. Then only use the software if something happens and only so you can trace what occurred. This way, you preserve and foster a good relationship with your children and keep them safe.
My kids have their own laptops and we connect to the internet through a router. Is there any way I can see what sites they are visiting without accessing their computers? Does the router or some component thereof store this information?
Monitoring software can overcome the problem of Internet history being deleted. I recommend accountability software. Not only will it monitor the Internet surfing of your children, but also give protection and accountability for adults. Check it out:
http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/2008/06/12/is-filtering-all-there-is-introducing-accountability-software/
Tracey,
What are your thoughts on monitoring software or services? Especially for those enterprising tweens and teens who know more about computers than some parents today? Drug commercial endorse checking your child’s sock drawer from time to time, should a parent be monitoring activities or is this crossing the line?
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