Whoa!
Mariann, I appreciate the time that you've taken to share Symantec's philosophy with us.
But it worries me.
I've taught and counselled and worked with children for over forty years. I am in a position to offer some advice to you guys.
First, never put a child in a position where a lie benefits the child and can be hidden from the adult. Children are awful at avoiding temptation; in fact, they rely on us to keep them from it. They don't ask for supervision directly; but they appreciate it.
When a child finds a way to get to the internet unsupervised it puts him (or her) into a very awkward position, morally-speaking. On one hand, the child knows there are places he or she shouldn't visit. But the child equally "knows" that his intentions are good and that he won't be hurt by whatever he is exposed it. The child "knows" that the parents "don't really get it." If they have a means to hide something from their parents, most will do so -- not to be bad, but because in their hearts they know they are doing the right thing.
This is something no child gets. Most kids don't even comprehend this through their thirty's. They just know that whatever it is they want to do, they are pretty safe, they are in control, they won't get in trouble.
The kind of dialogue you guys come up with sounds like something out of Ozzie and Harriet or a junior high school student. Kids love these heart-to-heart conversations. They smile and agree with the parents and make rueful noises and nod their and make promises. And then they go and do exactly what they want to.
And again -- you must understand this -- they do it from goodness, not badness. They are protecting us, their parents, from our own confusion about how the real world works. They "know" we don't get it; but they do; and so they protect us -- by deceiving us, by lieing to us, by getting the cool (translate as "enabling") parents of their friends to cover for them.
Now throw online family into the mix.
"I noticed you disabled your Safety Minder yesterday."
"No, Dad, I didn't."
"Son, I got a message from Symantec."
"Well, that was probably because of that stupid modem glitch. You know we've been losing our signal every so often. Something to do with the Comcast changeover to include phonelines."
And you think about and you know that it is true that there have been momentary (10 to 30 seconds) of line loss with Comcast; and yes, your computer did reconnect without you doing anything special, but you also know that your son's computer is slowed down with the added burden of Safety Minder and it might well have not been able to regain a strong connect through the router for two or three minutes, way longer than necessary to Time Out the Safety Minder and cause it to disable itself.
So what do you believe at this point? Do you choose to trust your Son? Do you choose to accuse him of lieing? Both are wrong. It is wrong to trust anyone to do the impossible, it imposes unfair pressure. Kids are normal little human beings; and they do normal things that other kids do; and one of the most normal things a kid can do is lie. I mean, how many of us were totally truthful with our parents? You know, about sex? about cigarettes? about alcohol? about about deep fears? about our loneliness? about cheating on tests? about the things we were willing to do to be more acceptable to other kids? about our perversions? There are boundaries that are normal and necessary between child and parent.
What does all this mean?
It means it is my job to be Big Brother, to trust my child but only in that he is a normal healthy child who is doing his best to explore a dangerous world and to find out where he is at risk and to intervene. Just as it is his biological job to be secretive and take a million risks and to learn from them and to get away with it. And we will know he has become an adult when he is better at his job than I am at mine. If I abdicate my job, he will probably be harmed.
So I don't want to be trapped in that situation with the disabled Safety Minder and having the two pathetic choices of accusing my child of lieing or pretending to believe that yes, this fifteenth time Safety Minder has been disabled is just one more in a string of time out's, and watching that smile of satisfaction, that complacency as he nods his head and learns to deceive others.
Symantec, you aren't listening.
You are telling us to blow it off; and yet here we all are telling you we want good, reliable data. But because that is the only kind of data you can base a decision on. What we do about that data is up to the individual. There are some here who I am sure will ignore it, at least in the short run. And there are some here who will shut down our child's computer for a week. It is my job -- our job individually -- to come up with our own house rules. IT IS NOT YOUR JOB! Your job is to provide reliable information and not to explain away poor design by saying it was the result of a philosophic vision that you feel gives you the right to tell us how to be with those who are closest to us.
) and of-course mijcar, I am getting very frustrated with the Norton team & that is why i'm venting off some of my frustrations. To be honest i'm being quite mild with my rant at the moment I feel very angry indeed with you guys for not viewing it from a parents persepective.