Protecting My Kids Online

They love playing on our iPad, iPhones.  Two of them now have iPods (one bought his own & the other won his).  Now, there are some really good apps on these apple devices.  Especially some good math apps to help them in school.  However, there is wireless internet available on them too.  So, safety while being on there unattended is so important.  We have a responsibility to guard our hearts, for out of it are the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23).  What goes in our hearts, whether by what we hear, see,  or experience,  it shows up in our lives. Eventually, this will be my children's responsibility & it is to some small degree now.  But, this is largely my responsibility.  It is my responsibility to protect their hearts. We are careful what we allow in our home, on our tv, radio, out of our mouths.  The internet is a tricky one because it's got everything on it & it's on every device now.  It's more challenging that the other things to monitor.  I keep thinking of Adam & Eve.  They were so tempted to eat of this tree that would give them knowledge of good & evil, make them wise they thought to understand both good & evil.  So, this is clearly a temptation we can have, to know evil.  No child is exempt from curiosity & the Bible says a child left to himself brings his mother to shame....we can not leave our kids to themselves in todays information age with all forms of evil right at their fingertips with the click of a button....Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child.  It is our job to protect them & train them.  God calls us to be excellent at what is good & innocent of evil (Rom 16:19).  It is our job to raise our kids this way.  So, every new gadget they get, whether 3ds, kindle,....whatever, i'm like the little gadget for dummies girl figuring everything out about it before they even get it.  Seeing what they allow & can access, if they can "text, call, video chat".  So, I know this is a struggle & challenge for so many parents.  I'm by no means tech savvy at all, but I thought I'd share what I've found thus far to help & I'd love to hear from anyone about what they know : )

Child's OWN Ipod/Ipads:  Safari (apple's internet browser) has no filter.  This is a big issue.  Our home wireless networks may have a filter or whatever to keep inappropriate material from coming through, but if they take their iPod next door & your neighbor doesn't have a filter, they can pull up a lot on safari.  Example:  my child was looking up kawasaki videos & it took him to youtube....unfiltered videos with language & other mess.  So what I've found that works best if it's their own device:  Disable Safari under settings/restrictions.  Get the app MOBICIP.  It's great.  maybe free? can't remember, but it is an internet browser that filters everything from the internet appropriate for your child's age (elem, middle, high school) .  Mobicip even has a premium service for $ that will limit their hours online, send you reports on what they are looking up, etc...  Good stuff!  Oh, & another thing on these I have turned off their texting & FaceTime apps.  I give them the freedom to play on their devices outside of my direct presence, so I have to know they are safe.  When I leave town, I turn on FaceTime so they can see us & talk to us when they want.  It's a great feature, but just not one to be left available unsupervised.  There are a lot of restrictions you can set on iPod/ipads/iphones under settings/general/restrictions.

Child's own 3ds/ Kindle:  Don't even get me started on the 3ds.  I never liked seeing kids on these little things all the time.  Well, we have one, & the only thing it's good for is leverage.  It's like our new form of time out & is only played on when behavior is good, school is out, sun is up, & chores are done.   3ds has all kinds of security settings.  Check them out & err on the side of caution.  Because there is wireless on their iPods & it's very filtered on there, I've turned wireless off on all of their other devices.  Wireless  is off on our 3ds.  Kindle--wireless if off on this too & i don't even put games on it. The 3ds & iPod are for games. Kindle in our house is for reading.  It's great for reading too.  He can read at night in the bed & really enjoys it : )  His reading has taken off & I credit that partly to reading at bedtime on the kindle.  I can check out books from our public library & put them on his kindle for free....all online : )  You just need your special pin number from the library.  I've heard there's a MOBICIP app for kindle as well for those who use the internet on their kindle.

PARENTS IPHONE/IPOD/IPAD:  This is where it's been tricky for me.  I like Safari for internet.  But, unless I completely turn it off under settings, it is always available for my kids to access while they are playing other apps.  So, I want a way to keep them off of my internet, but I don't' want to have to surf under the MOBICIP elementary filter.  So, tonight after trying every way I could find to password lock my safari app, I gave that up & got a new internet browser in the app store called Mercury.  It is supposed to have a passcode to open it every time, so my kids can't use that browser.  I'm turning off Safari, I'll use Mercury, & they have Mobicip.  I'll keep you updated as to how this works.

After all this, I just want to turn off all electronics & tell the kids,  "let's get spoons & go play in the dirt pile."  Much simpler!

Okay, there's my not so technologically correct Mom's Filtering Service.  Please share your knowledge with me!  This is just another one of the many hats we moms get to wear : )  But, we are building something eternal, something strong, something worth everything...