Help How to block 18+ stuff on my little brother's phone...

Your brother is bound to see 18+ sites and what not. If not on the phone, he'd have the pc or some friend's phone or pc. I wouldn't worry too much about it since we all had to pass through that curious stage.

I love this country...
God forbid he sees a pair of boobs (that you already fed on for the first part of your life), but death and destruction, watch all you want!

Leslie Ann said:

I love this country...
God forbid he sees a pair of boobs (that you already fed on for the first part of your life), but death and destruction, watch all you want!

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I think the problem with internet pornography is the scope of it. It's not like when I was a kid and we got excited when someone found their dad's stash of Playboy magazines, which are significantly tamer than 99% of what's out there now.

I think it's safe to say most of us wouldn't be comfortable with our preteens watching hardcore porn, which is ridiculously easy to find for free without any sort of age verification nowadays.

Brian706 said:

How do you know? :vroam:

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SWIM told me :smokingsomb:

Brian706 said:

How do you know? :vroam:

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I read about it in an article on Slashdot, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.
OB

remanifest said:

I think the problem with internet pornography is the scope of it. It's not like when I was a kid and we got excited when someone found their dad's stash of Playboy magazines, which are significantly tamer than 99% of what's out there now.

I think it's safe to say most of us wouldn't be comfortable with our preteens watching hardcore porn, which is ridiculously easy to find for free without any sort of age verification nowadays.

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True, but also impossible to hide from.

If he is turning 12 then he is most likely in 6th or 7th grade. This is about the time in life when there's the ghetto kids and whatnot in school. Usually around the time when 90% of the people in that school talk about or watch porn for the first time. What I suggest is give him the phone as is, but observe him in the next few days to see if he is locking himself in the room a lot, staying in the bathroom a long while with the phone, make up a excuse saying g that you got a text or something on it and look at his history. If you see any porn or anything you find dirty, then take the phone away. That's all I can suggest for now.

koopakid08 said:

If you're looking for 18+ stuff you're going to find it. Your parents need to teach the kid some responsibility instead of blocking everything. Blocking stuff will just make him more curious and look into ways to bypass any block.

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I agree with that statement entirely. Blocking everything is not a solution.

We have some great future parents in this thread.

This is my advice to all parents.

Collect cell phones at bed time and keep them in your room. Not hide them or anything but just setup an overnight charging station in your bedroom. Cell phones are dropped off at bedtime and can be picked up in the morning on the way out the door. Inappropriate websites are a problem but so is facebook and texting until 3am every night. You wind up with sleep deprived children which leads to other problems. If you want to check browser cache or install parental control apps that's your decision.

We setup the wireless router to shut off at 11:30pm and come back on at 5:30am. If someone didn't finish their homework they had to set an alarm clock to finish up the next morning. If you need to work into the late hours then just configure the router to exclude your mac id or ip address.

Tossici said:

This is my advice to all parents.

Collect cell phones at bed time and keep them in your room. Not hide them or anything but just setup an overnight charging station in your bedroom. Cell phones are dropped off at bedtime and can be picked up in the morning on the way out the door. Inappropriate websites are a problem but so is facebook and texting until 3am every night. You wind up with sleep deprived children which leads to other problems. If you want to check browser cache or install parental control apps that's your decision.

We setup the wireless router to shut off at 11:30pm and come back on at 5:30am. If someone didn't finish their homework they had to set an alarm clock to finish up the next morning. If you need to work into the late hours then just configure the router to exclude your mac id or ip address.

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This is good advice. It annoys me greatly when I hear someone say "they are going to find it anyway and if you try to stop them, they will want to see it more". Here's the thing...They may see it, but not with help from me. My kids will know exactly what I think is appropriate and what I think is bad. If they want to see something that I don't approve of, they are going to have to work hard to do so and there will be no ambiguity in regards to them not knowing I had a problem with it or in regards to it being an accident on their part.

Furthermore, when have kids ever needed extra motivation to find porn? The amount of motivation is irrelevant so long as there is any motivation at all. Also, I find it odd that some people think that these things are somehow less damaging if you don't try to stop them. This leads to the notion expressed by some parents that "it's dangerous out there so I'll let my kids have sex and drink alcohol in my house, where I know what is going on". They then go on to say. "at least my kids know they can talk to me about anything".

Meanwhile, it's just as easy to get HIV, Herpes, or other STDs, and become pregnant in your mom's house as it is anywhere else, but hey. At least they feel comfortable talking to you when they need money for rehab, valtrex or an abortion.

/rant. lol

SuperAfnan said:

We have some great future parents in this thread.

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Er, some of us are already parents. My son is turning 18 in two months...

Antiochus said:

This is good advice. It annoys me greatly when I hear someone say "they are going to find it anyway and if you try to stop them, they will want to see it more". Here's the thing...They may see it, but not with help from me. My kids will know exactly what I think is appropriate and what I think is bad. If they want to see something that I don't approve of, they are going to have to work hard to do so and there will be no ambiguity in regards to them not knowing I had a problem with it or in regards to it being an accident on their part.

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It's not about just throwing their hands up in the air and saying "have at it".

If a child is looking for it, they have already started learning about it and are curious. Kids being kids, hungry for information, they want answers and if you won't give it to them, they will get them another source.

By not imparting your knowledge on a subject, they aren't benefiting from your knowledge, which is what parenting is supposed to be. Sorry, but I would prefer my kids not make the same mistakes I or my parents made. If I can do something to make life easier for them, I will.

You can either satisfy that curiosity and begin preparing them for that bit of the world they have shown you they are ready to start understanding, or you can bury your head in the sand and hope it goes away. How well did burying your head in the sand work when it came to the "where do babies come from"?

You can root the phone and download a DNS changer, and use the free opendns websites family DNS servers that block adult sites... But are boobs really going to harm him anymore than the violence in video games and TV? I don't think so

Leslie Ann said:

It's not about just throwing their hands up in the air and saying "have at it".

If a child is looking for it, they have already started learning about it and are curious. Kids being kids, hungry for information, they want answers and if you won't give it to them, they will get them another source.

By not imparting your knowledge on a subject, they aren't benefiting from your knowledge, which is what parenting is supposed to be. Sorry, but I would prefer my kids not make the same mistakes I or my parents made. If I can do something to make life easier for them, I will.

You can either satisfy that curiosity and begin preparing them for that bit of the world they have shown you they are ready to start understanding, or you can bury your head in the sand and hope it goes away. How well did burying your head in the sand work when it came to the "where do babies come from"?

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I think there is a wide gap between giving them the benefit of my adult wisdom and experience.... and allowing them free access to harmful material. As a parent, it's my job to recognize that developing brains need actual guidance and that they are not developed enough to handle everything that is available to them. Guidance is more than just talking to them about things. Guidance involves making decisions about what they will and will not have access to. It's also about helping them avoid making bad decisions until they are old enough to make their own decisions. Peer pressure and hormones rule teenagers. You can have all the talks you want, but limiting their opportunities to make mistakes is highly important. Limiting the time they spend with sources of information that run counter to what you are trying to teach them is what lays their foundation for being a responsible adult.

Antiochus said:

I think there is a wide gap between giving them the benefit of my adult wisdom and experience.... and allowing them free access to harmful material.

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I never said give them free access or telling them everything.