Questions for Parents

[cj]

Ok you know the drill by now!

I come along with questions that are nothing to do with porn at all, ask you to be so kind as to answer one or all of the questions, and off it goes into the big purve content bin that ends up who knows where. ;)

I need the opinions of folks who should be better at monitoring their childrens net usage than anyone ... pornographers!

I've spoken to lots of you privately and get the impression that pornographers are like hitler when it comes to internet time and their children. We are more security and safety conscious and many of us have experienced the 'my child stole my credit card' line from a web site subscriber.

This information is of benefit to parents who are internet scared, the very people who are pushing for further censorship of our industry because their children keep stealing their credit cards to buy our smut.

I'd love to hear everyone's views on the issue of children and inappropriate material online, and whose responsibility it should be to deal with etc

And here's the basic questions ...


1) How many children do you have and what are their ages & genders?

2) How much time do they spend on the Internet each week?

3) How do you supervise Internet time in your home?

4) If your children are of varying ages, how do you differ your rules in television and internet usage between children?

5) What type of web sites do your children most commonly visit?

6) Do your children use the Internet for homework or leisure?

7) Have you ever had a 'situation' arise, funny or serious, through your children coming into contact with inappropriate Internet material?

8) What are you most scared of your children accessing on the Internet?

9) How do you feel about the accessibility of adult material to children?

10) What steps do you take in daily life to protect your children from inappropriate material (such as magazines, television advertisements, music video clips and at school)?


Thanks all!!

:bwave: :bjump:

[HoneyBlond]

Hi CJ,

Ok here goes

1) How many children do you have and what are their ages & genders?
3 Kids :- 20 F/ 16M / 8M

2) How much time do they spend on the Internet each week?
Aprox 10 - 15 hours each

3) How do you supervise Internet time in your home?
I supervise, I have a Home / Office & No Life, so I spend a fair amount of each & everyday at my machine, the kids machines are in the same office.

4) If your children are of varying ages, how do you differ your rules in television and internet usage between children?
I don't, I prefer internet usage to TV, more skills are required ie reading , typing, responding, curiosity etc

5) What type of web sites do your children most commonly visit?
Cartoon Sites/Game & Cheat Sites/Music Sites/Sporting/

6) Do your children use the Internet for homework or leisure?
Both

7) Have you ever had a 'situation' arise, funny or serious, through your children coming into contact with inappropriate Internet material?
No Not really.

8) What are you most scared of your children accessing on the Internet?
Chat Rooms ie Pedofile/Religious Fanatics

9) How do you feel about the accessibility of adult material to children?
As apposed to the accessibility of "How to Build a Home Made Bomb" perhaps ?
The internet by nature is a pretty big place, I mean mind bogglingly huge in fact, so pretty much any subject you care to research is accessible, I don't believe porn is anymore or less accessible than any other subject.

10) What steps do you take in daily life to protect your children from inappropriate material (such as magazines, television advertisements, music video clips and at school)?
Protect Vs Educate...you can't protect them from advertising, or what they see and hear at school, You can teach values, by your actions, assist
self esteem development, be open, approachable and supply & discuss information at a level they can understand. But you can't totally protect them.

:)

**As a footnote for people with feet, I do believe it is MY Responsibility to know where my children are and what they are up to, so if they are using my credit card to buy someone elses smut ! (shesh) I would be looking at why & how I managed to drop the ball**



Last edited by HoneyBlond at Apr 13 2003, 04:43 PM

[Danny_C]

1) How many children do you have and what are their ages & genders? 1, 6 years old, female

2) How much time do they spend on the Internet each week? A few hours.

3) How do you supervise Internet time in your home? I don't monitor much, other than to make sure she hasn't stumbled anywhere she's not supposed to be. She just plays games at Nick.com and other kid sites.

4) If your children are of varying ages, how do you differ your rules in television and internet usage between children? N/A

5) What type of web sites do your children most commonly visit? Nick.com, Noggin.com, etc.

6) Do your children use the Internet for homework or leisure? In kindergarten there's not much use for Internet for homework, so it's all leisure right now. That'll change in a couple of years.

7) Have you ever had a 'situation' arise, funny or serious, through your children coming into contact with inappropriate Internet material? Not yet.

8) What are you most scared of your children accessing on the Internet? Predators in chat rooms, of course.

9) How do you feel about the accessibility of adult material to children? I don't think it harms them, although it would raise questions I'm not prepared to answer until she's a little older. In general, out of respect to parents who have to deal with these things, I think we should do our best to keep porn inaccessible to children. But then, we can only do so much, and then it's up to the parents.

10) What steps do you take in daily life to protect your children from inappropriate material (such as magazines, television advertisements, music video clips and at school)? Well, I don't type in rotten.com and let her browse around. I think that's enough at this point. I'd be more concerned about tv, but the only things she's interested in watching are cartoons. If she was flipping through and saw some violence or a steamy sex scene, she'd keep flipping.

[MikeFold]

cj....
I am going to answer these as of 3 years ago when they were younger
ouch...am i getting old?


1) How many children do you have and what are their ages & genders?
3 kids (current ages 19, 17 and 14

2) How much time do they spend on the Internet each week?
lots

3) How do you supervise Internet time in your home?
I allowed unlimited time IF other responsibilities were complete. I have logging, and Spector Soft on both terminals as well as blocks to IP addys known to me on the router at home.


4) If your children are of varying ages, how do you differ your rules in television and internet usage between children?
Again, If all other tasks/responsibilities were done, unlimited. The same rules apply to all.

5) What type of web sites do your children most commonly visit?
19 yr old (girl) was mostly AOL Instant Messenger and research
17 yr old (boy) gaming, warez and (undoubtedly) adult sites (mine)
14 yr old (girl) was mostly AOL IM, and teen type sites (fashion etc...)

6) Do your children use the Internet for homework or leisure?
Both

7) Have you ever had a 'situation' arise, funny or serious, through your children coming into contact with inappropriate Internet material?
Yes

8) What are you most scared of your children accessing on the Internet?
Violence and Perverted (by normal standards) graphic sites. I allow the curiosity to feed off itself, but will limit exposure once I answer the questions.

9) How do you feel about the accessibility of adult material to children?
Most of the morons in this business (the weekend warriors playing for beer money) as well as the deceptive cockholsters that refresh non adult names to adult content with nary a warning sentence annoy the shit out of me. Not that warning would stop them, but the proliferation of hardcore on free gallery pages is, as far as I am concerned, unnecessary and certainly a detriment to this business' PR headaches.
As far as my own kids, If I did not want them to access, I could almost surely block it with my knowledge.

10) What steps do you take in daily life to protect your children from inappropriate material (such as magazines, television advertisements, music video clips and at school)?
I think they should be exposed and not sheltered from almost anything, which I encourage them to ask me about.
I examine phone and credit card/ATM records and do the usual stuff (mileage on cars, occasionally surprising them with an appearance to keep them on their toes.)



Last edited by MikeFold at Apr 12 2003, 02:14 PM

[Raven]

1) How many children do you have and what are their ages & genders?

I have one son, who is nineteen and a half.

2) How much time do they spend on the Internet each week?

He now spends hours on the Internet. I have protected him from predators and I have taught him about the various tricks. The one time he did something unknowingly had to do with a dialer that disconnected him from the Internet and hooked him up to Mozambique. To this day, we can't figure out which site did this. This dialer had no warning, nothing to click. But, that was back in the day.

3) How do you supervise Internet time in your home?

When he was very young and we got our first computer, he sat on my lap. That was the only time he was allowed near it. The computer stayed in a public room, rather than his bedroom, until he was sixteen. You are right, cj...adult webmasters are very conscious of the safety and security issues with our children. We are far more responsible than the surfers.

4) If your children are of varying ages, how do you differ your rules in television and internet usage between children?

When he was young, he was allowed to watch television on the weekends and after his homework was completed. If there were a special show, exceptions were made. The Internet was a treat for him; but, he was allowed to play computer games.

5) What type of web sites do your children most commonly visit?

When he was young, my son was on AOL, in the kid section. Since I was always there, I made sure he went nowhere else. He did make use of resources online, such as dictionary sites, encyclopaedia sites, etc. There were great places for him on AOL at the time. Now, he surfs porn, downloads alot of mp3's, talks to his friends from around the country, visits rotten.com and sites like that. I don't supervise him these days. I believe he's competent and able to supervise himself. Besides, he will ask questions when he runs across something he doesn't get.

6) Do your children use the Internet for homework or leisure?

Both

7) Have you ever had a 'situation' arise, funny or serious, through your children coming into contact with inappropriate Internet material?

Yes. When he was fifteen, girls were sending him pics of themselves. They were naked. They were underage. Scared us to death. He didn't realise what it meant, until we explained it to him and then he deleted the pics.
The other occasion was a bondage site. He was young and didn't understand the attraction. Explaining it to him was both amusing and difficult.

8) What are you most scared of your children accessing on the Internet?

Serial killers

9) How do you feel about the accessibility of adult material to children?

I feel it's up to me as a parent to keep him off adult sites. Handing a child a computer, without supervising, is akin to handing him a loaded gun. It's my job to teach, not the filtering software, which can't do it all.

10) What steps do you take in daily life to protect your children from inappropriate material (such as magazines, television advertisements, music video clips and at school)?

I can only protect him from so much. All I can do is try to get the message to my son that he can always ask me. I think I've done that, as he felt it necessary to show me his piercings, no matter where they were. :)

[cj]

Thank you so much everyone for your extensive answers, this is extremely helpful!!

I have often had conversations with non-porn parents who launch into stories about the big bad net and what it does to harm their children, and yet every adult parent i've spoken to seems to have a list of tricks and rules that stop most of these problems.

There's also the common belief that pornographers are bad parents because we place our children in dangerous positions by having porn in the house. I'm sure this happens, just like there are drug dealers who cut up the supply on the table while johnny is watching tv ... there's folks in every industry who lack responsibility, but in this industry, i've met some of the best parents ever.

Hopefully some of your advice will make it to the eyes of those who need it - the computer illiterate parents whose 12 year olds are still programming the vcr for them.

thanks again all!

[Peaches]

Since things changed after he became an adult, I'll do was (14 years old) and now (almost 20) answers :)


1) How many children do you have and what are their ages & genders?
was: 14
now: 19

2) How much time do they spend on the Internet each week?
was: 10 hours a week
now: 5 hours A DAY :angry:

3) How do you supervise Internet time in your home?
was: Had the computer in my office - where I almost ALWAYS am
now: Don't supervise it

4) If your children are of varying ages, how do you differ your rules in television and internet usage between children?
N/A

5) What type of web sites do your children most commonly visit?
was: sports, gaming, looking stuff up for homework
now: sports, gaming, Kaaza/Napster type sites, chats

6) Do your children use the Internet for homework or leisure?
was: yes - both
now: sometimes homework, but 99% leisure

7) Have you ever had a 'situation' arise, funny or serious, through your children coming into contact with inappropriate Internet material?
was: caught him in his "history" and it was one of Maxcash's site, lol! I made him pay for the copy of blocking software I then put on his computer for when I wasn't home.
now: doesn't matter

8) What are you most scared of your children accessing on the Internet?
Always: seeing things like cp, bestiality, hate sites. Same for me!

9) How do you feel about the accessibility of adult material to children?
Always - I don't think hardcore should be accessible, but I don't know how to stop it :(

10) What steps do you take in daily life to protect your children from inappropriate material (such as magazines, television advertisements, music video clips and at school)?
was: tried to be there, put on the blocking software for when I wasn't. We didn't have cable or satellite when he was younger, so TV wasn't a big issue. His school was VERY strict regarding this.

Hope that helps :)

[Rox]

I'm baaaaaack! :) And can never resist a cj survey! Hope I'm not too late!

1) How many children do you have and what are their ages & genders?

1, 11/F

2) How much time do they spend on the Internet each week?

At least 20 hours, most weeks

3) How do you supervise Internet time in your home?

By physically walking in and checking on her fairly often, by having her email account blocked from receiving anything other than mail from allowed email addresses (she has an AOL address; if I didn't employ blocking, her box overflows with spam of every stripe, including porn). We've also discussed at length the dangers of giving ANY personally identifiable information, and she knows and understands that beyond her first name and her general geographic location ("Los Angeles" covers a lot of ground), she's to give no other facts.

4) If your children are of varying ages, how do you differ your rules in television and internet usage between children?

N/A

5) What type of web sites do your children most commonly visit?

She mostly plays the online RPG "Dark Age of Camelot." Actual web surfing for her is primarily limited to cartoon sites, sites that are little more than giant ads for the toys she simply MUST have (Bratz, at the moment), and those "paper doll" kind of sites where the kids can pick dolls and dress them. She does a bit of research for homework on the 'net too.

6) Do your children use the Internet for homework or leisure?

Both

7) Have you ever had a 'situation' arise, funny or serious, through your children coming into contact with inappropriate Internet material?

Once my daughter accidentally went to some site or another that tossed her into a circle jerk. She immediately started yelling, "Mom, all these windows are popping up and I can't stop them! There are naked people on some of them... yuck!" I got her out of it, laughing the entire time.

8) What are you most scared of your children accessing on the Internet?

Some psycho pretending to be one of her peers.

9) How do you feel about the accessibility of adult material to children?

If I had my way there would never be any hardcore available on sites that are accessible to children. However, I think it's the responsibility of parents to monitor their children's internet usage, with the full knowledge that their kids can find anything for free if they look hard enough. I also hold the rather unpopular opinion (among the general public, anyway) that even if my (or any other) child happens to run across even something as far out as bestiality or scat content, it's not going to cause irreparable psychological trauma or deviant behavior. They might get grossed out or be gripped by a hysterical laughing jag, but I highly doubt there's any reason to worry about serious emotional damage.

10) What steps do you take in daily life to protect your children from inappropriate material (such as magazines, television advertisements, music video clips and at school)?

I don't take any steps to protect her from mainstream "inappropriate content," other than extreme violence in the REAL world (e.g. news pictures of war casualties, as opposed to blood and gore in a horror movie). Education is far better than proscription, IMO. We discuss the realities of marketing, and the #1 mantra that "sex sells." In fact, in our household it's more of a priority for me to make my daughter understand the psychology of marketing, and point out certain "Public Service" campaigns and programs that are complete horse manure, or manipulate statistics in order to support their position.

We run a very open household here, and I feel that the only way to encourage open and honest dialogue between ourselves and our child is to never make her feel like a topic is forbidden. If she's "not allowed" to see one thing or another, how can she possibly bring up any questions she might have if she IS exposed to it, or just curious, if she feels like she'll get in trouble for going there in the first place? In my opinion, parents do their children a disservice when they have all sorts of rules forbidding access to any sort of information, and really end up just pushing their kids toward those things (it's human nature, after all). The end result is usually a kid who's now seen/heard something they're "not supposed to," and doesn't feel comfortable discussing the subject with the people they should be able to go to for answers.