I have set my 4 year old son up with a limited user account and set net user so he can only log on between certain times but don't know how to auto log him off after the times. Doesw anyone know how to do this?
Also is there a way to stop him changing the time?

kinda not the answer you are looking for, but we have just developed this site for a company who do software to limit internet usage for kids…

The Learning Bubble

What OS Mrab?

Slightly confused though, and not wishing to question your parenting skills (I'm not one), but a 4 year old not being supervised on the net? Seems a bit young to leave alone, and if not left alone you can log them off?

If you are using Vista you can do it easily

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/parental-controls.aspx

Go over to the computer and turn it off?

4 year old on a PC????? I am sorry call me old fashioned but I think that's the last thing a 4 year old should be doing imho.

Why shouldn't a 4 yr old be using a PC?

It's his/her time to play outside, kiss frogs, poke dog poo with a finger etc. Computers? God, no!

Unsupervised on a PC I wouldn't have thought was a good idea if he has tinternet access, if it is just for playing educational games it may not be so bad but I would still want to keep an eye on him.

Don't they play with toy cas any more?

Surely it is his/her time to do what they want, whether it be eating flies or playing on Grandpa in My Pocket or whatever (suitable) website they want to look at.

And besides, it is good to learn co-ordination skills and also every 4 year old is born into a world of computers so no harm in allowing them to explore them if they have the interest.

Everything in moderation.

Everything in moderation.

AGREED

Apart from chocolate hobnobs.

and toblerones

He goes on the cbeebies site which is a good site for children.
I want the computer to log him off automatically using windows XP, can this be done?

Maybe my pareneting skills are in question but would rather avoid the disruption, which would be caused at tea time if I turned the computer off.

I want the logging off automatically to get him into a routine of now its tea time without me seeming like the enemy.

Mrab – seeing as it is XP, why don't you try the free trial of the Learning Bubble software – I would be interested to know what you think of it.

1/ Create a file called AutoLogOff.bat
2/ In it put the command;
shutdown -l -t 30 -c "Tea's ready! Come and get it."
3/ Create a Scheduled Task (in Windows Control Panel) to run the file at the desired time.

Just to break that down, the -l option on the shutdown command tells it to log off the current user, the -c option specifies a message to show when shutting down and the -t tells it how long to show the message for.

Thinking about it, there might be the option to cancel while it displays the message so you might be better off not including that. Also I've noticed that -f tells it to force all running applications to quit so it might be better to use the command;
shutdown -l -t 0 -f

Good clean solution there verses, I like it.

I want the logging off automatically to get him into a routine of now its tea time without me seeming like the enemy.

Sadly you're going to go through your entire life trying (probably unsuccesfully half the time) to tread that line. Part of being a parent. Wait till he's 14 and wants to go out with his mates but you have to say no for some reason. Then you'll know what being the enemy feels like.

At least one half of the parenting system surely needs to be the bad cop, without it there's no balance, or at least its even harder to balance.

4 year old on a PC????? I am sorry call me old fashioned

Okay, You're old fashioned!

My nephew is mad for the Cbeebies sites and particularly loves helping Bob the Builder build a park.

Why is that more evil than letting him passively watch Bob The Builder on telly?
Or would you not let 4 year olds watch telly either?

I think computer use is good – helps co-ordination, problem solving etc (if used correctly).

Computers are part of life and I agree that kids should get used to them, my concern is unsupervised use. If you have all the measures in place to prevent dodgy sits etc then fine. My kids use our home computer (7 and 11) but I make sure I can see what sites they are visiting and limit the time to between 1/2 and 1 hour a day. I would rather they were playing with their friends/oys than sitting on the PC all the time.

not very technical solution to stop internet usage…old fashioned timer -plug on the broadband router so it powers off required times.

think its great for the kid to use it – I grew up with pretty bad dyspraxia and one thing I was encouraged to do was play computer games, learn to prgramme etc – from the age of about 9 – so was an early adopoter of BBC Bs back in the eighties – it sure beat building macrame hanging baskets / making your own shoes as part of occupational therapy.

My 18 month old can 'mouse', loves watching the fractal display on media player (with a bit of orbital), likes some of the stuff on the bbebies site and has figured out that it really annoys his mum if he turns her pc off when she is using it – all good stuff, and a whole world of it to learn – kids these days are really lucky in that as well as the world outside to explore and dog poo to poke, they have a whole extra dimension that some of us of a certain age didnt have when we were young