kids, ipads and porn

[quattrorunner]

You read it here first. Maybe not but......
Our society is up **** creek.
I realize that there are restrictions you as a parent can put it place, but these kids are smarter than you.
Kids are under lots of pressures these days that us older kids have a hard time relating too. And things have changed from the 80's when I went through my school years.
So here we are, issue at hand....
Kids have ipods, ipads iphones which as parents we are broken into buying them, and then the whole world is open to their every whim.
My home computer is in a central open place in the family room and kitchen, no privacy or easy way for their cunning tricks to get away with looking at boobies most the time. But now, they all have these little porn machines in their hands to follow them wherever they go.
These things I know, I'm not asking if I'm right....I am, but what I want to discus is where we as a society are headed with our future sitting on the couch playing violent video games all day interupted briefly by a quick run into the bathroom for a quick wizz and porn lecture and study guide of unrealistic sex of all kinds.
My input is that we're going to say goodby to family values, kids will grow up into men and women who are messed up, addicted, and not grounded to reality. Our court system will be overloaded with people who do what they want and don't know the difference between should I or shouldn't I questions.
I believe were in for a lot of trouble ahead.

[masraum]

I think most ISPs and most cell providers have controls that you can turn on that will limit what they can surf. There are still sites that might slip by the censors, and there are ways to get around them. Turning the controls on should make it much harder and limit their access. What it won't stop is kids sending porn pictures through text messages, or the really sneaky and computer savvy.

You cant stop it, but you can limit it a bit, teach them, and hope that you've taught them well.

There have always been messed up people, and there always will be. Now that we have the internet, they are more obvious.

Our biggest problem is not the world. Our biggest problem are the parents that dont care or dont have time to teach their kids.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Ummm, it's called parenting. My kids are 3, 6, and 9. My 3 year old plays on an old iPad, my 6 and 9 year olds both have iPods that we bought them for Christmas. The iPods are kept in our room, they only get them in a public space. Same goes for our desktop and PC, all are in public areas where we can monitor what they are doing. They know what is ok and isn't, and thus far have done well with it. If we catch them doing something they shouldn't, they will lose the device and IF they get it back, it will have some form of parental control app installed (there are multiple). I'm going to give them trust until they betray it.

As for video games, my kids aren't allowed to get the M rated games and only some of the T rated ones. So there is no Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty in my house, that can wait for the teenage years. I don't consider my wife and I to be hardcore parents, we censor very little that is on regular tv and don't try to hide things from our kids. But we also don't let them get or do anything, as some parents that I know. It's all about balance.

BTW, when did you see your first nudie magazine back in the day? I was probably 10 or so, good memories.........

[widebody911]

Kids have ipods, ipads iphones which as parents we are broken into buying them

Just say no. One of my co-workers bought his 4 year-old an iphone - why? A 14 year-old doesn't need an iphone, much less a 4 year-old.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Ummm, it's called parenting. My kids are 3, 6, and 9. My 3 year old plays on an old iPad, my 6 and 9 year olds both have iPods that we bought them for Christmas. The iPods are kept in our room, they only get them in a public space. Same goes for our desktop and PC, all are in public areas where we can monitor what they are doing. They know what is ok and isn't, and thus far have done well with it. If we catch them doing something they shouldn't, they will lose the device and IF they get it back, it will have some form of parental control app installed (there are multiple). I'm going to give them trust until they betray it.

As for video games, my kids aren't allowed to get the M rated games and only some of the T rated ones. So there is no Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty in my house, that can wait for the teenage years. I don't consider my wife and I to be hardcore parents, we censor very little that is on regular tv and don't try to hide things from our kids. But we also don't let them get or do anything, as some parents that I know. It's all about balance.

BTW, when did you see your first nudie magazine back in the day? I was probably 10 or so, good memories.........

Yup. Same here.

And a personal thank you from those of us who make our living in gaming for actually paying attention to the ESRB rating.

I absolutely hate it when people complain about our products then let their 10 yr old play GTA.

Hypocrites.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Is that before or after they complain about the content in that R rated move that their 10 year old just saw?

It's easier to say yes and complain about the entertainment industry than it is to say no and listen to the "little angel" cry. I cannot tell you how many times my son has blown up about not having Call of Duty because "all of my friends have it". In reality only a few of his friends have it, and they are the ones with no parental oversight whatsoever.

[mikester]

I bought them Kindles instead - the parental controls are much better on Kindles than they are on the iPads/Phones.

Since we got them the kindles they are pretty much not allowed on my iPad and I almost never hand them my phone to play with.

Additionally you can put content filtering in place at home to keep them from inappropriate sites via opendns.

https://store.opendns.com/get/home-free

Change your DNS servers on your home network to opendns and setup your content filtering profile to do that.

Also - once you setup the OpenDNS profile for the filtering - setup a DENY filter for some of the common DNS servers out on the Internet (like google's 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 or Verizons 4.4.x.x) as well as your ISPs default DNS servers. By denying these DNS servers they can't easily redirect their DNS to something other than the OpenDNS servers.

You may need to learn a little bit about technology or find someone you can pay to help you with it if you're not tech savvy.

[Rot 911]

Good luck once your kids become teenagers. You can control things all you want at home, but outside of the home, every other kid has access to these things.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Rot 911

Good luck once your kids become teenagers. You can control things all you want at home, but outside of the home, every other kid has access to these things.

A wise old codger that I used to work with frequently said, "they're your kids until they are teenagers, then you figure out how bad you effed up". My thought is that you do your best as a parent and all you can to teach them right from wrong and how to survive in the world. But eventually they will have to make decisions on their own.

Again though, if the worst thing my son does is look at naked women on the internet, I will be ecstatic.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by mikester

I bought them Kindles instead - the parental controls are much better on Kindles than they are on the iPads/Phones.

Except Kindles can be set up to dual boot Cyanogenmod or the Chinese alt Doukan.

Booting the alternate OS will bypass device parental controls.

Same concept as kids who carry linux distros on thumbdrives. Reboot box from the thumbdrive, do whatever and go wherever you want and no one is the wiser.

[mikester]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Except Kindles can be set up to dual boot Cyanogenmod or the Chinese alt Doukan.

Booting the alternate OS will bypass device parental controls.

Same concept as kids who carry linux distros on thumbdrives. Reboot box from the thumbdrive, do whatever and go wherever you want and no one is the wiser.

Which is why on my network I have the DNS setup the way I do. On my network you can only use the DNS I tell you you can use and most kids can't get around that. I also have an actual enterprise class content filtering device in place too but that's just part of my home lab (being that I do this sort of thing for a living and all...).

Frankly if my kid is smart enough to do what you just described - I've done my job. His access to porn is now my biggest concern instead of my concern for him being able to get a job.

For most home networks I believe what I described would work very well. Again, if you're kid can boot from a linux thumb drive that has a TOR VPN preconfigured on it and then can do DNS lookups through that tunnel then it won't help. But if you're kid can do that it's unlikely you can do anything to stop them anyway.

[widebody911]

To look at this from a different perspective: what are you hoping to accomplish by going to such lengths to keep your kid from looking at porn?

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Except Kindles can be set up to dual boot Cyanogenmod or the Chinese alt Doukan.

Booting the alternate OS will bypass device parental controls.

Same concept as kids who carry linux distros on thumbdrives. Reboot box from the thumbdrive, do whatever and go wherever you want and no one is the wiser.

At that point I think I'm just proud of him.

[quattrorunner]

Originally Posted by widebody911

To look at this from a different perspective: what are you hoping to accomplish by going to such lengths to keep your kid from looking at porn?

Porn is one thing, porn for kids that are under age stunts their emotional development. They develop crooked for lack of a better description.

[aschen]

if I had an ipod 25 years ago when I was an adolescent there is nothing you could have done to keep me from accessing pictures of naked ladies on it. We tried to get our hands on hustlers and playboys instead.

The more things change, something about staying the same

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by aschen

if I had an ipod 25 years ago when I was an adolescent there is nothing you could have done to keep me from accessing pictures of naked ladies on it. We tried to get our hands on hustlers and playboys instead.

The more things change, something about staying the same

Exactly my point. The world doesn't go to hell in a handbasket if your teenager encounters porn. I had multiple friends that managed to find their dad's stash of dirty magazines, it was a right of passage. My dad was lame, he didn't have any. I think as a parent you still have to fight the good fight, but you won't be able to keep your horny teenager from seeing porn. Or making his or her own, which is a much different issue.

[GG Allin]

A friend of mine discovered that his eight year old son had searched Google for "pictures of 8 year old girls taking their cloths off" or something to that effect. He nearly had a heart attack.

[mikesride]

Funny! My 12 year old step son has an I-Phone (not my idea...My idea's included the bb gun, the fishing pole and tackle, the gas powered RC car and the snow board....get the drift?)
Anyway the little bugger sets up something called a Google account on this phone...he can stream youtube videos and all that. Well apparently he did something like "synch" his google account on his phone with one of the PC's in his classroom downloading his entire browser history onto said PC.....He is no longer allowed on any of the school computers!!!!! His history included some "questionable" web sites. I uhm....checked them out later as a concerned step parent...nudity yes but not much more (12 year old boy....I had a stash of girly mags by then I am sure)
Gets called into the principles office....had to tell his mother the whole nine yards...pretty embarrassing for sure!!!
How do you deal with it? Be careful keep an eye out....kids are gonna find this stuff just like we did at that age, just now its WAY easier and some of the stuff out there is pretty disturbing....
Happy parenting!

[VaSteve]

Originally Posted by mikester

I bought them Kindles instead - the parental controls are much better on Kindles than they are on the iPads/Phones.

Ug. We bought my kid a Kindle last Christmas (2012). He's so addicted to that thing. Right now it's been taken away for asking to d/l a game....2 days after Chirstmas and a thousand new things.

Anyway, my issue with the Kindle is that it's CONSTANTLY advertising something to spend money on or download. I can't monitor that.


Even with the controls on, somehow he got to this "hilarious video":

[onewhippedpuppy]

Noooooooooo! Make it stop! That one was big in our household too, it was part of a game that the kids have. The video didn't bother me, but damn it gets annoying after a while.