Saturday, March 12, 2005

My Mother's curse is upon me (again)

Ok..... I thought I would get a longer "LULL" in between the teribble "TEEN yEARS" but..... Oh lucky me! My last two lil ones are right on time.


Just when I thought either "I DID IT ALL-SEEN IT ALL" or at least my 2 oldest children attempted to try and get away with something(They are 19 and 22 respectfully now....WHEWWWW!) when my youngest who will be 13 this spring blew me outta the water!


I go to log on to another AOL screen name that I use just for friends and family so I my blog in peace and my password comes back invalid.....Hmmmmm...How can this be??? Uhhhh maybe my son attempted to hack my password and then was brought to the AOL Security Question page where he bypassed the "Security" question and went through my personal papers and retrieved the account information numbers that he needed to set up a new password and continued to change my profile AND make up a homepage??? Yes........he did!


Now when I go and wake him from his pre-teen late saturday morning sleep in and ask him "HOW" he did this, with a smug look on his face and a tone I surely would of been killed for if used in front of my parents at his age....He say's "Cus I'm a genuis! (when in actuality he is 3 points off of genuis) I am stunned silent........(No mere feat mind you!)


Now when I was younger, I was wild, sneaky and deviate and quite excellent at it, but I was only of above average intelligence........He's almost a genuis.....How do I work with that, while trying to make sure he stays safe long enough to become an adult??


So......So far the consequences of this on top of another "Computer infraction" is his screen name is on lock down, he is grounded and has lost phone priviledges, he is going to take over his sisters chores on the fine art of vacuuming AND dusting......but what I want to know now is how do I keep this half pint genuis from logging on the computer at all?? Is there a keyboard that I can buy that has a lock? Kids his age are more than willing to give up their own passwords to their screen names and all he has to do is sign on as a guest at home with their information, so just deleting his screen name will not solve anything.....Any suggestions that will not cause me to get arrested for child endangerment would be sincerely appreciated!


So far they have never been able to get away with too much because I was such a wild child myself, but then again.....They didn't have Personal Computers around when I was a mischief maker.....Oh the curses my Mother put on me growing up about "May you have a child just like you!" are ringing true now.......but did I have to get cursed with more than one of me?????? lol   HELP!!!!!!! PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME WITH SUGGESTIONS.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Duh!  Its simple!  Unplug the power cord from the wall.  Unplug the other end from the computer.  Take the cord to bed with you.  Also, lock up the papers with the account information.  You could also do something to embarrass him from doing it again like put a blurb on his webpage that says, "Hi I'm X's mom.  This webpage is down because X is grounded for breaking the rules!"  Sheila  PS  Also unplugging the monitor and taking that cord will help too.  A neighbor of ours told my husband that she unplugs the mouse and takes it to bed with her (but be warned, kids can still get around on a keyboard).  There is also a shareware program out there you can download that puts a password on the computer before windows even loads and you can't use a boot disk to get past it.  But I'm sure just taking the cords with you will be enough.  Sheila

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

Time Out...lets be real here. One should be able to set up their computer where a password is needed to do ANYTHING...not just aol. That's the way my computer is set up. Now if the kid's a genius you're going to have to select a password that he will not guess.
http://journals.aol.com/abrasivist/Abrasivist

Anonymous said...

I got locked out last weekend because my 11 year old said, "f*&% you" to someone in a chatroom. I'm awake at 5am on a glorious Saturday morning ready to pour my heart out in my journal in the beautiful predawn peace and quiet... instead I'm digging out my credit card and proving myself to AOL. I told him AOL banned him from AOL. Fortunately.... he's young enough to buy it. Glad it's not just me! heather
http://journals.aol.com/hsauls/Tighteningthecorset

Anonymous said...

I had a similar problem with my teenaged daughter (yes, she too is gifted and has genius IQ, heaven help us!)....I have no choice but to limit her online time (using Parental Controls) because she would get NO homework, chores or ANYTHING done if I let her stay online 24/7. So one night at about midnight, I came quietly down the stairs and found her online! I confronted her and found out that her friend had created a screen name for her and she was able to sign on to AOL as a guest. This was back when I had the 8.0 version. Anyway, there was no way to block her from signing on as a guest....until recently. I downloaded the new AOL 9.0 Security version and lo and behold, you can now block guests from signing on. Here's how:

To block or allow guest access to the AOL service on your computer:

Sign on to the AOL® service using a Master screen name.
Go to AOL Keyword: Screen Name, and then select Manage Guest Controls.
Click to select or deselect Block guests from signing on to this version of AOL on this computer.
Click Save.
OR

Sign on to the AOL service using a Master screen name.
Go to AOL Keyword: Parental Controls and then click Disable Guest Sign On.
Click to select or deselect Block guests from signing on to this version of AOL on this computer.
Click Save.

Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do! And we moms have to stick together.

:) Carol

Anonymous said...

What was the point in him doing that anyway? Seems quite pointless to me when all he did was get in trouble for it. All I can say is yea... take the power cord... or the keyboard or something that makes it impossible to use the comp without.

~Steph~
http://journals.aol.com/tatt2edtears06/Tatt2edTearz

Anonymous said...

Well at least it's only a computer infraction. It could have been A LOT worse. Have you thought about password protecting your computer? That means when someone signs onto the computer they must have a password. Or, set up several users on the computer. Password protect your desktop and have AOL access on it but not on his? Good Luck! :-) ---Robbie