Raising Kids Online

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But beyond random shoulder surfing and convenient-credit-card denial, we parents have a more potent range of options than we may be aware of. "A lot of parents might be somewhat computerphobic," says Ed Donnerstein, co-director of the Center for Communication and Social Policy at the University of California at Santa Barbara, explaining why we seem so undone by the perceived threats of the Web. But it doesn't take a degree in electrical engineering to know, for instance, that your kids should be admonished never to reveal personal information to anyone online without your permission--the digital equivalent of not taking candy from strangers. Or that something as simple as the computer's placement in the home can be an effective way to keep an eye on where your kids are going. One of my colleagues has put his family's computer on a balcony atop the stairs. Whenever the kids are surfing, Dad can see where they're going from his reading chair, and Mom can check in by leaning out the door of the upstairs study, where her computer lives. And the kids can see them.

As kids get older and are likely to demand a little more privacy, some basic technological know-how comes into play. Surprisingly few parents realize how easy it is to find out where their kids have been surfing or to make effective use of simple software that would block access to taboo sites. Dale Berger-Daar, a Chicago early-childhood professional, says she can't check up on her 13-year-old son's activities even if she wants to. "He set the whole computer up," she says. "He can do whatever he wants." Tom Horan, a New Mexico lawyer and lobbyist, doesn't check his teenage sons' e-mail simply because, he acknowledges, he doesn't know how. At least Berger-Daar and Horan are honest. While more than 70% of parents in a recent Jupiter Communications survey asserted that they set at least some restrictions on their kids' Internet activities, a TIME/CNN poll of teenagers last week indicated that the kids see things somewhat differently: 62% said their parents know little or nothing about the websites their kids visit.

I think we know whom to trust. Parents who tell a pollster they're keeping an eye on things may really be relying wishfully on someone--anyone--else, probably at school. But schools and libraries stake a claim on too little of the child's time, and inescapable First Amendment issues make it unlikely that any public agency will be or should be able to play an effective role in controlling Net access and content. That can happen only at home. One family may respond to the Web's enticements by disconnecting the phone line; another may simply make them a regular topic of dinner conversation. And because we're each entitled to cleave to our own parenting ideology, both would be right.

But both should also understand that there are tools that can make the task easier and more effective, chiefly filters that bar access to offensive or dangerous content and monitors that tell you where the browser has been browsing. America Online, despite all the odious get-rich-quick or get-horny-quick e-mail that it can't seem to keep out of my own mailbox, has been particularly effective in helping parents give their children an online experience under the firm guidance of its editors: a "kids-only" AOL account blocks young users from all but full-time-monitored chat rooms and prescreened kid-friendly sites.