Making a Computer More Safe for a Child

Kids today are growing up in the age of computers and technology. Many kids have their own computers and a lot of them have them in their rooms. When letting your child have a computer in their room, remember, there needs to be some limitations set on this privilege. There are many things that can be done to prevent access to certain things, and many people are not aware of how to do these things.

We recently got a computer for our 9 year old for his birthday. We don't however, allow him to have access to the internet at all. Since it is in his bedroom, we have network access to it, but most of the time, have it disabled. Each child is different, and we know that our child is not responsible enough for the internet. It's not that we don't trust him, specifically, but we don't trust some of the things you can find on the internet. Even if children don't mean to access certain things online, they do it by mistake, which can cause disturbing images to pop up or even a virus on your computer.

We learned first hand what steps we could take so that he could not access the computer to mistakenly delete files or change settings. There are many websites that offer software to help you through it, but you really can do it all on your own for no cost at all. Just follow some simple steps, and in no time, your child will have a computer all to himself without you worrying about a major file being deleted.

First, make sure you are the main user on the computer and set a password that your child will not guess or get lucky with typing in. From this profile on the computer, create another user account but make it limited. You then can log onto the limited account and make the necessary changes in there. To make it easier, make sure you have the things you want transferred from your network put on that user account before you begin to lock down the computer.

USER ACCOUNT: To make a new user profile, simply go into the Control Panel from the Start menu and click on User Accounts. Click on Create New Account and it will take you to a screen to type in a name. This is where you would put your child's name in. Click Next and then on the next screen, click on circle next to Limited Account, then Create Account.

LOCKING FUNCTIONS: When in your child's account on the computer, right click on Start, then click on properties. This will open up another box. On the Taskbar tab, be sure to check Lock the taskbar. And Show the clock. All other boxes should be unchecked. Next, click over to the start menu tab and click the Customize button to set your start menu. In the General tab, be sure nothing is checked on the bottom for Internet and E-mail. I also make sure that the Programs is set to "0" as well. Click over the advanced tab and be sure the first two boxes are unchecked. Then in the scrolling box, you want to click on the circles that say "Don't display this item" all down the list. The rest of the square checkboxes should be UNCHECKED. Click Ok, then apply, then Ok again. This will lock out all the features and not show anything but the recycle bin on the desktop (we will hide the recycle bin later in the article).

HIDING ALL PROGRAMS: After you disable all the functions of the start menu, you will still be able to access all programs from there. A simple registry fix is available to fix that. There is also an undo for this key to change it back if you need to. Both are tested and both work. It really is an easy process. This can be found at kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm. If you scroll down that page to line 154 and look in the right hand column, you will se a link for Remove "All Programs" from Start Menu. If you click on that, you can either save or run. I save that to a shared folder, to that you can access it from another computer if you need to. Understand that it will not work right away, but after you restart your computer, you will NOT see All Programs on the start menu. To undo, simply use the undo registry fix by clicking on that and running it. Same situation applies to restarting. All Programs will then be back.

HIDING RECYCLE BIN: You can't do much with a recycle bin that we know of, but we didn't want to take that chance. We found on the same website kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm that there is also a fix to hide the recycle bin as well. Scroll down to row number 199 and again on the right hand side column is a fix for Hide Recycle Bin on Desktop - Not from Explorer. There is no undo for this one, but for us, we can still get to it from windows explorer, so there wasn't an issue with hiding it.

This will make it all set for your child to be able to click on icons on the desktop and turn the computer off as well. Those are the only things most kids need to know how to do anyway. If you want to access certain things from your child's account, there is still a way to do that. Just make sure that your child isn't watching you, as many children are very smart and have a good memory!

To navigate through the computer system, you can right click on one of the icons that are on there for a shortcut to a game, for example, and click on properties. When the properties box pops up, click on find target. From there you can use your up arrows and such to get to My Computer and do what you need to do from that window. If there are no shortcuts or icons on the desktop yet, you can always right click on the desktop and make a new folder. Then you can open up that folder and use the up arrows and such at the top again to navigate your way around your computer system.

It may not be COMPLETELY fool proof, but most children will not be able to figure out how to access all these things. With a limited account, there is only so many things that the child will be able to do anyway. If you're like us, we have our wireless internet disabled as well, so he can't get online if he tried. Another step we have taken is to take the power cord out of his room at bedtime or when he's not allowed to have his computer on. We have an ADHD/ODD child so this prevents any issues with this later on. The rules are set from the beginning and it seems to be working great.

I'm in no way saying that you should let your child have unlimited freedom on the computer. To me, this can be extremely dangerous. Even without access to the internet, rules need to be set. I don't think it's healthy for a child to be in front of the computer for hours on end, so make sure they're time is limited as well. Expect that when your child first gets the computer, they will want to be on it all the time, so we were a little bit more lenient at the beginning. After the first week, we started implementing the rules more, and we informed him when he got the computer that this would happen. He was expecting it, so it was no surprise to him.

Kids are growing up the age of technology and we can't fight it. Life is much different than it was 30 years ago when we could send kids outside from morning until night and not have to worry the way we do today. With kids being inside more than they used to, this will help fill their time. Another positive thing about your child having a computer is that you can buy them educational games that they don't realize are so educational.