How Can Parents Control What Their Kids Are Doing on the Internet At All Times?
It used to be that we had to only teach our children about the dangers of predators on the streets, at parks, at malls, etc. It is imperative that we now teach our children about the predators right here in the comfort of our homes – the Internet predator.
The computer has simplified our lives in so many ways. Along with this simplicity it has also put our children in danger. Online predators are lurking everywhere just waiting for the right time to approach our children.
The popular MySpace site and all the instant messaging programs available have given online predators the ability to prey on our children, often times without us even being aware of what is going on. We all would like to say that we know what is going on in the comfort of our homes, behind closed doors but the truth of the matter is that no one can monitor a child 24/7. Here’s an example to stress that we can’t always be aware of what our children are doing online.
I just heard a horrified mother sharing the story of what she came across on her teen daughter’s computer and what could of happened had she not found this information. Her daughter was the typical ‘good’ kid: good grades, great friends, doesn’t drink and doesn’t smoke. The parents spot checked her computer often, checking to see the sites she was visiting. Nothing questionable ever came up until this fearful day the mother noticed a folder on her daughter’s desktop labeled MySpace instant messages. She didn’t know MySpace offered an instant messaging service.
Her daughter had become friends with a boy that was new to town and attended the same high school. The first few messages were nothing unordinary but the last one shocked and scared her. The boy suggested meeting at a motel because with the school being so big there was no way they could ever meet. That instant the mom called the school to find out if there was a boy registered by his name and of course there wasn’t! It’s scary to think what could have happened had the mom not found this and the daughter went to meet this boy.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly what our children were doing online? A new product called SnoopStick now gives us the ability to ‘snoop’ and see what’s going on, when it’s going on! Snoopstick parental control software gives us access to our children’s instant message conversations and to see what sites they are viewing right while they are doing it.
Snoop Stick is an easy to use USB flash drive device. You simply plug it into the computer you wish to monitor and within 60 seconds a small program will be installed on your child’s computer (the great thing is that there are no traces so your child won’t even know it’s there) and will run in a stealth mode from then on. You simply unplug the Snoopstick from your child’s computer and can now monitor it from any computer you are at by simply plugging in the Snoopstick (you will have to be connected to the internet to monitor your child).
It gives you a unique feature that no other parental monitoring software offers: the ability to log in to your child’s computer and log them off or turn off their internet access if you see them engaging in an inappropriate conversation or visiting a questionable website. This puts you in control and helps you to protect your children.