I am writing this article while all my children are three and under. And yet, the issue of screen safety for my child has haunted me since before my first child came out of my womb.
One of the nice things about starting a family young, is that I have the fresh memories of how the darkness of pornography and sexual abuse has prevailed young lives. As I child I was fairly well sheltered from sexual knowledge at home. Probably because I was raised by a single mom without cable until I was in middle school. However, when I was in grade one at a Catholic school, during recess my peers would talk about sex and even had secret hand symbols signifying sexual acts.
And that was only in grade one. I can only imagine how much worse things have gotten in the last 20 years.
A Vision of Darkness
In order to make a plan for screen safety, we need to be aware of what we are up against. Let’s not just go off my experiences though. Here are some statistics about child sexual abuse, pornography, and other issues of sex.
Child Sexual Abuse
In 90% of sexual abuse cases, the perpetrator of the abuse is familiar to the child. (Statistics from Community Advocates for Family and Youth)
Between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2017, Child Protective Services agencies substantiated/found evidence for almost 60 000 children being sexually abused. That is 1102 children a week, or 157 children a day. (From RAINN)
Sexual abuse of children perpetrated by other children is on the rise. Sometimes the perpetrator of sexual abuse is younger than 11. Almost 20% of sexual abuse of children was recorded as perpetrated by a child between 12 and 17 years old. Now these are only the abuses reported to police, so you can imagine the percent of children abused by other children is even higher. (Statistics from Quebec Canada)
Pornography and Our Families
According to a American Catholic parish website, they had to deal with an incident of Catholic child (age 8) teaching other children methods to access pornography on the internet.
The average age that a child first encounters pornography is 12 years old. This also means for half of children, they are exposed to pornography before they were 12. (Another site claims the average age is 11)
26% of teenagers have received a sexual text message.
Unfortunately, being Christian does not prevent pornography from being a problem in our families. Covenant Eyes reports that in the last month 64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women admit to looking at pornography.
These and more statistics on pornography and the family can be found at https://www.covenanteyes.com/pornstats/
Other Statistics
Chasity.com has a wide range of statistics and sources on teenage sexual activity, STDs, birth control and more.
Starting With Screens
So now that we have covered a bit of what we are up against, it is time to protect our families. There is a saying that you can’t teach an old dog a new trick. But in our case, the enemy is coming up with all the “new tricks.” And we need to stay educated and keep on top of them. Technology can be confusing and overwhelming, and our children will often be better at navigating it than we are. But every moment we spend working on understanding the technology and what we can do to protect our children is well spent.
Step One – Change the DSN on All Your Devices
The first defense against pornography on our screens is a content filter. A content filter does exactly what it sounds like… filters content before it loads on your screen. There are many ways to do content filters, but changing the “DSN” on all your devices that connect to the internet is an easy way to start. What is a DSN? It is Data Source Name. When information is sent out or received through the internet, the DSN is the source through which this connection is passed. I wouldn’t worry too much about the exact nature of DSNs. What really matters is how you change it and what you change it to.
“Adult Filter”
CleanBrowsing.org has three DSNs availible for us to use to protect our computers. The first level merely blocks some phishing and scams, so it isn’t relevent to us. The next level is adult filter DSN. It blocks pornographic content, and sets common search engines to safe mode. This is the level I recommend to put on devices that you alone use.
To use this filter, change your DSN to any of the following (pick one that is the same format as your current DSN).
IPv4 address: 185.228.168.10 and 185.228.169.11
IPv6 address: 2a0d:2a00:1::1 and 2a0d:2a00:2::1
“Family Filter”
The more effect DSN is called a family filter DSN. This DSN does everything that the previous two levels do, but adds some additional protection. It also prevents your child from getting around the filters by blocking proxys and VPN domains. This DSN blocks Reddit and similarly working content sites. This level also puts YouTube in safe mode. This level is definitely necessary for devices children are using. However, some orthodox content on Youtube will be blocked due to the safe modes.
To use this filter, change your DSN to any of the following (pick one that is the same format as your current DSN).
IPv4 address: 185.228.168.168 and 185.228.169.168
IPv6 address: 2a0d:2a00:1:: and 2a0d:2a00:2::
All of these DSNs are available for you to use for free. To find out how to change the DSN on your various devices, I recommend searching “How to change the DSN on my PC/Mac/DS/Switch/Phone/MP3 Player, and so on, for each individual device. They will explain it better than I could, and also I don’t know how to do it on an exhasutive list of devices myself. That is what the internet is for in the first place! Ha ha ha.
Step Two: Screens are a Family Matter
Always monitor your children when they are on the internet. And I am not just talking accountability software (though more about those later). I mean if your child is one something that can access the internet, they are in the family room or kitchen… somewhere where you are, and where you can see them. If this sounds drastic… if you are thinking, but I can’t watch them ALL the time… then I am sorry, but that is why nearly 100% of all children are exposed to pornography before they turn 18.
Prepare your children for stumbling across images they shouldn’t. The book “Good Pictures Bad Pictures Jr.: A Simple Plan to Protect Young Minds” by is targeted for children aged 3-6. The same author has another book for reading with your older children: “Good Pictures Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today’s Young Kid.”
Have password access to all their accounts. Whether it is email or social media, you are responsible for your children. The internet is not somewhere children should have privacy. Giving them “privacy” is really just giving predators out their a chance to take advantage of your child. These people know exactly what to say to our kids, how to lure them in, so by the time they realize they are in too deep they are too ashamed to ask for help.
Step Three: Screens are a Family Matter
Always monitor your children when they are on the internet. Seriously. I can’t stress this enough. Do your kids have access to money? Do you know what they do with it? Because they could save up enough money to buy an ipod touch on their own, and use that to access the internet. Know what devices your kids have, and which ones can be and are connected to the internet. These include iPods and MP3 players, Nintendo DSs, and other video game equipment. Basically, if it has a screen ASSUME it can connect to the internet. Keep these devices out of bathrooms and bedrooms.
Be the keeper of the keys. You should be the the only one in the family to know the internet password. Well, at least, your kids definitely shouldn’t know the password. (If they do, go ahead and change it right now. Call your internet provider if you need help changing it). Log out of the internet on the family’s devices every day. Tedious? Sometimes. But you’ll memorize your password quickly and it becomes a great habit. BONUS: when a friend comes over and needs the internet you can easily log them in!
Turn it off at night. If you really don’t want to log out of everything all the time, unplug the router. This way no one is sneaking out of bed for some middle of the night internet. Yes, it takes 5 minutes to load that internet back up in the morning, but those 5 minutes are well spent!
Step Four: Additional Accountability
This step is the fail safe for everything else. Accountability software doesn’t work on its own because children can get around it. Knowing this, even I feel like it can be a bit of a waste of money because I think, it isn’t perfect so it doesn’t work. But, being honest, it is good to get anyway for the 95% of the time it does work. Covenant Eyes is the option I am familiar with, but there are other versions such as the ones listed in this review https://www.toptenreviews.com/best-internet-filter-software.
The Byzantine Life
So hopefully you found some fresh ideas about establishing screen safety in your family. Be sure to check out some of our other family life blog articles!
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