How to Monitor Your Child’s Internet Use:

The world is very different to the one we grew up in. There are now risks with using the internet that children and parents alike face, which just weren’t present before. Children must use the internet to perform research for school projects, so it’s impossible to ban their use of the internet if they’re to be successful with their studies. However, how do you keep them safe from the worst that the internet has to offer?

Here are some ways to monitor your child’s use of the internet and block access where necessary to protect them from themselves or unsavory people.

Parental Control Software

Net monitoring software is developed to prevent kids from attempting to load sites that have sensitive adult material, depict violence or have other types of content that’s inappropriate. Some software is released by established security brands like Kaspersky, the anti-virus software maker, and others have been around much longer with their parental control software.

The packages provide filters and protected web use that usually get around a child’s attempts to censor their internet usage (proxy servers). Some software only supports a single user whereas others works for the whole family. In some cases, the product also works in the cloud to protect mobile device usage too.

Net Nanny from ContentWatch is in its 7 th version (initially launched in 1996). It’s largely web-based, functions on multiple devices and has excellent filters for content. The level of parental control is strong. Alternatively, in a crowded field, the Kaspersky Safe Kids package is a good budget contender for your parental dollar. It supports multiple kids connected through the software at the same time and several devices too. Both monitoring usage and limiting access are supported within this affordable software tool.

Blocking Ads is Helpful to Restrict What They See

Playing games or doodling computer art on a site like RageMaker.net can be safe, but other sites can show advertising which is far from kid-friendly at times. For this reason, it is a good idea to block the advertising on questionable websites to protect them from seeing images of a sexual or violent nature.

Software that gets added to web browsers like uBlock Origin and AdBlock are useful to prevent ads from displaying. Parents can selectively whitelist sites where they don’t have an issue allowing ads to be displayed while blocking all other ads on sites that aren’t whitelisted. The software doesn’t record their usage, but it does monitor it and block ads according to the way it’s been configured.

Recording Desktop Usage

It’s also possible for software to create video recordings of the actual screen to see what your kids are watching and doing on a PC. This is useful particularly with younger children where it’s possible they could be corresponding with people they shouldn’t be.

Software like KidLogger can monitor direct usage including recording Skype video chats. Parents can watch videos back in real-time or speed up the playback to catch usage patterns and anything that looks suspicious.

In the internet age, when it comes to your children, you’re better safe than sorry. Rather than assuming your kids are using the internet responsibly, it’s best to act early to protect them from what’s lurking in the darkest corners of the world wide web.