Computer Literacy: Parents and Guardians Role Report (Assessment)

Filtering and Monitoring

The primary role of parents and guardians is to ensure that children are protected from content that might affect their psychological and cognitive development. It is apparent that psychologists have advised parents and guardians to monitor and filter the content accessed by children on online platforms. This is because some of the information might alter their behavior and perceptions in a manner that hinders the desirable growth and development. This implies that it is ethical for parents to install programs that limit the access to various contents on the internet for the safety of their children.

Sexual predators have increased on the internet, and it is apparent that children are likely to fall victim of these individuals if they have contact with them through the internet. There has been a heated debate on the ethical implications of filtering and monitoring the usage of the internet and other media platforms for children. The prevailing issues include the fact that continuous monitoring of children might result in negative behavior. This is influenced by children feeling like their parents do not trust them. Additionally, monitoring children and filtering their internet usage might be a sign of over-protection. It denies children the chance to learn through experience, which might affect their social life in the future.

While there are several concerns associated with filtering and monitoring practices on the part of parents, it is clear that the main reason for adopting this approach is to ensure that children have limited access to content that is not helpful to their development. Filtering and monitoring is ethical when the content in question involved violence and sexual content. It is important for parents to be open about the content that they are filtering and monitoring so that their children can also refrain from retrieving such content from other computers away from home. Parents can only filter and monitor content on their children’s smartphones and computers, it is important to engage children in conversations about the content being filtered so that they can avoid it when using other gadgets away from home.

Parental responsibility in guiding and protecting children from physical and emotional harm is emphasized by many counselors. Whenever children engage in bad behavior such as watching pornography and subscribing to extremely violent media for entertainment, parents and guardians are blamed for allowing children to access such content. It is, therefore, ethical for parents to actively play a role in prohibiting children from accessing such material through monitoring and filtering. Just like the law enforcers patrol neighborhoods and erect cameras to monitor the streets for law breakers, the use of filters and browser monitoring software to reinforce positive behavior in children is ethical.

Many children have expressed concerns about the internet and the sites that they visit. Being targeted by various business entities for the consumption of various commodities, including sex toys, is a common phenomenon, and it is clear that many children appreciate it when their parents are active in ensuring that they do not fall victim to such entities. Filtering and monitoring content on the internet is one of the most important roles that parents in the contemporary world should play, and it reveals that parents care about their children. However, it is important for software developers to design filters that can be customized based on the age of the children to ensure that parents do not appear to be overprotective and hinder children from learning through experience.