What is Your Kid Doing Online?

I have an 8 year old who accesses the internet each day. He generally is playing World of Warcraft. Now, there are parental controls that block out some offensive language, but my preference was that he couldn't access chat at all. Thirteen years ago I nearly fell prey to an internet predator, and now I worry about my kid. How can I be sure his in-game chat is all game-related? How do I know for sure what he's doing on the internet when he's not playing?

So I found PC Tattletale, which logs EVERYTHING your kid does online. I imagine you could use it for a spouse you don't trust as well, but let's focus on the kid thing.

Here's the stats they give, which I haven't verified but would NOT surprise me:

1 in 5 children were solicited for sex in the past year.

1 in 33 children were aggressively solicited sexual, meaning that the child was threatened, asked to meet, was called on the phone, or received mail or gifts.

1 in 4 children were exposed to photos of people having sex, even though about 1/3 of households reported using "Internet blocking software."

About 1 in 17 children were threatened or harassed on the Internet, including threats of harm to the child, friends or other family members.

Not cool. Not cool at all. So how can you help make sure your kid isn't one of these?

1) Talk to your child about the dangers of people on the internet. Make sure they know never to give their name, address, phone number, mom or dad's name, city, state, or ANYTHING that a predator could use to track them down.

2) Spy on them. What? That's horrible you say? No, remember who you're dealing with. Your kid is the same kid that thinks they know better than you, correct? Your kid is hard-headed, correct? Your kid feels safe and has no real belief that anyone is really out to get them, correct? Your kid just MIGHT forget what you told them, or IGNORE it, even if only one time. Correct?

And that one time could bring the predator into your kid's life, right? So that's one time too many. Children are not mature, and if your child has full access to something as expansive and amazing as the internet, you should at least take a mild interest in spying.



PC Tattletale gives you the perfect way to do this - your child will never know and you will sleep easier at night. With this program, you get:

*Chat/Instant Messenger logging
*Screenshot capture
*Keystroke recording (all keystrokes - chats, passwords, what-have-you)
*Email recording
*Keyword blocking (if they try to go to a site that contains the keyword, they get a 404 error, which makes them believe the page simply won't open. No suspicion.)
*Website recording (what websites they visited)
*Program use recording (records what programs they run on the computer)

All of this is completely undetectable - the program hides and can not be seen in the Windows Start Menu, Desktop, Task Manager, Program Files Folders, or even the Add/Remove programs menu. AND they offer a free trial! Sweet!

Of course, if you suspect your spouse of cheating, you could use it on them too... But I wouldn't necessarily encourage that. Unless I would... Hmmmmm...

Happy spying!