Ok my lad got himself an iTouch a while ago and now having started secondary school is on facebook chatting to his friends late-ish into the night- when we feel he should be going to sleep.

Follow a recent strop about not doing his home work I cut off his wifi access and now he’s royally peed off with me.

Should i give him access to wifi again, given that we’ve no idea what sites he’s going on, limit him to certain times of day?

What’s the STW collective got to say?

Make him swallow the iTouch and he can only use it when it ‘reappears’

Take it off him – then he’ll not need WiFi.

take it off him when he goes to bed?

rocket science it is not

probably looking at naked ladies anyway

I had the same “I’m not tired” strop from my lad yesterday when he failed dismally to do his maths homework properly – I’d found him the night before at 10.45 watching a DVD in his bedroom. He’s on a one more chance & the TV/DVD combo go.

He’s also got a Ipod Touch, but got TBH I’d not considered what time he might be using that to. Might just turn off the router this evening and see if he complains.

If he wants his internet access back, then make him earn it by regaining your trust etc. Easy way to do it is to let him have internet access when he is in the public areas of the house, and not in the privacy of his own bedroom. Let him keep contact with his friends socially, without taking the piss late at night. Eventually you’ll all move on, he’ll restart late night surfing sessions on his Touch mostly because you’ll forget to switch the router off one night!

My lad is late primary school age, but I’m unkeen on him using laptop etc in his bedroom – whatever he is looking at online at his age should be fine to be looked at in the comfort & company of his parents in the living room. Agree, it gets harder with teenagers, but they’re also perhaps more vulnerable to online approaches sometimes.

See the WIFI access as a great parenting tool 😉

I only have to mention cutting it off, or removing her mobile, to my 15 yr old step daughter and she tows the line. My parents never had such a good deterent ❗

My kids can have a basic mobile phone (i.e. too basic for the web), while the house has only one on-line computer (in the living room), and no television.

They are allowed laptops, but no wi-fi.

Saves on all sorts of trouble.

Lock him in a cupboard with a packet of woodbines and don’t let him out til he’s smoked them all

I’d recommend opendns. It means you can control (and monitor) the sites visited by every device in your house, wired or wireless/wifi.

Basically, set up an opendns account, change some settings on your router, password protect your router with a decent password so the kids can’t change it and you’re away.

The more advanced versions (that you have to pay for) even let you specify the times that different devices is allowed to connect to the Internet – for example you could say your main computer can always connect, your childs can connect between 10 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon and anything else never. or whatever!

There are plenty of reviews online if you google.

They are allowed laptops, but no wi-fi.
Saves on all sorts of trouble.

If I was one of your kids then the first thing I’d do was buy a USB wifi dongle 🙂

I’d recommend opendns. It means you can control (and monitor) the sites visited by every device in your house, wired or wireless/wifi.

Easily bypassed by using IP addresses instead of domain names, no?

take it off him when he goes to bed?

this is what we do with our 14 year old. He also has to hand his iTouch over when doing homework.

He did get caught watching porn on his iTouch when he first got it so I’ve used the controls on the itouch to disable safari.

I’ve found that anythign I do currently is ‘”not fair” so we just get on and do what we think is right on the basis there’ll be a row anyway…

Just take it off him at bedtime. Can’t see why you need to do anything more complicated than that

Easily bypassed by using IP addresses instead of domain names, no?

Good point well presented. 🙁

There are ways to stop this, but they require a proxy server as well (or more locking down of client machines which is obvs what we’re trying to avoid).

The more advanced versions (that you have to pay for) even let you specify the times that different devices is allowed to connect to the Internet – for example you could say your main computer can always connect, your childs can connect between 10 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon and anything else never. or whatever!

Isn’t this built in to most routers these days? I know the BT router that I have allows this without the need for any other software.

my Netgear router allows you to control the times of day certain url’s can be visited but not the times of day that certain MAC addresses have access.

Taking a iTouch of my kids xmas want’s list 😉

When my kids were younger I restricted the times their could access the web by setting rules in the router.

Just take it off him at bedtime. Can’t see why you need to do anything more complicated than that

+1

Make him leave it downstairs.

Markie – good idea – I’ll look into that.
My netgear router would allow me to prevent certain websites at certain times of day – but its an exclude rather than include list so I can stop facebook but not all the pron urls

Can you log the dns lookups tho? Then just tell him that you can and will look up what sites he’s visiting, and so he should use his own judgement…

Basically, set up an opendns account, change some settings on your router

One more step. Unless you have a fixed IP address at home (unusual) then you need to install the opendns updater on your lappie so that opendns knows which IP address is yours when it changes.

You can then set the blocked message to say something like ‘an sms has just been sent to your father, get your pants on now’ but that’s just plain cruel (and a bit unkind as well (and just encourages them to find another dns server so pointless))

Yep we take the Itouch off him at homework and bed time
– fortunately his screen’s not too good since he threw it at a wall in a hissy fit. We’ve refused to fix it and he (with enough money in the bank) doesn’t want to fix it himself.

We’re always evil 😈 apparently at least he’s given up appealing that it’s “against his human rights”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_%28firmware%29

Thankfully our BT homehub allows me to set what can connect and when. I set it so our daughter can access the internet from 6pm up to her bedtime. Stops her from staying up too late on it and stops her from getting up silly early. Also prevents the distraction when she needs to be getting sorted for school.

We have wifi and each teen has a laptop. Rather than resort to technological barriers that they will probably find ways to overcome, we chatted to them about what was reasonable and what was not.

They see the advantage of wifi and enjoy keeping in touch with their mates via MSN and Facebook and are happy to stick within the guidelines we have set.

Although we are wi-fied and lappy’d up now, when my daughter was younger, we kept her away from the worst excesses of the internet by refusing to have a pc in the house,insisting that she used semaphore or signal fires to talk to her friends and only giving her a lump of coal to play with at crimble.

Why does he have a TV in his room? I’d remove it anyway, and restrict the iPod to downstairs. I’d also remove Safari. We didn’t have a home computer for years, they waited 11 years before I allowed a wii, and his itouch is coming at Christmas without wifi. We also have a two week moratorium on watching TV each year. Takes the kids a day to forget, my wife however…

Oh, and I think 12 is too young for Facebook. Texts only in our house.

djaustin – Member
Why does he have a TV in his room? I’d remove it anyway, and restrict the iPod to downstairs. I’d also remove Safari. We didn’t have a home computer for years, they waited 11 years before I allowed a wii, and his itouch is coming at Christmas without wifi. We also have a two week moratorium on watching TV each year. Takes the kids a day to forget, my wife however…

Oh, and I think 12 is too young for Facebook. Texts only in our house.

Do you have them followed to and from school too?

only giving her a lump of coal to play with at crimble.

What ? not even a hoop and a stick?

Every 10 year old I know is on Facebook

Ok my lad got himself an iTouch a while ago and now having started secondary school is on facebook chatting to his friends late-ish into the night- when we feel he should be going to sleep.

Follow a recent strop about not doing his home work I cut off his wifi access and now he’s royally peed off with me.

Should i give him access to wifi again, given that we’ve no idea what sites he’s going on, limit him to certain times of day?

What’s the STW collective got to say?

Just punch him in the ear.

my how things have changed.

when i were a lad it was a torch under the duvet and a copy of my Mum’s Grattan catalogue underwear section.

Mind you had such fantastical gadgets been invented I’d have been screwed anyway as my parents house still to this day has neither broadband or a mobile signal.

Lock him in a cupboard with a packet of woodbines and don’t let him out til he’s smoked them all

The 2010 version of this is to force them to watch 2 girls 1 cup and the monkey/frog/rape video on rotation for an hour or until the puke.

Everyone who is switching off their router, etc. you know that they’re just using a neighbour’s unsecured wifi right?

Remove iTouch, remove his TV. Simple.