Re: [PLUG] Child Proofing my Home Network

[Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 12:31 PM, john boris <jborissr@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> When i first got involved with the Internet in the early 80's I could be 99%
> sure the person on the other end of the bbs or the email was who they said
> they were. Today you almost need a dna test to make sure the person on the
> other end of the wire is a real person.
>

I tend to agree.  My personal sensibilities are to be fairly liberal
on this stuff.  However, from experience I can say that kids can end
up doing things that are really dumb, and this puts at risk their own
safety, or the security of the family.

Maybe the kid wants to download free movies online because that is
what all the other kids are doing.  Then the parent ends up being hit
with pay-up-or-be-sued letters to the tune of thousands of dollars.
The kid in elementary school obviously has no sense of what $10k is.
Maybe the kid runs into this really friendly but persuasive other kid
online who isn't a kid at all.  Kids can sometimes be very quick to
trust strangers while assuming the worst of their own parents.  I
remember my stepdaughter as a kid describing some guys her age as
creepy and others as nice, and I got the sense that the distinction
was in how nice-looking or charming they were.

All of these are teachable moments of course.  The problem is that
there are some kinds of situations that are irreparable.  I believe in
letting kids make mistakes so that they can learn from them.  If that
means a burnt finger or a broken $10 toy, it is a learning experience.
It becomes a problem when the costs start getting serious or the
injuries becoming life-changing.

Parenting is often a lot harder than it might seem...

--
Rich
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