My own plan: shield them until they are old enough to understand the concepts of trust and respect.. then pull back the safety net, but maintain quiet vigilance (like montoring (read only) the dns queries or system logs, and maybe keep access time window restrictions).
If that really want questionable content, it will be cat and mouse game. Build trust and respect... Give them enough rope to hang themselves... Occasionally do responses without admitting knowing... then punish if they cross your safety threshold, but then they will know you somehow know.. so a cat and mouse game will begin if they are not responding to the mutual(ish) trust plan.
That’s one thing I decided already not to do is spy on them. I could easily view his entire online life and sure maybe it would protect him somehow if he was getting into some really dark porn or talking to some pedophile or something, but it’s such a massive invasion of privacy I think I could never forgive myself and the justification is bullshit.
There are no shortcuts to good parenting, spying on your kids traffic is a massive intrusion into their life.
I hope at least to get to the point where they can talk to me about weird shit going on instead of me having to detect it for them right?
I watch my kid at the park now. When he is older, he will get to go further with less intervention/overwatch on my part. Eventually of course go without me.
Same for online. At first I will be beside him. I will educate what to watch for, what the motives of the actors are and how to work with them. Baby steps.
Later, he will get to go online without me watching every move. But I will review DNS logs. And I will let him know I am doing so, preferably in front of him.
Eventually, he will go without me. Although I will likely have a traffic shaping thing so I can have some bandwidth too!
I was that teenage girl. It doesn't have the effect you want it to. My parents weren't "preserving my innocence" or "sheltering me from the bad bad world." They were just teaching me to hide better and to perform for them. I would get cash back at "safe" stores to avoid my purchases being monitored, my boyfriend bought me a prepaid phone, I hung out at the library all the time to use social media, I stayed the night at my girlfriends' houses and they would help me sneak out.
I'm now an adult in therapy dealing with all the coping mechanisms and trust issues I developed and unsurprisingly I have a very distant relationship with my parents.
I guess one approach would be to tell them that you will be able to see their traffic. Even show them that servers have logs etc. After a time, show them how to use computers more privately, and tell them when you stop keeping logs.
Why would you want to do this? I will warn my children (when they are old enough) about pedophiles and let them know how pedophiles might try and manipulate then, by pretending to be friends or by threatening them or even by convincing them to send naked pictures and blackmailing them. I will let my kids know that no matter how deep they go they can always, and should as soon as needed, come to me or their mother for help. I don't see the need to spy on them or see what they might be searching for or looking at.
I could see this changing if I notice bad behavior. If they're hanging out with bad influences or ordering drugs online or something I might intervene electronically. I'm still undecided about whether to enforce electronics limits (I use mine a lot). It doesn't seem like you should default to intrusive parenting though.
Lock down your network so well they're forced to become a l33t hax0r.
'Popular hacker software includes "Comet Cursor", "Bonzi Buddy" and "Flash"', well, technically they were all used to hack, just in the opposite direction.
If that really want questionable content, it will be cat and mouse game. Build trust and respect... Give them enough rope to hang themselves... Occasionally do responses without admitting knowing... then punish if they cross your safety threshold, but then they will know you somehow know.. so a cat and mouse game will begin if they are not responding to the mutual(ish) trust plan.