Saturday, February 28, 2009

Saturday Review: Norton Online Family

I know my boys are only 4 and 6 years old. But Noah is becoming quite computer savvy already and even Aaron is getting pretty good at maneuvering the mouse around. The computer is pretty much a necessary tool for every child these days, especially as they get into the higher grades in school.

I have even heard of school wanting to give EVERY student in 7th or 8th grade their own laptop.

Noah comes home from school begging to play some game he's played at school on the computer almost every day. And for now, I am, pretty comfortable knowing that he won't get into anything questionable.
But I also know it won't always be that way. As kids are growing up faster, they are learning much quicker than we did. When we were rearranging our kitchen about a year ago, Steve and I had many heated discussions about our computer. It had been taking up a lot of space in our bedroom and I wanted to move it to the kitchen.

Space was actually my secondary reason. My primary reason was exactly what I have been referring to...child computer activity. I am hoping that if the computer is in a "public" place in the house, it will help to discourage questionable activity as the kids start using the computer more and more.

I was excited to learn about Norton Online Family website that has become available. I admit that I am not all that knowledgeable and about filters and how they work, but the tiny knowledge I have makes me question whether they are really THAT reliable.

This site from Norton is a way to track the sites being visited on your computer. It seems like a great way to track your family's web browsing habits and I know it could be a useful tool when the boys become more independent in their computer usage.

You may click on this link of you are interested in reading more about the product. Or better yet, feel free to head to the site yourself and sign up for a free trial.

This review was sponsored by Mom Central.
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3 comments:

bethn said...

Mark and I have debated working on setting up child safe protectors for the web. Especially since Dylan, yes 4 yr old Dylan figured out that he could type www. and the name of his favorite cartoon (off the tv) and get their web site. For now I'm just watching him real close, but I know I'm not far away from needing to get things set up to protect him. Thanks for this review, it'll give us another thing to think about.

Anonymous said...

Yes, it's amazing how fast they learn to use the computer. We bought our first one when oldest son was 3, and he was up and running with it in no time. I remember how amazed I was. Youngest boy has been using the computer on his own since age 2. We have our computer right in the living room where it can be seen from the whole first floor of the house, so I keep an eye on what the boys are doing.

Stacey,momof 2 said...

My kids happen to go to a technology forward school-- Everyone in the school gets to use laptops! At school the kids can only go to : parent and teacher approved sites, at home I type in the site and then I time how long we have been on-- Our computer is in the living room---so I am almost always over their shoulder-- watching. (I have a feeling as the kids get older I will have to upgrade my rules about computer time !