Parental Control Software – A Good Idea?
Parental Control Software Usage
The proliferation of online pornographic images, violent games, drug and alcoholic material bombards your children everyday through pop-ups, emails, chats and instant messages. To help curb the unwanted solicitation of objectionable material, parents are investing in parental control software for their home computers.
Parental monitoring software has become increasingly more popular within the past several years.
According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, over 54% of 1,100 families surveyed used some sort of internet monitoring software to review their children’s online activity.
Parental control software, like offered by http://www.PCTattletale.com is designed to provide the parent with a detailed report of your child’s internet activities by recording both sides of the conversation in chat rooms, instant messenger sessions, copies of incoming and outgoing emails, and a complete listing of websites visited.
Some types of parental control software even provide filtering and a website blocking service to prevent access to the websites parents deemed are objectionable.
Most internet monitoring software is easily installed on your home computer’s local hard drive and runs undetectable by the user.
Upon start up, the software initiates a process that runs in the background secretly monitoring and recording all computer activities.
Website access is validated using specific criteria determined by the parents. Different levels of security are provided based on categories which include photos and text of drugs, alcohol, sex, violence, and gambling.
Many parental control packages also include options to create another level of security based on the ages of family members.
Numerous companies market parental control software. Software packages range from thirty to ninety nine dollars. Some parental control packages offer a monthly or annual subscription service where database and program updates are provided, much like billing model now so common with anti virus software.
Keeping your children safe when they go online and reducing the risk of potential harm from people, images or content internet is the responsibility of all parents. It is important to realize that software alone cannot protect children from all dangers on the internet.
Children should be shown and taught to behave safely and sensibly while online. Parents should take an active role in keeping their children safe by staying informed of the serious risks children face when online by reading the latest articles, reviewing their children’s online activities, talking to their children, encouraging them to take responsibility and educating them about internet safety.
The internet is a powerful educational tool that offers children the ability to share ideas, learn new activities, be creative and interact with other student from around the world.
Teaching children internet safety and how to make appropriate choices is an invaluable skill that will last a lifetime and should start early.
If you are interested in parental control software and how you can help keep your children out of harm’s way, please visit the following site
http://www.pctattletale.com.
PC Tattletale is a parental control software program that gives parents the ability see exactly what their children do online and how they spend their time.
Author Bio: Amy Cainfield is an parental control software developer and internet safety consultant. She travels the country teaching both parents and school children how to use the internet safety and is a big advocate of parents using parental controls to keep their kids safe online.
Category: Family Concerns
Keywords: parental control software, parental controls, internet safety