The Family PC

The Family PC

On various newsgroups and Web forums, we often see questions like this: "We have a computer at home that our children use to play games and do homework. Lately they've not been getting their homework done because they spend too much time chatting on instant messengers and IRC. How can we limit what they can do on the PC? Can we shut down some programs during certain times? We want to block Internet access until they get their homework done. How can I set this up?"

This is a classic example of searching for a technical solution to a nontechnical problem. The problem here is that kids are curious , they're industrious, and they have more free time than you. They will find ways to circumvent just about anything you can dothey've got physical access, after all, and they can get around all your finely crafted restrictions just by installing a second copy of Windows.

Although we certainly aren't trying to tell you how to run your family, you've really got only two options in this situation: don't allow your children near the computer until they've finished their homework, or just forget the problem completely. If they don't get their homework done, it's their faultnot yoursand they'll have to abide by whatever consequences might arise as a result. If they get in trouble often enough they'll learn to better manage their time. And this is a far more valuable lesson than anything you can do to try to block the behavior.

By extension, your corporate laptop that you bring home every evening really has no business becoming a second family PC. Keep your kids away from it.



Protect Your Windows Network From Perimeter to Data
Protect Your Windows Network: From Perimeter to Data
ISBN: 0321336437
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 219

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