Since keeping your kids away from the Internet until they grow up and move away from home probably isn’t an option, you might find these few tips useful.
The best way to monitor your kids online is to actually sit with them when they’re online. If you start when they’re young and explain the ins-and-outs of the Internet to them, including the dangers, you may not have to monitor them as they become older because they have chosen to be trustworthy.
Indeed, if you treat your kids as though you trust them, they will more often than not try to be trustworthy so as not to let you down. This is why it’s also a good idea to set up the rules with them, even negotiating on occasion. Yes, you’re their parent so you can set up any rules you want, but don’t you want your kids obeying them? Also be willing to revise the rules as they get older. A 12 year old simply doesn’t need the same rules as a 6 year old.
Since sitting with your kids all the time when they’re online is probably not going to happen, keep the computer hooked to the Internet in a public area where people are around and can see what they’re doing. It’s a lot harder to hide things from your parents and siblings when they’re always around. Kids may argue that they “need” to be able to access the Internet from their bedroom from school, but they don’t. They can save anything they need to a flash drive and take it to the computer in their bedroom.
Most operating systems nowadays also have built in parental controls. You can literally restrict access differently for every kid in your household, blocking the younger ones from some things, allowing the older kids to have more access. You can even restrict the hours each kid can have access to the Internet and, once that time is up that day, the Internet itself gets blocked.
Should you become concerned about your kid’s behavior, you can even purchase 3rd party computer monitoring parental control software that offers a wide variety of monitoring, blocking and filtering options.
But, keep in mind, the first and most important step is for you, as a parent, to spend time with your kids when they’re online so that they know you trust them and only want to protect them. Your time is the best “monitoring” option out there.