Tech Parental Controls Have Limits

As a mom of three who writes in this space often about keeping kids safe on the Internet, I have been sure of one thing: my ambivalence about parental controls being the best way to do that.

When I write about parental controls on browsers and email accounts, software that limits where kids go on the web, or the latest service to help parents track their kids' cyber-whereabouts, I am hesitant to endorse it all as the best route for parents to take to protect their kids.

Why? Because it's hardly foolproof. And without talking to your kids about where they are going on the web, and how to handle the inappropriate content and people they may encounter, it's hardly effective. Like Holden Caulfield wiping the curse word from his sister Phoebe's school wall in The Catcher in the Rye, it is a short-term, futile strategy.

Innovative kids will easily find ways around controls. And home is not the only place where kids are on the web. They go to friends' homes, libraries, cafes... In a few short years, they will be on their own using technology miles away from parent-protected routers and software-laden family computers.

Stephanie Olsen, who writes the Digital Kids column on Cnet, offers another hole in the parental control safety net in this piece about the increase in Wi-Fi public networks coupled with the use of Wi-Fi-enabled handheld gaming devices. The fact is technology is becoming more portable, and we want it to be. We expect to be able to log on at airports, hotels, and cafes. Well, our kids will be taking advantage of that wellspring of public Wi-Fi access too, and they need to learn how to do it smartly.

Parental controls may work for young children, but as our kids grow, it becomes more important to talk to them about where they are going on the web, and to establish family rules and the reasons for them for online behavior and communication. Just as we teach our kids how to look both ways crossing streets and to avoid strangers' overtures, we need to offer guidance on how to conduct their life online because it is where their generation will be connecting with one another.

For some good advice on how to do all that, check out these sites recommended by Cnet's Olsen. Safekids.com has a list of ten kids' rules for online safety that are good for parents to discuss with kids from their first days on the Internet through their teen years.

• Be Web Aware
• Media Awareness Network
• Safekids.com

Do you agree that parental controls are not the most effective way to help our kids navigate their online lives? Opine away below.