Parenting

Parenting

Parenting

The courts just shot down any requirement to put parental control software on public computers in libraries. This means that in order to keep your children from viewing pornography on the library's computer you will have to do some actual parenting.

Actually the courts did a good thing. There are two types of parental control software and both have major problems and holes.

The first is what I call WORD SEARCH, basically the software reads the words as the web page is downloaded. The software maintains a list of keywords and if any of the words in the list appear in the webpage the software will stop it from being viewed.

The second is what I call SITE LIST, here the software has a database of inapropriate sites and will not allow any site in its list to load.

The problem with the first is the reason the courts said no to this type of software. The WORD SEARCH will not only stop bad sites from loading but will also stop a lot of GOOD sites from loading. Sites we should WANT our children to view and learn from. For example a site on breast cancer.

The problem with the second is that the Internet changes too fast. What is a BAD site today my be a good site tomorrow and what may be a GOOD site today may be a bad site tomorrow. No matter how often the publishers of the SITE LIST software update the databases with the list of bad sites the database will ALWAYS be out of date. This means that this type of software WILL NOT STOP YOUR CHILD FROM VIEWING BAD SITES!

You have a choice, use the WORD SEARCH and keep your child from seeing a lot of GOOD websites to keep him from looking at bad websites or use the SITE LIST and not keep your child from seeing good OR bad sites.

Of course, there IS a third choice, BE A PARENT. This means TRUSTING your child and sitting down with your child and telling him or her how you would feel if they looked at pornographic sites on the web and ask them not to.

Funny thing is, the only choice that actually works is the third choice.

Amen