My children each have their own MacBooks (hand-me-downs) for their own personal use. They do their homework assignments and research anything they want to know about. They use all the iLife applications, have blogs and create podcasts. We have a family .Mac (now called mobileMe) account allow them their own space to upload their creations to. It can very rewarding to watch their creative juices flow.
Leopard’s parental controls that are built right into the OS are perfect for our family. When they surf the internet there are many site that I would deem inappropriate for their ages. With parental controls I can block pop up windows and limited which sites they can navigate to. If you have ever type in a misspelling of a web site and been confronted with questionable content you know you do not want this to happen to your child.
Take a look in the parental control preference pane. If you have created a user for you child you can have control of all their internet time. For instance every piece of mail they receive comes to me first for approval. I can also enter who they are allowed to iChat with.
If they navigate to a web site that I haven’t yet approved they are confronted with a message stating they have to get an approval from an administrator to view the site. You even have the option to allow google searches or not.
My favorite is the settings for computer curfews. I set a limited amount of time they can use the computer per day. I can also set a curfew for when they are allowed to log on and a certain time of day they cannot use the computer. These curfews can be set differently for weekdays and weekends.
While my children find this annoying at times. I can’t rest assure that they are not being subjected to some on the online trash out there. If you need assistance settings these up, please let me know.
