Thinking of banning internet use when parents not in room / house. Any advice on how / whether to?

[guitarrista]

It's been suggested to me that it would be a good idea to ban 11 and 13 year olds from internet when parents are not in a room with them, to protect kids from what they might see / do. They both have the internet on their phones, and they do homework on a computer upstairs so this would really restrict them a lot compared to what they are used to. They also spend occasions on the internet when parents are out, so I guess we'd have to switch it off if we are out. Does anyone have experience of only letting kids use internet in shared areas of house? Any advice / other ways of protecting kids?

Sorry, I don't think this is a good idea. Like it or not, the internet is here to stay and is a huge part of children's social network.

There are many steps you can take to limit and monitor usage if you are concerned, from setting up an alternative DNS server with lots of blocked sites to full monitoring.

In the end, of course, nothing beats an open, honest and (most importantly) ongoing discussion about the dangers and hazards of internet.

BTW If you just want to shut off the more unsavoury parts of the internet, take a look at opendns.com

I agree with the previous poster. You need to talk to your kids and teach them to be sensible, rather than restricting access.

DH set up OpenDNS to filter DD's internet use, enabling more as she got older - she's 16 and sensible now so I don't think there's too much blocked any more. She also can't use it overnight (about 10:30 to 6am now) but we can.

He set this up a while ago, nowadays the BT parental controls might be sufficient.

It's hard to know if your kids are safe on the Internet .. When am not comfortable with them beign online I switch the socials sites off from my broadband setting .. I set the all social sites off from 7pm till next day 7am.. Work well get them to do their homework and rest ??

We have 'turned off' internet on DD1's phone. (She can use it in places with free wifi but I'm not sure she's realised that). We are going to open it in 3 or 4 months after GCSEs, around the time she turns 16.

Her upstairs laptop for homework has social network sites blocked, so she can't get distracted by facebook, email etc when doing schoolwork.

Her downstairs laptop has time restrictions on it (so internet switches off in evening after a certain time).

I certainly wouldn't be giving an 11 year old unrestricted internet access. They just aren't mature enough to make good choices in my opinion (even if they know the theory).

I agree with Tom5000 and others. You need to teach them how to use it well - yes, have parental controls - but you can't seriously think that teenagers aren't going to access the internet when you aren't there