Hi,

just had my second call from a teacher saying that the boy's course work hasn't been done.

What I need to do (temporarily) is this:

* Stop running of all executable games.

* Stop access to online games (i.e. tribal wars).

* Stop access to all social networking sites (i.e. facebook / myspace).

* Stop usage of any messenger services (i.e. MSN messenger / xfire).

* Stop access to anything fun (i.e. youtube / all adult content).

I need him to still be able to use office and to access the web, but only for school related stuff.

The machine's running Vista x64 and he's in an admin account.

I'm thinking along the lines of changing his password and creating him a temporary account to work in (I don't want to have to uninstall everything and put it all back later) but I could use some pointers on how to stop him running certain applications and from accessing basically anything non school-related online.

I'm a mac user so don't really have the first clue where to start, I know we've got a few windows geniuses on here so any suggestions would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks,

Rob.

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Smack the shit out of him. Honestly, youll need NetNanny or some other filtering software for the internet.

For limiting program access I suppose you could read up on the Security Policy Editor, but its a dangerous tool to mess around with.

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Take the power cord, and take him offline. Seriously, software isn't the solution.. parenting is. As much as your kid moans, he *doesnt* need office and *doesnt* need to be online if he can't be trusted not to abuse it. An encyclopedia and a pad of paper will do him just like it did me. (I guarantee you not every kid in his class has the advantage he does, so don't feel sorry for him.)

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Seems like everyone's thinking along the same lines.

Think I'll just take all the power cords from his room and have done with it.

If he needs to get online he can do it down here from the Macbook under my watchful gaze.

Thanks for the suggestions.

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quote:

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Originally posted by R08
Seems like everyone's thinking along the same lines.

Think I'll just take all the power cords from his room and have done with it.

If he needs to get online he can do it down here from the Macbook under my watchful gaze.

Thanks for the suggestions.

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Just out of interest. What did he do to lose your trust? Was it just a case of not finishing his homework?

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Received a call from the 3rd one of his teachers saying he's failed to hand in important course-work which will count towards his final grade.

That means there are 3 subjects he's potentially going to fail and it's all down to laziness.

He's in his last year at school now and will be sitting his exams in May/June next year.

There are just way too many distractions up there for him and cos we both work shifts, a lot of the time there's no-one here to keep an eye on him.

We'll let him have the Christmas holidays and once he's back at school the PC, X Box, and Sky TV are all going to have to come out until he catches up with the work.

Again, thanks everyone for your comments.

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BlueCoat's K-9 is the best parental control software, and they will let you have it for free.


We put it on a machine at the shop and our techs could not figure out how to circumvent the controls. Good stuff.

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I had originally posted pretty much exactly what pho said then reread your post and figured I would give it a shot actually suggesting ways to help.

i retract my original post and agree 100% with pho. #2 pencils and some ruled paper. no school here requires typed papers for any high school level classes. ungrateful little shit can sharpen his pencil with a butter knife as well.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bakkoda
I had originally posted pretty much exactly what pho said then reread your post and figured I would give it a shot actually suggesting ways to help.

i retract my original post and agree 100% with pho. #2 pencils and some ruled paper. no school here requires typed papers for any high school level classes. ungrateful little shit can sharpen his pencil with a butter knife as well.

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Here's what I've decided on:

We'll let him keep everything up there until he goes back after Christmas.

During the holidays he's to catch up on any and all outstanding coursework / homework.

We'll speak to the 3 teachers concerned to ensure that he's done enough to get back on track.

If he's failed to do that or if we get one more phone call from the school then I'll remove Wii, XBox, Sky TV and Terrestrial TV, then I'll filter his web access to remove any distractions there (thanks ejs) and prevent his (non-admin) account running anything except Word, Calculator and Firefox until he either catches up or finishes his exams, whichever comes first.

Did toy with the idea of taking the PC away altogether but that means I'd have to give him an account on this machine and as I said before we're not always here to make sure he's not playing online games and chatting to his friends and such.

Not much looking forward to the months of sulking which will follow though so let's hope he's got the common sense to just get the work done now while he's got two weeks off.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bakkoda
I had originally posted pretty much exactly what pho said then reread your post and figured I would give it a shot actually suggesting ways to help.

i retract my original post and agree 100% with pho. #2 pencils and some ruled paper. no school here requires typed papers for any high school level classes. ungrateful little shit can sharpen his pencil with a butter knife as well.

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quote:

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Originally posted by parasiticgannon
I went to those uppity up preppy schools

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YOU went to school?

I'm with ELJ on this one, K9 web protection is good but it's not *that* hard to defeat if you're even slightly technical (so I'm guessing ELJs techs are all bottom-feeders ) you could also look at blocking the most commonly offending addresses at your router instead, which will also allow you to block XBox and Wii online.

You could also try "light" domestic violence - the next time the school calls, hit him in the face with the phone

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quote:

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Originally posted by parasiticgannon
Actually I beg the differ, I went to those uppity up preppy schools

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Lol, you went to a middle class school in a very good (97% average graduation rate) school district so stop complaining.

Definitely do what has been suggested but I would also recommend working on his course work with him one on one thereby making sure he understands the course material (kids usually will never admit they don't understand something) and to make sure it gets done. Not suggesting you do it for him but rather help along being involved as much as possible. Parents lack of involvement is the number one reason kids don't do well in school.

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I seem to remember years ago using a registry key called "DisallowRun". Under that registry key you would have a string value for everything you wanted to prevent running. So in your case you could just add all the main executable filenames for his games, msn, itunes etc..

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