Using parental controls on Vista

At our church breakfast this morning someone asked how they could keep their young child from accessing inappropriate sites on the web.  This should be a concern for any parent or grandparent who has children in the house.  Even if the child is not actively seeking out inappropriate material he or she can come across it accidentally.

The person I talked with today is using the Microsoft Vista operating system.  The first thing I recommend is to make use of the parental controls that Microsoft has built into the system.  The first step is to setup an account on the computer for the child.  The setup is easy and is covered in depth at the link below.  The harder part is actually using the accounts properly.  You can setup a child’s account and impose restrictions in the software, but if the child uses the computer under your login, all the controls are bypassed.  Therefore you must log off when you are finished using the computer and make sure the child always uses his or her own account.

Detailed instructions are available here.

Of course, the general guidelines always apply:
1. Talk to your kids about your expectations for Internet use.
2. Monitor your kids when they use the Internet.
3. Talk to them about what they are doing online.
4. Keep the computer in a public room in the house.