Melissa Holt, writing for the Mac Observer:
Today, though, I’m going to talk about enabling Remote Management to monitor what your children are doing at any given moment while they’re on your home network. I’m not saying this should necessarily be the first thing you do to keep your kids safe online, but hey, if the little buttheads keep doing stuff they’re not supposed to or that might endanger them, you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.
Melissa’s post does a nice job walking you through the settings that let you watch someone else’s screen, with or without them being aware that you are watching them.
As a parent, I can understand the temptation to watch over your kid’s shoulder to make sure what they are doing is safe. You love your kids and worry constantly. I get it.
But I struggle with the anonymous part of this.
If you want to be stealthy, choose “Observe” only; that way, the child won’t know you’re logged in. But you can also decide to control things, change settings, and so on. Click “OK” when you’ve got things configured, and you’re done!
Now how do you dial in from your own Mac and watch what that dastardly kid is doing? Easy peasy. Just open a Finder window by clicking on the blue smiley face in your Dock, and then under “Shared” in the sidebar, you should see the kid’s Mac appear.
This just isn’t for me. I love the idea of remote management, especially since it makes it easy for me to help my parents or others when they need help with their computer. But the anonymous watching just feels creepy, especially given Apple’s commitment to privacy.
I understand feeling, “creepy,” but it is also a cat and mouse game: trying to stay one tech-step ahead of teenagers. Sometimes it can be trying to help them filter content or language. Other times it is simply enforcing bed time rules (which makes wakeup the next morning that much easier).
I’m an Mac IT person. My two boys have MacBook Airs and iPhones. When they were given these devices, we established written ground rules. Among these rules are that I can check up on them and if I find anything, such as a hidden photo vault, they will either provide me with the password or lose their device until they choose to allow me access.
My boys usually error on the side of disclosure. Should they stumble on a questionable site, they will often bring it to me so we can deal with it appropriately.
I was a teenage boy once. I had a stack of Play Boy and Penthouse hiding under my bed. I understand their curiosity. My job as dad is to teach them the difference between erotica and pornography: where does one cross the line between normal human curiosity and abusive, degrading behavior.
I don’t think this is a one size fits all issue. There might be some reasons that some parents might want to monitor some children via Remote Desktop. But it’s not for me, or my family. I have two teenagers, and I will admit we do have a problem with bad language at home from time to time, but I’ve promised my kids I will try harder to stop using most of those words. I trust my kids, but they’ve earned my trust. It’s a good place to be, but I know that’s not every family. I did plenty of things I shouldn’t have when I was their age.
I have no monitoring installed on our iMac, but my 8 year old son knows that he has zero expectation of privacy on it.
Frankly, thanks to YouTube’s complete lack of parental controls, this is already a huge problem to us. He likes game videos, but there’s no way I can block profanity-laden rants, gamers threatening to kill each other and discussions of rape without also blocking legitimate walk-throughs.