One thing I set up when the Boy was first starting to get online was a watchdog program so that I could monitor his Internet usage. There are just too many pedophiles and other bad folks out there not to, not to mention the fact that just going to his game sites he can pretty much access any type of porn he wants.
It is particularly important for me to watch what the girls are doing. RePete is still young enough that the only thing even remotely close to computers she gets is playing on my iPaq, but Pete is online quite a bit, at least an hour a day and I want to be able to track what she is doing, but not be intrusive about it.
One way for me to take care of the internet monitoring is with SpectorSoft computer monitoring. It allows me to know every single thing that they do on the computer. Spector Pro records emails, chats, MySpace activity recording, even key logging. That way if they join a site without my permission, I have the passwords and can get in and see what is going on.
My children’s safety is just too important for me to leave to chance, and if I have to feel like I am spying on them to make sure that they are safe, so be it.