>> CHILDREN ARE PEEKING AT ADULT

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The dark side of the Internet has been amazingly successful in marketing pornography. Our children have been peeking too, in growing numbers. Those who do will get a shocking introduction to sexuality, infinitely worse than anything seen on cable TV or in R-rated movies. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of adolescents — some as young as 11 — who have become addicted to computer porn. One mother of a middle-schooler said it was like dealing with a drug addict — her son couldn’t stop.

The porn purveyors have outwitted most of their opponents who attempt to protect children from the Web. According to a 2002 study by the National Research Council, protecting children from the evils of the Web is now too complicated to rely on laws or computer filter programs. Estimates range from 400,000 to 2 million Internet sites that are dedicated to selling explicit sex videos and photos. And there is plenty to see for free if you don’t have a credit card. Pornography is now one of the most frequently sought-out sites on the Internet.

There are no computer parental filters that are completely foolproof. In just under 20 minutes of using my teen daughter’s computer with AOL’s “mature teen” parental control, I was able to get to two extremely sexually explicit sites.
Parents need to continue to use parental filters on their family computers as well as educate their children about the dangers of the Internet. The best advice is to follow the suggestion of our first contributor below, which is lauded by many computer experts.

FAMILY COMPUTER NEEDS TO BE PASSWORD-PROTECTED Like most parents, my wife and I are very protective of our four children’s computer use. Our rules are simple: the family computer must remain in a public room, and it can only be used by the children when a parent is present. Knowing how children and teens are so creative in getting around family rules, we use Windows XP to make our computer password-protected (it’s very easy to do). Only my wife and I know the password. -- Matthew DePretis, Pleasanton, Calif.

TAKE AWAY THE KEYBOARD My teenager was always one step ahead of my efforts to control his computer access. I worried about him visiting adult Web sites, so I checked the Temporary Internet Files daily to see where he had been. These files record every Web site that was visited by anyone on your computer, including the date and time. But my son learned to cover his tracks by deleting these files each day. So I removed the keyboard, which is now kept in a locked filing cabinet. His access to the keyboard is limited to two hours each day. – Anonymous, Albuquerque, N.M.