How do you find out what Ive been doing on the computer?

Loren Whetstone how old are you?

Going on her other posts: she's in her last year of school, teenager, and about to have a baby.

Loren - seems like this is, at the bottom line, a thing you'll just have to fight out with your parents directly - talk to them. They apparently dont trust what you do online, and want to check on you; you want them to respect your privacy and not spy on your emails. Thats a conflict you're going to have to fight out one way or another.

That said, here's some practical info:

Apart from in your history, users of your computer can also see where you've been in your temporary internet files. Takes some looking around (it's somewhere in a subfolder of the Windows folder), but still easily possible.

Now, how to stop that. Depends on your browser.

In Internet Explorer 6, in the Tools drop-down menu (text link at the top of the screen, in between Favourites and Help), you can click Internet Options. If you click that, you'll get to see the General tab, which consists of three parts. The third one is "History", and there you can click the "Clear History" button. But above that is the "Temporary Internet Files" section. If you want to get rid of those temporary internet files, you also have to click the "Delete Files" button there. That's completely save to do.

Also in the "Temporary Internet Files" section, there is a "Delete cookies" button. Thats more tricky. Many websites leave "cookies" on your computer - little text files that the site uses next time you go there, to recognize you. You can delete these, but it will cause some inconvenience. For example, if you or your family clicks the "remember me" option on sites you use often - your yahoo or hotmail or ebay or forums or whatever - deleting the cookies means you have to login anew completely, username as well as password, next time you go there. So it'll also be easy to see that you've deleted the cookies..

But it could also be that they use monitoring software to check what webpages exactly have been visited etc. There's all kinds of "watchdog" software out there.

And the reason I said that you'll have to talk it out with them in the end is that, if so far they're just tracking where you've been through the Temporary Internet Files or your History or whatnot, and you'll use ways like the one above to make that impossible for them, what will they do? If you make it impossible for them to spy on you this regular way, they might just install some monitoring software on the computer instead.

Might also just be that they know the password to your email, of course..

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=97280

I think when she talked about the last day of school it was just that her school year is ending, not that she's in her last year of school (as in, she'll be going back to school -- probably 11th grade -- next year).

I agree about talking to your parents, Loren, because ultimately you're a minor and they have the right to do such things, and so the only way to stop them is to get them to agree to stop. It could be with this whole situation of you getting pregnant at such an early age they feel like they need to take every precaution.

I already knew those things. I wanted to know what her answer was.
There was no way I was going to tell her how to do it. There is a reason her parents want to know and she needs to talk to them about it.

Yeah, I look at it exactly the other way round.

Spying is never a substitute for parenting. If her parents have an issue with what she does or whom she talks to, they should talk with her and try to solve it with her - persuading her or reaching a compromise. Spying is no solution.

Worse, spying on whom your kid is emailing or what she is looking at is only going to make him/her more inventive in escaping you, or do his/her emailing at friends. It does the opposite of what you want to achieve if you really want an issue solved, long-term - it just chases your child further away from communicating with you, trusting you. Its counterproductive.

Parenting carries the responsibility of solving problems together with your children, rather than policing them instead. Its a cop-out.

If you're such a big girl, why don't you move out of your parents house? Then they can't look at what you do.

Loren--

Why does your mother object to some of your e-mail friends?

Does she have any reason not to trust you?

This is sooooo pathetic. She's 16, having a baby, and her mommy and daddy have to spy on her because she makes bad decisions about who she talks to on-line. Her parents should have spied harder 7 months ago, maybe even 7 years ago.

Since you're in such judgemental mode, perhaps you could instead note that her parents should have been parenting and communicating, rather than thinking you can prevent anything by spying on emails...

I check out the online activities of my child as well - trust is good, checking up on them is better. There have been far to many incidents where children are lured into dangerous situations by pedophiles and other sickos. Children do not have the experience nor do they take the necessary precautions,
despite lenghty discussions with their parents. Unfortunatley, parenting is not as easy as nimh thinks it is.

Frankly, I doubt that Loren is actually 16 years old, somehow her stories
don't add up.

It would appear her parents are communicating - they've told her what they're doing and what they don't like. I suspect she's also been told precisely why they don't like her communicating with the people they disapprove of. They may not have told her the method they've used to monitor her - but they've told her they are monitoring.

Lots of issues seem to be percolating in that family.

Communication has to be two-way. "Telling off" is not communicating.


Ive already explained above why I think that spying will not only not help, but be liable to make things worse.


Yeah, I'm just going to let this statement stand by itself. Good grief.

nimh, where are you getting "telling off". I'm not picking up anything like that from the original post.

I was being somewhat sarcastic in my remarks. Here is a child having a child, and her parents are so busy trying to be in control that they fail to be parents and to teach their daughter about using good judgement. I have no problem with parents making sure a child is using the internet safely, but I get the feeling this is a daughter who is out of control and they are desperately trying to rein her in. I agree such tactics tend to backfire and create a more stubborn, secretive child. We are seeing such a case here. I don't agree with CJ that Loren's story doesn't add up - I think it completely adds up and I believe Loren is being honest about her life. Loren writes exactly like an immature 16 year old who thinks she is 35 (I have 6 nieces, all of whom send me plenty of email letters, I know a kid's letter when I read one). It's why I find the whole story pathetic.

Well nimh the expert on child rearing and life in general

I don't know, Green Witch, my daughter is 11 years old and has less
typos in her writing and makes more sense than Loren, but if she indeed
is pregnant then I agree with you: checking internet activity while the
girl gets pregnant is a major screw-up in priorities.

It's not the typos, it's the tone. She is a typical teen who thinks she has all the answers and life will obey her plans. She has no idea how young and naive she sounds.

Loren, If I was your father and you used the computer in ways I felt were inappropriate. I would explain tp you why I felt that was inappropriate and give you time to come to the realisation that I may just know a little something abut life, having done most of the same things before.

If you continued to use the computer in an inappropriate manner I would remove it completely.

Might I suggest to you that if you continue to not heed the good advice of your parents you stand a very good chance of losing this method of communication totaly.

Your parents advice to you is almost always rooted in experience (been there, done that, seen it all before). Their own experiences and the experiences of friends and acquaintances will impact on their decision making. It may not always be correct for you but it is well intended.

Please try very hard to remember that your parents are just people who make mistakes in judgement the same as you and everyone else.

You have a very real chance of making an impact in this world. You are forthright in your speech and extreemly goal oriented. Both of these characteristics will stand you in good stead through life. You do need to learn from the experiences of others as well as your own and build on those experiences until you can turn them to your advantage.

After the baby what are your goals?

I am not convinced by her post as to what her real intentions are in asking the questions she asked. She has not
replied back so I don't feel I can offer anymore input than I did in my original post.

I feel however there is something lacking in her story but until she can answer some questions I cannot
judge her or even offer suggestions to add to what others have said.

I do not consider what her parents are doing as spying since she knows that they are monitoring her activities.

The one thing I am not willing to do is to tell a minor on how to go about erasing history or files so her parents
cannot monitor her activities.

Ok, ok, I'm not a parent. Am fairly experienced w/a troubled niece. But really, I dunno sh/t, am listening to the varying opinions, including from nimh.

My experience with my niece was odd. Both parents were arguably wacko, one way so more than the other but the wacko stuff was at least partly connected. The divergence would take me too many words and be invasive to them to explain.

She and I talked quite straight from the time she could talk. She was repeating the word Pelargonium at two...
I admit we're behind on this lately, but I'm not worried.

It's is different, YES I KNOW, to be a recourse person.


On Loren, I don't doubt her posts and her age. I see her feistiness as a potential positive, and her naivete as near decimating. I stop myself from recommending adoption. That is really not my business. But, my main concern is the baby.

Her dreams of work - she can't spell, and communicates poorly, at the least. And yet, my cousin the cpa can't spell even now.

I'm not so sure I jump on her parents for the monitoring.
They pay for the computer, they pay for the internet access, they want to
keep her from harm, however they failed to say whatever possible right thing before. Or maybe they did say all the right things, whatever those are. We don't know the background at all. I can see where they love her and, seeing her vulnerability, want to protect her. She has shown she needs it, from my point of view.

I'll agree the horse is out of the gate.

I can surmise re the family relationship in various ways, but, even talking about this is sort of invasive to them. We don't know.

It's not our business, well, it never is, is it? rightfully, since we are usually not experts and not familiar with the real situations. Still, one has wishes.