Kids online is a series of articles designed to help non technical parent get control of and create a safer Internet for their family.
Kids online today are, for the most part, much more computer literate then their parents are. This leaves many parents in the dark about Internet safety and what to do about it. I hope to change that and show parents in an easy step by step process how to make things a little safer for their kids online.
In this article I am going to show you how to discover where your kids have been online in a matter of minutes. This process is just a start because the logs we will be reviewing can be deleted fairly easily by a tech savvy teen.
Keeping that in mind, if you begin to notice that your history files are always gone that means someone is deleting them. That should raise a flag because if they are being deleted there is a reason.
I realize this is more of a reactive strategy then a pro-active one, which is always preferable but if you are just beginning your Internet Safety journey this is a great place to start. If you find bad things in these logs then you have a tougher road ahead of you.
In case you were not aware, every site you visit online gets logged on your computer. Yes, that’s right, every site you go to and every page within that site gets logged. To find those logs follow these steps, on the Internet explorer menu at the top of the page;
- Click on view
- Click on Explorer bar
- Select History
Your Internet history logs will show up on your left. As you can see, if know one has deleted them, the list is large. Every site for the past several weeks will be logged here. Clicking on a link will take you to the actually website that was visited so be careful.
Remember, if there is a site in the history logs it was visited by someone on your computer, no way around it, no excuses, it happened on your computer.
What next?
My recommendation is for parents to get involved and to install monitoringblocking software. Being an involved Internet parent is crucial to your child’s safety online.
Software is their when you can’t be and will stop most all inappropriate media from getting into your home. Make sure your software has a key logger, without a key logger your child is still in danger because you will not be able to tell who they were talking to and what was being said to them.
Richard French has been happily married for 20+ years and is a father of 5 online kids and his site TheParentsEdge is dedicated to help parents keeps their kids safe while online. With how to’s, step by step guides,news,safe surfing rules, recommended software and more TheParentsEdge is designed to give parents the “edge” in todays tech savvy teen world.
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