

Ask HN: How do you protect your children? - acron0

I have a young child of my own (20 months), but my wife and I have recently become registered foster carers and one of the things that is on our &#x27;must do before children arrive&#x27; check list is to safe-guard the internet connection from the typical online nasties. My only knowledge of this area is from [the days of?] Net Nanny and Cyber Sitter, both of which I recall being a bit naff and not really effective. I think there&#x27;s going to be some kind of proxying involved, but I can&#x27;t really find any &#x27;ready made&#x27; solutions and time is against me. It has to be something proactive and I don&#x27;t really want to use something crude like blocking rude patterns in URLs... Surely this is a problem a lot of hacker parents have? So what do you guys do&#x2F;use?
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cpr
Simplest method (what we do) is to set up OpenDNS Home
([http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/parental-
controls/](http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/parental-controls/)) as your
home router's DNS server, which should then propagate to all your machines.

It only blocks the most egregious stuff and doesn't do anything about
monitoring/blocking chat, etc., but at least you have some basic peace of
mind.

(Of course, a determined budding hacker could easily get around it if they can
change a local machine's DNS settings.)

~~~
acron0
This sounds like an awesome idea. I checked the settings on my stock router,
from my ISP, and it doesn't permit you to change DNS! Totally gutted. Time to
get a new router, I think. Good advice though, thank you.

------
brudgers
Model good practices.

Be present with your child when she is using the internet.

Shut down the electronics and put them away at night.

Discuss the facts of the world openly and honestly. Don't lie.

It's just basic parenting stuff - no different than cable TV or DVD's. It's
all in the relationship.

There's no techno-fix. Or rather, the techno fix doesn't substitute for actual
engagement.

It will help to think through where your limits are. What are your options
when a 13 year old boy visits Pornhub to watch teen lesbian videos?

Do you call a counselor? Ignore it as a normal part of sexual expression? Lay
hands on to remove the devil? Talk about it? Ignore it?

Is your response different if it's bondage? Forced sex? Latex gimp dwarf porn?

There's no shortcuts. Parenting is pretty simple and very hard. You protect
them by teaching them to make healthy choices and leave the helicopter in the
hanger as often as possible.

Good luck.

~~~
acron0
I completely agree with this! But these aren't my kids, they're other
peoples... ;) I can't knowingly allow a child in my care to view sexually
explicit images, whether I consider it to be healthy or not.

~~~
brudgers
If you must prevent it, then unplug the house from the internet. That's the
way parenting works.

If that seems too drastic, then you think about how you might deal with
Australian dildo babes in a more reasonable manner. That's also the way
parenting works.

There's theory and there's reality. In the reality, what matters is what
actually benefits a specific living breathing individual child who is
experiencing both normal maturation and stressful social/family circumstances.
What matters is what really matters.

To put it another way, for some kids the only responsible course of action
might be cutting the wire. For others, the only responsible course may be
buying more bandwidth. Once they're in your home, kids cease being an
abstraction.

But before going any further, stop and consider that most foster parents and
actual parents aren't building the great firewall on their home networks.
Instead, they're dealing with it in the great tradition of parenting - by
muddling along until a reaction is necessary.

Uber parenting requires exerting no more force than necessary.

~~~
Spoom
He mentioned he was a foster parent. He may be legally required to implement a
technical block.

~~~
brudgers
If so, the social worker would have provided resources. Now think about how
such a requirement would play out among the pool of foster parents. The image
of ordinary people setting up local DNS servers is absurd in a world where the
speaker jack has to be color coded.

The underlying current feels like a fear of liability. A pity if so.

~~~
Spoom
Don't get me wrong; I probably won't put any sort of proxy on the network when
I have kids, I'll probably just monitor / restrict their use when they're
young, and make sure they know what they need to know as they grow up.

I was just pointing out that as a foster parent, the children are wards of the
state, so precisely what is appropriate or not isn't necessarily up to the
foster parent.

~~~
brudgers
Actually, I think there is a misinterpretation of the foster parent's
obligation. It is not to act in the interest of the state. It is to act in the
interest of the child. Foster parents are vetted for suitability to act on
behalf of the children in their care, not for their ability to carry out
directives of the state child welfare apparatus. They are chosen because they
will act with reasonable discretion, not bureaucratic zeal. The standard is
reasonableness and the metric for reason is the individual child's interest.

To put it another way, there are some foster children for whom any internet
access may be inappropriate - e.g. a child who might initiate contact with an
adult for the purpose of sexual congress. In such cases, even a flip phone
might be placed off limits.

It's not a series of if thens. Judgment is required.

~~~
acron0
I also loved your responses, but I think they're still wide of the mark and
relatively typical from a zealous parent - which is awesome! - with no hands-
on experience of actual foster care.

The circumstances under which we foster children varies dramatically. In some
cases the children have almost-daily communication with their birth parents.
Our home, and our embrace, is simply a vessel for them whilst their real home
gets back on its feet. There's no animosity or judgement. The kids just need
removing from a toxic environment for a length of time, usually under 6
months, so their parents - not them - can rehabilitate, back to the standard
required by the local authority.

To say "That's the way parenting works" is kind of unfair, because in the
example I gave we are _not_ these children's parents and we're not a
replacement for them. In fact, the term 'foster parent' is rarely used
anymore.

A better example would be if my child had a friend over for dinner. I will
treat that child with respect and warmth, and whilst they are in my home their
safety and well-being are my responsibilities. My child is very 'web savvy',
but I have no idea what kinds of influence another child can have, so I need
to be cautious. In our reality, not being cautious could lose us a placement;
or worse, my wife's career.

So yeah, maybe pulling the plug is the best idea in certain situations.

------
gesman
You probably want to ask this question to happy parents of happy children, not
just any parents, including overcontrolling parents who makes their own and
their children's lives miserable.

