There are a lot of options out there for parents from basic settings on web browsers to advanced parental monitoring software.

While a parent certainly has the ultimate say, kids should actually be involved in making the rules covering online use for a couple of reasons.  One reason is that, if you treat your kids as being trustworthy and responsible, they will generally try to act that way.  Another is that, by involving them in the process, they can learn why certain things can be dangerous and how to recognize those dangerous things.

Simply forbidding your kids from going online will often tempt them into doing just that.  Maybe not at your home, but surely at school, the library, or a friend’s house.  Even telling them they can’t go to certain types of sites might backfire.

But parents who take the time to sit down with their kids and discuss Internet safety and establish Internet rules with input from their children generally find that they don’t need to spy on their kids.  In fact, by sitting down with their children, parents often learn more themselves about Internet safety do’s and don’ts.There are numerous Internet safety sites online. 

Parents should check out several then sit down with their children and discuss the various issues covered.  Make sure you get age-specific information because the average 7 year old has far different interests, experience, and judgment skills than, say, a 14 year old. 

As a result, the rules will need to be appropriate and they will need to change over time.  While you should start teaching your children about privacy from the very beginning, there’s a vast difference between young children (who should not even have access to chat rooms, for example) and teens who will be busy IM–ing and chatting with their friends…and who need to know how to tell friends from strangers.

If, however, your kid doesn’t obey the rules you’ve set together, you may have to resort spying on them when they’re online.  But try trusting them first and sitting down with them.  It’s much healthier for your relationship with your kids.

Sure, a parent could actually block instant messaging, but most parents aren’t going to want to go that far.  They want to trust their teens and they know that forbidding something only makes it ‘forbidden fruit’.

Instant messaging is done either via chat rooms or by using special instant messaging software such as Yahoo Messenger or AOL Instant Messenger.  Indeed IM software comes with new computers. 

All IM clients come with the ability to block unknown users, which means only people on your teen’s contact list can get through.  As a parent, you should make sure that setting is enabled. 

However, you still may feel the need to monitor your teen’s instant messaging activity.  Perhaps it’s because you feel something’s wrong.  Or perhaps it’s just because there’s always going to be someone who tells them how to change the settings, assuming they can’t figure it out by themselves and assuming they won’t abide by the ground rules you’ve set up with them.

This is where parental monitoring software and parental controls come in.  Newer operating systems come with parental controls that will allow you to monitor, even block, instant messaging.   If considering third-party software, you need to look for monitoring software that will allow you to monitor discreetly so that your teen won’t know they’re being monitored.  You also want software that will log the activity that occurs.  Preferably you should get software that not only records keystrokes, but also takes screen shots of activity on a regular basis for a “picture” of what’s happening. Some good examples of these types of software are Spector Pro, Advancd Parental Control and WebWatcher.

Some monitoring software allows you to be emailed with reports.  However, you want to make sure that your teen won’t know emails are being sent out.  Logging should also be kept in a hidden, password-protected database that will allow you to search by keyword, the most common users, and so forth.  Not only that, but some IM monitoring software comes with a “translation” feature…in other words, it translates those common acronyms all teens use (like PRW…’parents are watching’.)

With luck you won’t need to monitor your teen’s instant messaging activity, but if you do, make sure you use the right tools.

Prying into a child’s privacy tells that child that you don’t trust them…particularly if the child has done nothing wrong.

But, just because a parent shouldn’t spy on their kids as a matter of course, that doesn’t mean that sometimes a parent doesn’t have to. 

If you have reason to believe your kids might be doing something inappropriate or are concerned about them, you may feel you have to monitor their online behavior.  If this is the case, knowing how to discreetly monitor your kid’s email may protect them both from what you’re worried about as well as their finding out what you’re doing.

While there are ways to discreetly monitor email without using 3rd party software, most parents won’t know how to do it. As a result, using parental control software that includes the ability to monitor email is the way to go.

There are numerous programs out there that allow parents to record everything your kids are doing online.  Some programs, like eBlaster from SpectorSoft even notify parents right away by email with an exact copy of emails or instant messages so that parents know, practically in real time, what their kids are doing.

Keep in mind, though, that some programs are more “discreet” than others.  As a result, you need to look for invisible – or ghost – key logging as well as making sure whatever program you choose offers a stealth mode.  You should also consider remote monitoring. A good application that offers both a stealth mode feature and a remote monitoring feature is WebWatcher from AwarenessTech.

Not only that, but for those programs that send out instant emails, you definitely want to make sure that your kid doesn’t see that emails are being sent out.  Otherwise you aren’t discreetly monitoring anything.

Unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world.

Whatever reason you have for being concerned about your teen’s online activities, you may decide that you need to secretly check on that behavior. 

Keep in mind, though, that you won’t be able to check on everything.  Teens nowadays have access to the Internet practically everyone, from school to the library to friends’ homes to Wi-Fi hotspots all over town.  And with today’s new devices, they don’t even need a computer.

Not only that, but they probably have friends who can show them methods, such as using a proxy server, to bypass blocks you may place on their Internet access.

This being the case, you may decide to use available tools to secretly track what your teen has been doing online.  After all, as the parent, you are responsible for making sure your teen is safe.

One of the easiest ways to “spy” on your teen is to check on their history and bookmarks.  Even if they know how, most kids don’t remember to clear their history, so checking that is a good way to spy on the sites they’ve been visiting.  (As an example, you can view the history in IE by clicking on the History button.) 

And Bookmarks, also known as Favorites, are also easy to check out.  Make sure you actually click on a few to make sure they go to where they’re supposed to go.  While most kids don’t think to rename them, it’s easy to do, so you want to make sure.

If you want to do more in-depth spying, you can install monitoring software that records practically every single detail and action performed on a computer, such as IMs, chat conversations, emails, websites, programs opened…even every single keystroke your teen makes.  Best of all, all this is done in stealth mode, so your teen doesn’t know you’re monitoring them.

Hopefully you don’t need to secretly check on your teen’s online behavior but, if you do, there are tools out there to help.
 

However, as parents have discovered through the ages, the more you try to restrict and control a child, particularly an older one, the more likely they are to sneak around behind your back to get to the “forbidden fruit”.

As a result, establishing rules for the Internet should incorporate common sense, sound reasoning, and communication.

The first step is for you, as parents, to determine what you are trying to control with your rules.  For example, if you are trying to protect your kids from online predators, then educating your children as to the dangers and giving them the skills to know how to recognize potential problems has been proven to be far more effective than simply forbidding them to go online. 

Talking to your kids about online safety may mean that you, too, have to become educated.  However, even if you are already sure of your own online safety skills (and are you really sure you can recognize an email hoax or phishing attempt), one of the smartest things you can do is to sit down with your child and go over some of the online safety websites available online, such as Be Web Aware, which offers age-specific safety tips. 

Don’t take a negative approach towards your child, either.  Make it clear that it’s not them you don’t trust, but the bad people online who don’t love and care about them like you do.  Allowing them to participate in the rule making will help them understand why the rules are being made and make them feel trusted.

Explain to your child the importance of not revealing personal information online to anyone they meet online.  Not just their name and address, but their phone number, their email address, their school, their friends’ names, even the state they live in.  This also means not filling out surveys or online forms to get “free stuff.”  No personal information.  None.  Not without you there and approving.

Keep Internet-connected computers out of bedrooms.  This would still allow teens to do their assignments on their own computer, but would allow Internet access only in a public area.  (If, every time you come near, your child clicks away from what they’re doing, it’s time to sit down and talk with them about whatever it was they were just doing.)

Some parents resort to filtering programs and keystroke loggers.  But having a healthy relationship with your child, spending time with them while they’re online, talking about uncomfortable things like porn sites, educating them about Internet safety, and other parent-child involvement will go much further in keeping your child safe online.