To think it’s impossible to block dodgy websites on teenagers phones and wonder how we are supposed to protect them

[Br3athd33p1y]

I always go to them for tech advice. Appreciate advice from schools etc re certain sites but how do you protect kids in reality?

StuckI have. But teenage years can be tricky. Teens have the world at their fingertips, can get lonely, row with parents, experience a shitty time, be miserable...... All the good teaching in the world won’t stop many teens from always doing the right thing.. Anybody saying oh teach em well and they won’t ever put themselves at risk is naive And yes it is Omegle et al that I am concerned about.

Liking the sound of that add on router thing, could they not just pull it out though?

Allstarwere your parents worried. All sorts of lowlifes could hang out on those sites.

Damntheman
It wouldn't take a tech wizard to circumvent them, it would take a motivated 8 year old about 5 minutes^

I disagree. As long as the kid doesn't have the passcode then it's really difficult to bypass the parental restrictions if it's set up properly and the parents still check the kids phone etc. If you use Family sharing then you can view reports and adjust settings for children in your family at any time from you own phone.

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I'd be impressed if you could find a link to a guide to get around parental permissions that actually workable if the parental permission have been set up properly. 👀👀. Most are shite and don't actually work or rely on downloading apps etc (which a kid obviously couldn't do if their phones parental permissions were set up properly )

Even the well known screen time limit work-around wouldn't actually work if the parent was looking at the phone usage records for the kids phone.

www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-ways-children-might-bypass-parental-control-software/

Just one of many pages when I googled.

you cant block it entirely. I pay for my childrens phone on contract with EE which allows me to decide which blocks i put on my childrens phones via my own account, so ive gone for a kind of medium one which blocks adult sites, but still allows other sites such as youtube to work adequately.
I cant do anything about my eldests phone though, as his dad pays for that one. Also not sure what protections you can put in on PAYG phones

it is bullshit about a tech savvy 8 year old. That would be fairly extreme, and most 8 year olds are tech savvy enough to access youtube. Not working out how to watch porn on the darknet or bypassing restrictions.
All my kids are reasonably tech savvy, but they still begged me to get rid of net nanny etc and there were loads of google searches to ask how to disable it, but they never managed. We only got rid of it eventually because of the amount of sites it stopped from working which werent adult sites

OP you have apple devices. Just set up the family and then set up screentime. You can then set it from your phone so that they can't delete browsing history and you can restrict certain types of site or restrict internet access altogether. You can also restrict them from downloading apps etc, turn off screentime altogether, etc. It won't mean that they can see anything on your phone at all.

^ www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-ways-children-might-bypass-parental-control-software/^
Just one of many pages when I googled

OP, none of the info in that article would apply to an iPhone with Parental restrictions set up properly. 🤷🏻‍♀️ (It’s also 4 and a half years out of date😅)

It’s up to you what you want to do OP, but you are making a mistake if you think it’s pointless setting up the phones correctly. If you don’t know how then get some proper advice. You can’t completely protect your kids from accessing inappropriate material online - but you can at least try.

But the point bring a savvy teen who knows his/ her way round the net will have much scope to find up to date advice to bypass parental controls if it matters enough to them, which it does.

Also don’t most families have teen devices separate to their own or us everybody else letting them see your texts/ history and vice versa?Older teens need a certain level of privacy.

OP, You are underestimating the effectiveness of iOS parental controls.

However tech savvy you kid is it’s really difficult to bypass parental controls especially if you are also checking your child’s usage.

I don’t think you understand how family sharing and parental controls work. You kid can still have his own Apple ID and his own photos etc - you don’t need to share these things between you all. You child won’t have any access to any of your phone info . You can also allow him whatever privacy you wish and still have parental controls. When my kids were younger teens.

If you want to do something to limit what your child can access online then get someone who knows what they are doing to set it up for you. . It’s not difficult to set up and it is effective regardless of how tech savvy your kid is.

Can you block websites though?

Ds says he’d use a VPN to cover his tracks on the router and simply erase his phone to get rid of our password on his parental controls.

yes you can block websites as DH has blocked them on our broadband and mobiles. for example TheSun website was blocked but i wanted to go on to look at the free days out ticket thing they do so I had to ask DH to unblock it on my phone specifically!

DH can also see what websites and things we are all searching for, so if anything dodgy is tried to be accessed we would know.
DH is a techy so I'm not sure how it all works to be honest, we have our own mini server etc but its all set up and connected so if I log onto the PC on my profile I can see my browsing history from my phone.

But you are right with all the blockers and settings in the world a child is probably more than likely to be able to access inapproriate content at some point on some device somewhere - at friends houses etc. So education and honest communication about these things is really really important.
I check the kids phones on a semi regular basis to see what they are talking about with friends, and I know thier friends parents do the same as I have had the odd message that x has sent the rest of them a swearing video on the group chat etc.
I also noticed a chat between DD and her friend whos a boy about someone who had been contacting him on instagram and asking to meet up in our village (so knew where he lived) I contacted his mum to let her know and also spoke to DD as she hadnt thought to mention it because it wasnt to do with her so we had the chat that she must look out for other people too and although she knows to let us know if someone contacts HER she must also mention if she thinks a friend is in a vunerable position too.
admittedly mine are young teens and things may be different when they are 16.

Djimino you're coming across as a bit naive. There are aticles from the Washington Post and other reputable news sites as recent as last week describing how easy kids as young as 9 are finding it to get around Apple's parental controls. Many articles complaining about the massive holes in Apple's parental controls that Apple has so far not fixed and doesn't respond to comment on.

A simple parental control lock is just not the answer here. Even if you did somehow magically manage to find the one parental block that nobody on reddit has managed to bypass, kids can still access things through other peoples' devices and in libraries. Communication is the answer here, not censorship. Building the right knowledges and defenses so that our children can handle what will inevitably come at them.

I want Omegle at al blocked. If anybody can advise a fail proof way I’d be grateful.

When children get to 15/16 they don't go on those sites anymore, at least not where I am from, they are used for fun by 8-10 year olds - I think You're worrying about the wrong things

It's a totally fair point OP. There is an emerging approach within social care called Contextual Safeguarding, recognising that parents can't always keep their children safe in online spaces.

I think more has to be done to keep these companies accountable though. And it's not just safety, it's content quality, screen time etc.

Just I think you’re wrong, it’s not what schools and elsewhere are saying.

Im 26, and chatroulette and Omegle isnt a new thing, when I was at that 15/16, we were way past using those sites as we had lost interest in them.

What is the exact worry you have about them? I havent heard of anything happening in relation to the two specific sites you mention?

And from experience I can tell you that No matter what you do your children will gain access to whatever they want to access, whether it is on their device or someone elses.

The only thing that works is talking to your children and educating them on the dangers without getting angry if they come to you with something.

Almost all children experience and see the same kind of things on the internet, the difference is whether the children can talk to the parents or not

pumpic.com/security/omegle-app-encourages-talking-to-strangers/

Ds says he’d use a VPN to cover his tracks on the router and simply erase his phone to get rid of our password on his parental controls

He is talking shite. 🤦🏻‍♀️ So you check his phone and if you catch him doing that you take the phone off him. 🤷🏻‍♀️. You can prevent him from doing this if you want to. It's not hard. Your son is trying to baffle you with science. I think he is succeeding 😅.

A simple parental control lock is just not the answer here

I agree. I've said the same thing.

kids can still access things through other peoples' devices and in libraries

I agree, I've said the same thing in my earlier posts.

There are aticles from the Washington Post and other reputable news sites as recent as last week describing how easy kids as young as 9 are finding it to get around Apple's parental control

🤦🏻‍♀️ The articles are about circumventing screen time limits not all the other parts of Apples parental controls. I'd already mentioning this problem in my earlier post. (Last paragraph of my post at 8:50). 🤷🏻‍♀️. If you have parental controls and family sharing set up properly it would be easy to see if your kid is doing this. It's not difficult to prevent if you want to.
The press love to criticise Apple and love to hype up how easy it is to hack their phones but in real life if the parental controls/ family sharing are set up properly AND the parents double check usage/reports etc then the risk of kids being exposed to inappropriate material is greatly reduced.

Also, OP, if your kid is as sassy as he sounds I'd be taking extra precautions to ensure that he couldn't access whatever he wanted. I'd see as war and I'd win!😅

BTW. OP how old are your kids? They sound like they have the upper hand already.

Why is he talking shite. He knows how to wipe his phone and wiping would wipe our password which he could reset. Re browser history he could switch to Chrome.Doesn’t family controls mean everything would be charged to our account, every tv show, music etc. I don’t want to see all their photos and texts I just want dodgy sites completely restricted.

SOME children will be able to bypass stuff, because some people can hack into the fuckin pentagon.
There is also enough propaganda out there to try and discourage people from putting age restrictions etc anyway, make them think its pointless. Its not pointless. Most kids and people in general arent massively tech savvy. They just know how to use the internet. Put as much restrictions as you can get away with for as long as you can, and then even if your kids might see stuff occasionally, you at least wont have them wanking off to torture porn in their rooms at 13.
You do have a duty to put parental controls on somehow

OP, go and speak to someone who knows what they are talking about and they can set it all up for you.

It really isn't complicated. If you can afford it pay someone to come to you house and sort it all out. They can explain how it all works.

If he is as determined as he sounds then I guess he will get around whatever restriction you set up but why would you make it easy for him by doing nothing . I guess he can get around any restrictions by buying a second hand phone from a friend. You can also buy them cheap as chips from CEX etc.

I don’t want to see all their photos and texts I just want dodgy sites completely restricted.

You can do exactly this if you want but you need a multi angled approach which includes parental controls, ongoing monitoring and punishing him if he does anything he shouldn't.

Setting up his iPhone with parental controls is not complicated. Why wouldn't you do it??? If he wipes the phone then tell the little bugger his phone will be replaced with a basic phone.