Monitor the monitor

Do you find your child often before the computer at home? And does she often spend time online? There are parents who make ‘surprise visits' to find out what their children are up to. Often they find them browsing harmless sites and go back satisfied. But it takes hardly a second for the child to close a window, and the parents would not find anything amiss however often they try the ‘surprise' trick.

Trying to find the history is also pointless as most youngsters are savvy enough to clear the history every time they finish browsing. Most often, parents are several leagues behind their children when it comes to understanding technology.

The easy way out is to leave the monitoring part to experts — by installing parental control software. The software will monitor and block inappropriate sites and also allow you to restrict the Internet timings. You will also see what your child has been doing online either by going to the tracking menu in the application or in the software company's Web site. Some software allow you to change the settings remotely (for example, from your office) through their Web site.

Most of the software, such as Netnanny, may cost more than Rs 1,000-1,500 per year. There are free alternatives too, such as Norton Family Safety, Kidswatch and K9webprotection.

Bitdefender Anti-virus has a parental control option bundled with it. While some offer remote management and monitoring facility, some are plain vanilla software that just block dangerous sites. Some allow you to block video sharing sites, where even a simple search such as ‘skirt' is likely to throw up some spicy videos.

Many software allow the children to request you to unblock sites which they think have been wrongly blocked by the software. You get the request through email and then act on it. If the software has remote management facility, you can clear the site from wherever you are, if you have Internet connectivity. Some even monitor online chats and provide you the transcript, so that you can be assured that your son/daughter doesn't chat with strangers.

There is a small catch. If your child is tech savvy, she may find ways to get around the software (though it is not easy). Then, you can always fall back on the ‘surprise visit' option.

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