Stop Your Child's Computer Addiction

While the computer is an incredibly useful tool and can help you get a lot done, wasting time on it seems to be all too easy. Lots of kids have problems with spending too much time on the computer, to the dismay of some parents. Computer addiction, especially to such features like games or instant messaging, has been described as being just as powerful as a drug addiction, and while your child may not be to that point, their excessive computer usage could lead to more serious problems down the road. Note that the steps involving software (such as keyloggers or web history checking) can very easily be circumvented.

Steps

Limitations

  1. Talk with your child about his/her excessive computer usage. Find out if there are any specific reasons that he/she spends so much time on the computer – sometimes the computer functions as an escape from reality. If your child is facing problems that are causing a desire to “escape”, try to address those.
  2. Move the computer to an open area if it’s not already in one – sometimes taking it out of the child’s bedroom is sufficient to reduce their computer usage, and it makes it easier to monitor their usage.
    • (However, sometimes bedrooms may just be temporary whilst rooms are being rearranged, so this is not always so.)
  3. Set a password for the computer so that only you can log on to it. Your child will have to ask to be logged on to the computer in order to use it. (However, this is not recommended for older children in the house, who will need this for study etc. reasons).
  4. Find out how bad your child's addiction is, and what exactly your child is addicted to. Does your child spend most of his/her computer time playing games, chatting online, or just browsing the Web?
    • If he/she is addicted to learning information, as long as it is legal, safe and decent, then that should not be an issue. Using the Internet for education, rather than any inappropriate uses, is a great use. Programming sites are a useful class of site, and provide a skill that is good to learn, plus they teach a skill which will be beneficial. If your child is addicted to learning information, then that is benign, and useful to his/her education. Praise them for that. If they must use chatrooms, use educational ones where the emphasis is on learning a skill, not socializing, as these are less biased towards who and more about at, when and why (The 5 W's - Who What Where When Why?)
    • Some children go through phases where they like chat room sites, then decide it is no longer of interest, and move on to more educational-related sites, e.g. computer programming, history, science, etc. These will not cause worry in most cases.
  5. Set a time limit on the amount of time your child can spend on the computer each day. In reality, though, time limits seldom work due to the stress of modern life. As a child gets older, they work it out for themselves, in most cases.
    • First, tell your child their time limit and see if they're able to stick to the limit themselves. This will not work, realistically.
    • If he can’t control his time on the computer on his own (which, if his addiction is serious, will likely be the case), start using a timer. Once the timer goes off, your child has to get off the computer. However, some children may discover for themselves that an activity can get tedious after a while; computing is no different.
    • Set a time limit on the amount of time for yourself in order to be a good role model. If your kids see you following your own rules, then they will be more likely to follow.
  6. Replace the time that your child would normally spend on the computer with other activities – play board games with them, take them to the library, get them together with friends to play sports, etc. Addictions are hard to break, and it’s even harder when your child has nothing to do. However, some children are legitimately lonely or do not have social skills, so computer use is a substitute for such social contact.

Awareness

  1. Be aware of what your child is doing on the computer. Check the Internet browser's history to see what websites she's visiting, or install a keylogger to monitor the programs that she uses.
    • Keep in mind that the use of keyloggers does raise concerns about privacy for other individuals and guests who use the computer.
  2. Buy or download a program that restricts computer use. Parents often find it difficult to enforce time limits because their kids will put up a fight. If necessary, buy software that will enforce time limits or block use. With some of these programs, parents must take explicit action to add time rather than remove or restrict it. This should not be done with older children. In particular, children aged 20+ find this an inconvenience. *Note: Windows 7 and the newer computer systems allow you to set time limits to control when a certain account can be used.
    • There are also programs that allow the child to "earn their time" on sites that the parent decides,such as popular social media sites. The child usually earns their time by correctly answering educational questions(math) relevant to their age. Once the child has used up the earned time they are restricted from the site unless they decide to earn more time.
  3. If you have more than one computer, you may have to monitor them to make sure that your child is not secretly using them. Look at your Internet’s browsing history to see if there are any websites on there that you’ve never visited (and malware can in many cases be the cause, not an individual. This is hijacking of PCs, a separate topic). You can also install a keylogger, which will record any activity on the computer, if you are certain it's worth the privacy infringement.

Possible Consequences

  1. Be consequent and do the following if he/she continues to overuse the computer.
    • Assign your child extra chores,
    • Take away screen time, or
    • Ground your child or give him/her a time out.
    • Warn your child' that if they cannot control his time on the computer, you will have to take it (and other screen devices such as TV, video game consoles, iPods, iPads, tablets, cellphones, and smartphones)away completely. However, threats should not be used.
  2. Follow through on your warning by taking the computer away completely., If your child has his/her own computer, remove the power cord associated with the PC/laptop/tablet, and put it somewhere where your child will not be able to get at it without your knowing.

Tips

  • Take note that Internet history can be cleared. The most obvious method is completely emptying the history. However, this may be done for disk-space saving reasons, not privacy, so don't assume the worst. Some deletion utilities make it impossible to retrieve this file, known as index.dat on Internet explorer.
  • Keep in mind that they may not have done it to be sneaky - keyloggers can sometimes cause a computer to run slowly, and he may have just wanted to keep the virtual memory free while playing a game.

Warnings

  • Your child might react with anger when you take steps to break their addiction - be prepared to deal with temper tantrums.
  • Don’t let your child replace all of his computer time by watching TV or playing video games – addictions to these types of entertainment can be formed, too. However, TV addiction can be considered "benign".

Notes

  • Remember, there is a lot of benign stuff to read on the Internet.
  • When people are new to the Internet, they will inevitably make mistakes. This is life experience. If your child makes a mistake online, let it pass. Sometimes children do not have the social skills when using online chatroom sites and then lose interest in them. Allow them to make their own mistakes.
  • If your child wants to meet a public figure (e.g. local celebrity, TV personality, pop star, radio presenter etc.) offline, that is for the most part, very safe, since public figures can easily be verified.

Also, they have verifiable email addresses that prove their identity - e.g. john@johndoe.com, rather than untraceable mynamehere@hotmail.com ones.

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