Setting up a Safe Experience on the Internet for Kids on the Mac
As much as we see reportage in the news and columns in magazines about how unsafe the Internet is for the unsupervised child, for many parents, dangers on the Internet are still the realm of the crime novel - too far removed from reality to seem important. For parents who do comprehend the risks though, setting up a computer for Internet for kids in the family can often be a difficult exercise. The Mac OS X though has a number of ready-to-deploy features on its Parental Controls page that puts everything you need within reach. No matter what level of control you wish to exercise, these features should be all you will ever need.
The first step going forward building a safe zone for your children would be to create an account with controls. It's pretty easy if you know how - all you need is to get on System Preferences; once there, you need to pick Accounts, and then when that shows up, to click on the icon at the bottom of the screen that looks like a lock. You will need to enter the administrator's sign-in information and then pick New Account and Manage with Parental Controls after that. When you've done this, you have your brand-new controlled account to help make the Internet for kids in your home as safe as possible.
It used to be that the Internet for kids was unsafe only as far as possibilities allowed that they could stumble on to something R-rated or worse. There is a newer threat that we live in the midst of today though - socializing. This is where the Mail & iChat tab in the Parental Controls page can help. Here, you can easily put down the chatting handles of every person that you approve of having your child socialize with, and make sure that no one else gets through. If your child tries to chat with someone new, you get notified right away by e-mail. Isn't that neat!
Just because Parental Controls on your Mac is all set up, you still can't like it when the kids go overboard with their computer usage. The time limit settings on your Mac can easily play nanny to your child. To begin with, you can set the Mac to recognize your child's bedtime. It won't let your child get on the computer past that hour. And if you are interested in setting strict computer time limits, you can easily do that - with different settings for week days and weekends
But the primary reason why Internet for kids remains unsafe is that there are unwholesome websites out they can stumble on. Parental controls will let you track every place on the Internet that your child has been to; you can even look at the chat sessions that your child has participated in. All of this is available on the Websites Viewed item on Parental Controls. The really cool thing about doing all of this on the Mac is that you don't even need to fiddle with your child's computer to achieve it. It can be done from a remote computer. You can keep an eye on all of this from the Mac in your home office for instance. All you need would be to make sure that both computers are the same network, get on Parental Controls, click on the icon that looks like a gear at the bottom of the screen, and allow Remote Setup. Click on the icon that looks like a lock at the bottom of the screen, enter your sign in information, and you'll see the computers that are on the network that you can control. Simple, isn't it?