[Note: While the focus of this article is for parents who want to protect their children, there is a great need for men and women who struggle with lust or porn addictions that want to stay pure. This article will help you understand filtering and steps that you can take to keep your thought life protected.]

Is an Internet Filter the perfect solution?

While there is no perfect solution, yet; an Internet filter is part of a total solution that can keep your children and your family safe online.

It’s a constant battle

Pornographers and predators are online and looking for your child. Your child does not have to go looking for them. Much like some creep with a van and puppy will cruise the parks and school yards the Internet playground is where you will find some of the most dangerous people on the Internet. It’s any good filter will block some seemingly innocent chat areas and interactive sites (like blogs and MySpace).

Pornographers are constantly moving and creating new sites daily in an effort to get around well intended parents. Even with a 99.9% success rate with millions of sites online, the odds of finding a porn site are still better than we would like them to be. However, there is hope.

How a filter works

A filter’s primary goal is to provide a barrier between the computer user and inappropriate content., while filtering in the sites you want to see.

A password is required to access sites the filter has deemed as inappropriate or they must be added to an internal white-list within the software. For this reason, those tempted to access inappropriate sites should obviously not be given the password. For stronger protection, a no password override setting is available. This is recommended for those who are battling addiction. Due to the visually stimulated nature of men, most of our users find that the wife is the best password keeper. This allows you to the control without compromising accountability.

How to achieve maximum protection

There are some simple solutions that will greatly reduce the likelihood of exposure to inappropriate content.

• Filtering
• Reporting
• Accountability
• Honest Communication

Filtering

As we stated previously, an Internet filter is your best defense. Most exposure involving children comes innocently (at least on their part) from a missed typed word or bogus search result while doing homework.

Reporting

Having access to a list of visited sites is essential to tracking curious or deceptive activity. In cases where the password is known, the reporting system continues to operate – giving you a list of domains , time accessed and number of visits. Even when the filter’s protection was overridden by known or compromised password.

Accountability

Having someone else (parent, friend, spouse or spiritual leader) get copies of your activity report is one of the best ways to keep honest communication open.

Honest Communication

Communicating expectations and removing all unnecessary secrecy from your online life is important.

• The computer should be in a pubic area of the house
• If a computer absolutely must be in a bedroom,
  • Time restricting software (like Bsafe Online) should be installed to remove late night access.
  • The screen should be visible at all times or at a moment’s notice (any effort to hide a screen or turn off a screen quickly when a parent walks in should raise red flags).
  • No webcams in bedrooms.
• Parents should know their children’s passwords to email, blogs and online journals (Spouses’ should also know each other’s passwords).
• Any child online by themselves should sign a pledge similar to Kim Kommando’s “10 Commandments for Kids online” http://www.komando.com/kids/commandments.aspx

If you have questions or comments about this article, please leave a comment below.