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At one point I was given the responsibility of monitoring a 10 year old child's access to the net. I tried putting on all the AOL parental controls which had the effect of causing most of her searches to come up null. So I wiped out the controls completely and told her to go for it. I also told her that if she came across anything that upset or puzzled her, I would be right there in the next room, and she could come ask me about it. As a result, we had some interesting discussions about society's use of the human body (especially the feminine version) to sell advertizing and make money. At that age she wasn't much interested in porn, and after a few reassuring discussions, she confidently surfed the net to do her homework assignments. The government, as usual, seems to want to take control of our children out of our hands. It takes little more than a caring and compassionate adult to monitor and occasionally explain what's going on. In another instance, a teenaged boy of about 15 was staying in my home and I granted him free access to the 'net. I know he checked out some of the porno sites, but I would have thought him a highly unsual 15 year old had he not.
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