O! How to block IM?

June 2, 2006 6:55 PM

I have a teenage daughter who, as far as I can tell, is destroying her academic standing by spending all of her computer time chatting. She uses various instant messenger clients--including some browser-based--and I have been unable to effectively block or disable this distracting, time-sucking menace. Anyone have any ideas or experience about how I can disable this kind of thing without preventing the browser access she needs to do school work?

Oh, she does not have admin access or priveleges. It is XP SP2.

posted by bz to computers & internet (39 comments total)

Put the computer in the family room. If she wants to use it for schoolwork then she has access to it.
posted by bshort at 6:57 PM on June 2, 2006

Locate the computer somewhere that you can see it when she is using it (e.g. the living room).

There is no technological means to block this that isn't trivial to work around. e.g. If she can use a browser, there are web-based interfaces to the IM services. If you block those, she can use a proxy to get at them anyway. Etc.

See this previous similar discussion.
posted by winston at 7:00 PM on June 2, 2006

bshort and winston are absolutely right. Trust me; I was the kid. :)
posted by danb at 7:05 PM on June 2, 2006

Another thread with good advice.
posted by invisible ink at 7:12 PM on June 2, 2006

I'll third the reccomendation to not look for a technological replacement for parenting. You need to use social means ... including parental pressure, social pressure, and consequences if you want your daughter to focus on her schoolwork. You'll be the 'mean parent' now, but your daughter will come back later to thank you.

The easiest social means is to put the computer in a public place and make sure your monitor her usage, take away her ability to text message with her cell phone (IMs count as text messages, and most cell phones are IM capable) and provide consequences for poor grades. You might need to interface with her teachers and ask for grade updates on a more regular basis; most will be happy to do this especially if you go through her school counselor. You also need to start checking that her homework's done, and not letting her go out until it is.

All of these things were required when I was growing up. My parents spent a lot of time and effort on me, and I turned out OK. I hated them when I was a teen, but now I'm extremely close to them.
posted by SpecialK at 7:14 PM on June 2, 2006

You could go a long way with a combination of the hosts file, disabling or selectively-enabling Java and Javascript, and blocking ports, but I feel, strongly, that everyone else's advice is better.
posted by box at 7:21 PM on June 2, 2006

And might I venture to add that you can include a bit of carrot along with the stick, e.g., she finished an hour of homework, she gets 10 free minutes to IM.
posted by La Cieca at 7:28 PM on June 2, 2006

There are no reliable technological solutions to this problem, unfortunately.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:34 PM on June 2, 2006

I have been unable to effectively block or disable this distracting, time-sucking menace.

Nope, IM is not a menace. It is a very powerful tool, and like any powerful tool, can be dangerous. Effective use of IM is an important skill to develop for college, and can be very important in the modern workforce. Adoption has been rapid in the tech industry, and will likely follow everywhere else just like e-mail did.

As others have said, you need to work with your kid to develop positive IM behaviors such as:

1. Setting "busy" messages when you are busy
2. Politely telling chatterboxes to go chat someone else up
3. Responding to important messages and then getting back to work.
posted by b1tr0t at 7:57 PM on June 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

There's also the question of whether correlation indicates causality. She may be IMing instead of doing homework, but that doesn't necessarily mean she'd be doing homework if she wasn't IMing.
posted by winston at 7:59 PM on June 2, 2006

In addition to the great recommendations above, you may also want to check out getting a firewall and/or learning how to configure it to block the ports (incoming and outgoing) that her IM programs use. The port numbers aren't hard to find, just goggle for them.

While this isn't completely bulletproof, chances are your daughter isn't enough of a computer whiz to get around it, and will succumb to actually having to do her work. ;)
posted by patr1ck at 8:02 PM on June 2, 2006

Unplug the network cable.
posted by StarForce5 at 8:04 PM on June 2, 2006

patr1ck writes "In addition to the great recommendations above, you may also want to check out getting a firewall and/or learning how to configure it to block the ports (incoming and outgoing) that her IM programs use. The port numbers aren't hard to find, just goggle for them."

She's already using web-based clients patr1ck; since bz wants to leave the web open, this will accomplish little or nothing.
posted by mr_roboto at 8:11 PM on June 2, 2006

I just want to note that this is similar to the "always on the phone" behavior of the 80's and 90's. Deal with it in a similar way. Consider that text-messaging is probably replacing a lot of phone traffic. And note the perception of being "extremely unfair" if you cut off communication with friends.

Make communications over phone, computer, etc contingent upon completing assignments and tests. Get the list of homework assignments that are "for marks" from the teacher, and then for each month, a failure to complete enough of them results in loss of communication for the rest of the month. Make it clear that the bills are paid for these services because she is doing her work.

Having the computer right center is a good idea as well. Perhaps have that as a "first offense" punishment.
posted by clord at 8:17 PM on June 2, 2006

Your daughter is either going to learn to manage her time or not. Taking things away won't stop the procrastination. Trust me; I will spend hours playing Free Cell instead of working. Virtually any solution is only going to transfer the activity. Sitting down and setting up a schedule with her (and helping her stick to it) will probably help. Almost anything else probably won't. Things are only going to change if she wants them to.
posted by MadamM at 9:02 PM on June 2, 2006

I think you have a more serious problem than you may realize. Although you've determined that eliminating or reducing your daughter's access to instant messaging programs will fix your problem, there are infinite distractions that could keep your daughter from her schoolwork--TV, talking on the phone, reading useless magazines, etc. Similarly, with websites like meebo.com (and about a dozen similar sites already open or in the works), preventing your daughter from chatting without stopping her from using the internet altogether will be nearly impossible.

While locating the computer in a central location in your house may keep her from chatting, it doesn't guarantee that her grades will improve.

The most important thing you can do is demonstrate the connection between your daughter's performance in school and her future. If she doesn't see why doing well will be beneficial in the future, she'll simply find something else to distract her. Similarly, if you can't get her to monitor herself now, there is no reason for you to believe she'll do so in college.

As a current student, I've seen quite a few of my friends--many of them quite bright--throw away their time on things like facebook. It's up to you now to make sure she starts taking responsibility for her actions. Any attempt to force her to do one thing or another--rather to understand herself what she should be doing--will ultimately be fruitless.
posted by tnoetz01 at 9:02 PM on June 2, 2006

Although I'm not a parent, I can relate. My wife, who is a photographer, rarely does that. She is either watching YouTube, or chatting with her friends. It's a bit disconcerning some times, because I have to go with her to visit clients. I'm a bit embarassed when I have to see the poor quality and level of commitment to her work.

I can tell you that in recent times, I have blocked all access to the 'fun' parts of the internet, and it does help for that moment. Unless constructive/productive behaviour is learned, that is to say unless there is a definate goal and focus towards that goal, people will always revert to 'wasting time.'

My uncle used to say, "an idle mind is the devils playground." Putting the religious analogy aside, he was right. If you can, monitor exactly what it is she is doing, understand why she is doing it, and confront her about it.

I constantly have to confront myself about things I do, because I never learned how to manage my time effectively. I hate to put it this way, but no one ever showed me how. It was always my mom unpluging the computer, or my grades failing.
posted by psyward at 9:23 PM on June 2, 2006

Look into the Windows "Hosts" file. Find out the server names that AIM looks for and redirect them to 127.0.0.1. That will whack AIM.

I think they're "login.oscar.aol.com" and "login.toc.aol.com"

But you may end up playing whack-a-mole, and I'm not sure if that will kill the web clients.

Otherwise, I second the suggestion of taking the computer out of her room and putting it into the living room.
posted by drstein at 10:55 PM on June 2, 2006

My son is pretty conscientious, but in his free time he would complain constantly about how much time he could have on the computer, whose turn it was, whether, if someone went to the bathroom, it became his turn, etc. We tried many things, but he would not stop with this. So I gave him a LIFETIME BAN. He can't use the computer. Ever. (Except, of course, for schoolwork.) I did point out to him that when I am not home, I have no way of knowing whether he is using the computer, and I will reconsider his LIFETIME BAN periodically.

But I am worried about Psyward. Perhaps he can block his wife from using their computer, but can he block her from gouging out his eyes with a fork? I just don't think he's covered all his bases there.
posted by Methylviolet at 11:54 PM on June 2, 2006

Ground her. HARD. She goes nowhere but her room, school and the bathroom until her grades improve. She gets no tv, no movies, no nights out, nothing until her grades improve.

For extra emphasis, assign her hard yard/house work inthe evenings or on the weekend.

The key here is to make her do something she HATES doing, explain that she's doing it because her grades are dropping and that is completely, totally unacceptable. Tell her that when you see her grades improve, she can go back to having some control over her life, but until you see the next report card, her ass belongs to you. If she needs to use a computer, sit down next to her at the computer and work the assignments with her and when she's done, she gets off the computer.

This is hard stuff, and certainly hard on YOU also, but the kid needs to know, with every fiber of her being, that you will not allow this, that allowing her grades to fall will not be tolerated and if she allows this to maybe she will lose many of her freedoms and priveliges. Tell her repeatedly that you love her and you don't like doing this, but as her parent you will do whats needed to get her to focus.

Variations of this worked wonders for my kid.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:41 AM on June 3, 2006

I agree with everybody else: there is no reliable technical solution to block web based IM. Even if she's not a whiz-kid herself, chances are one of her friends will just e-mail her a link she can click on if the sites she is using now do not work anymore. And I agree with the people that say that even if you managed to completely block IM, your daughter would not suddenly love to do her homework. She would most likely find other distractions.

A great book about parenting teenagers that are more interested in friends than family (and school and everything else) is Hold on to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld.
posted by davar at 12:43 AM on June 3, 2006

I was in the same situation with my daughter. When we discussed it she admitted that it was a problem*. I told her that I have the administrative rights that allow me to view everything you do on the computer [white lie], but I wouldn't look and confront her with them if her schoolwork was done. The result was that she thought I could access all of her sessions and she cut down severely on her chatting time and made sure her homework was done (she had to show me the finished homework**).
*Unless you talk with her and get the same admission, the rest of this solution may not work.
**Another component
Good luck. Bringing up kids is fun but hard, isn't it.
posted by tellurian at 12:53 AM on June 3, 2006

Might there be another factor to her being more interested in IMing than her homework? Perhaps if she could do homework - or LEARN - in a more interesting manner, she might not need to spend so much time IMing. Sounds like she just finds homework boring and a waste of time (I don't blame her).

Keep her busy through other means of learning. Science project - hands-on experiments, field trupes. English class - creative writing projects, new books to read (that aren't in the required reading list). And so on.

Once you make the process of learning more interesting, she may get better motivation to finish her homework. Or better yet, actually LEARN.

And then whether she IMs or not, it won't be a problem.

(and I'm not entirely sure how homework factors in to grades in your country, but back home they didn't make a difference to exam grades because our main exams were standardized by the government. I rarely did homework after a while - waste of time - and I came out top of the class, and amongst the best in my school. I just took my learning differently, not just relying on school or homework or textbooks. The Internet helped me loads - it kept me sane and allowed me to learn by my own pace with my own perspective.)
posted by divabat at 3:16 AM on June 3, 2006

I have a teenage daughter who, as far as I can tell, is destroying her academic standing by spending all of her computer time chatting [with friends]. She uses various instant messenger clients--including some browser-based--and I have been unable to effectively block or disable this distracting, time-sucking menace. Anyone have any ideas or experience about how I can disable this kind of thing without preventing the browser [school] access she needs to do school work?

Do you see what I'm getting at? You put this across as a technological problem, but the problem is actually that she's spending a lot of time talking to friends instead of doing work. Which isn't really much of a problem, is it? She's probably doing absolutely fine at school, and you want to block her from her friends out of some damn middle-class she's-not-getting-straight-As-OH-NO paranoia. I suggest you get over yourself.
posted by reklaw at 3:38 AM on June 3, 2006

drstein's solution won't work against web clients like Meebo.
posted by gsteff at 3:52 AM on June 3, 2006

In light of what reklaw said, but in a slightly less harsh manner, what if she spent all her time on AskMeta, would that be acceptable?

From your profile, bz, we can see that you're a very computer oriented person. Quite possibly with a career in graphic design. If anything, she's learned to enjoy computers from you.

If you know how to manage your computer time so well, and you're so eager for her to learn something, why not teach her time managment yourself? Unless of course, she isn't interested in learning, then you've got a bigger problem.
posted by psyward at 4:03 AM on June 3, 2006

Bz you are lucky you are getting a lot better and toughtful answers ! Usually the standard lines one reads are

a) ground her
b) restrict her access to
c) menace punishment of some sort
d) lecture her on how horrible her future will be if she doesn't do something

It's so fucking bullshit it's almost annoying ; all of the above was also used on me as youngster and I know for sure it doesn't work and creates more troubles then the one it solves. So what to do ?

1) Your concern is rational, too much chatting subtracts time to study
2) Yet no chatting has negative social effects, so don't think that eliminating the chat wouldn't have consequences
3) Why is she spending a lot time chatting and not doing what she should do ?

It could be that she is procastinating : sometimes it happens because the person really doesn't like what he/she is doing, sometimes because she/he is afraid of failing (for instance she may think she is not good at something and doesn't want to disappoint you or herself with a bad grade, so she doesn't even try !) , sometime because he/she is afraid of being successful (yes it happens ! It may be that she doesn't want to be seen as a "geek" by some friend). Reducing procastination implies having the person realize procastination will negatively affect her AND obviously helping her see why she is procastinating could be useful : at that point, she may realize and resolve the problem , or maybe the root of the problem will emerge.

Root of problem aren't "cutted" , they dissolve if the person realize their irrationality and solves emotional hang-ups related to it. It may take some time, it may or may not require a psycologist , most of times it doesn't require any kind of medication : the best medication I know is intelligent, tactful, perseverant (but not ossessive) loving parenting.

Also consider reklaw could be right: check yourself as well as your kid. Do -FACTS- like grades tell you she is doing wrong ? Aren't you a bit jealous, could it be that you are being irrational and overly protective ? Could you be that you want ALL A-s from her ? Consider these grades aren't as meaningful to a kid as learning good social skills..which is not learning mannerisms like polite rules and that stuff..it's getting to KNOW people, get along with people, not get hurt by people. No books teach that and if they do they are not substitutes of practice.
posted by elpapacito at 4:42 AM on June 3, 2006

As someone who was this type of teenager fairly recently (but who is not a parent, so take this with a grain of salt), I'll strongly nth the request for more parenting and less technology. Also, I found most of my high school homework to be absolutely pointless. It was busy work and it was grade filler. If you didn't retain any of the information, you could boost your grade by 50 percentage points, in some cases, by turning in homework and/or extra credit. For the most part, homework assignments did little to prove that the student understood the topic at hand. So, maybe check out her assignments and see if any of them are worth doing.

I took quite a bit of pride in showing up at school with assignments that my aunt (I lived with her in high school because my parents were abusive) had copy edited in red and written notes at the bottom. Sometimes she would suggest more effective or engaging assignments. But that also had embarassing effects. Anyway, if she knows you know what the homework is, she might do more of it. If her friends know that you know what the homework is, she might start smoking pot. Or something else that you fear/loathe/disapprove.

I do wish you the best of luck with this. Being a teenager was hard. I hear that dealing with me as a teenager was hard, and I was considered good.
posted by bilabial at 4:51 AM on June 3, 2006

The bottom line is, treat the problem, not the symptoms. The problem, as far as I can tell, is a lack of respect for how much the world will kick her in the ass later if she screws up now. As others have said, socialization is a major part of a healthy life, and trying to cut it off via technical means completely is impossible, and probably deleterious to your daughter's future as well.

As a recent college grad, I can say that very few things made me appreciate the potential future value of a college education like slaving away in retail 25 hours a week during highschool. Full-time summer employment doing the kind of intellectually vacuous work that being not-yet-a-highschool-grad entitles you to has the same effect. Even better, during the summer, see if you can get her an internship doing something that isn't brain-numbing. Maybe the contrast will teach her something about the value of making sure to balance social obligations/desires and academic work.

Of course, this has the potential downside of triggering the same resentment responses that others have mentioned -- if you make her get a job, it seems like punishment, and she will react to it in the same way she'd react to other punishments. The way my parents handled it was to say, "okay, so you have a car. We're not buying you gas." I'm not sure what the equivilant is, re: internet access or cel-phone access, since internet access is communal (one line for the entire home, I imagine) and cels are usually on a long-term contract, so not paying and/or removing/adding features on a short term basis is not an option.

The end goal should be to teach her that her actions have consequences. Not apparantly arbitrary consequences imposed by parental will, but, "if you don't get into a good college, you lose a lot of opportunities education and career-wise."
posted by Alterscape at 6:37 AM on June 3, 2006

she finished an hour of homework, she gets 10 free minutes to IM.

This particular suggestion is not a good idea. Speaking as someone who was subject to something similar, it is not a reward, by any stretch of the imagination, to sit at the computer for 10 minutes not IMing people because they happen to have gone to the bathroom or to be on the phone.
posted by oaf at 8:03 AM on June 3, 2006

Exchange the computer for a typewriter. If she requires something more "technological" for her assignments, the school must provide it. If that means once a week you need to drive her to the school library after hours, so be it. It's worth it.

You could offer to return the computer once her grades have improved.
posted by shepd at 8:11 AM on June 3, 2006

"I have a teenage daughter who, as far as I can tell, is destroying her academic standing by spending all of her computer time chatting."

What did you mean, "as far as I can tell"?

Her grades are bad and you don't know if the IM is to blame?

Or you're just seeing her on IM a lot and you're assuming it's affecting her grades?

Hard to address the problem if you don't know what it is.

She might hate school because of bullying, for instance, in which case she'd have low motivation/self-esteem and as a result of that, spend her time on IM because she doesn't see the point of doing homework. So we'd have low grades and IM but both of them coming from a third cause.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 1:21 PM on June 3, 2006

Hmm, I'm not sure why some are questioning the poster's ability to gauge whether the girl's grades are falling.

I posted on that other thread mentioned above. My daughter had a similar problem. I think that IMing can be addictive. It's like having a party line when we were kids - multiple windows open at the same time, with most of the chat consisting of "LOL" and smileys.

Like other addictions, I think that she needs to get busy with other stuff to break this habit. Try hanging out with her while she does her homework, and then when she's done, have her do something else other than stay on the computer. Chores are always good. I started to enlist my own daughter as my dinner cooking assistant, and that both kept her busy and produced some great times together.

After she stopped IMing so much and the fog cleared, she made the comment as to how "boring" it was - no one ever talked about anything anyway.
posted by Flakypastry at 2:28 PM on June 3, 2006

I agree that you need a parenting solution rather than a technological one. I wouldn't take away the computer (although moving it to a public space might be wise) - learning time management, and learning to resist temptation, are both skills that are way more important than a temporary dip in her marks. Give her the tools to learn those skills. If you just take things away and structure her time for her, she won't learn how to do it herself. Better she has a rough patch grade-wise now than flunks out of university.

How old is she? You might think about getting her to get a job for a few months this summer. Nothing motivates people to work in school as much as realizing that otherwise, you're stick with these crappy minimum wage jobs for the rest of your life.
posted by joannemerriam at 3:23 PM on June 3, 2006

Hmm, I'm not sure why some are questioning the poster's ability to gauge whether the girl's grades are falling.

Because nobody is perfect ; sometimes even the most caring, loving, accurate parent can be in error and not realize it. For instance :

Like other addictions, I think that she needs to get busy with other stuff to break this habit.

One person is addicted if he/she can't help NOT doing something, for instance a person addicted to a drug can't stop taking drug (both for psycological and "chemical" reason) without feeling very bad and suffering. Sometimes offering something more interesting (to the person) can help greatly and indeed, as you report, your daughter found cooking more interesting then AIM ; you were both wise, sensible but also lucky. I also doubt your daughter was really "addicted".

Yet one person rarely looks at self considering that he may be -part- of the trouble (if not the whole trouble) as we often prefer to look for external controllable causes, rather then internal not-clearly-visibile behaviors ; most people don't like to think they are NOT part of the solution, but that in order to help they need to start helping themselves first.

That may or may not be bz particular case, but a word of warning, suggesting him to maintain a close eye on himself (and not only at the daughter) doesn't imply he isn't good at evaluating something, it is just a notice : sometime people are part of a problem.
posted by elpapacito at 4:44 PM on June 3, 2006

Wow. What a thoughtful outpouring. I am impressed!

Your answers (pretty much) confirm what I already suspected but which support me in my efforts to explain to my less-tech-savvy spouse that there isn't a magic cure button and that, even were it realistically implementable, a technical approach falls well short of covering the parental responsibilities for this issue. Having him read this thread has helped him understand and, for that clarity and confirmation, I am grateful to you all.

This is not to say that I wasn't hoping that there might be a way to cut off IM because, just as a nicotine patch helps smokers who want to quit, maybe having no easy access to IM tools might encourage her to want to stay on task.

We do try to be conscientious parents. The computer my daughter uses is publically located in our home and situated directly next to the machine that we parents use the most so she is not left alone very much with the computer. We have very many computers in our home but my daughter is restricted to one machine and, although she is the primary user of this machine, she, as I mentioned, has only user-level account permissions. Last year when asked what she might like for Christmas she replied, "A computer where you are NOT the administrator!" That shan't be happening any time soon.

Taken as a whole, the replies here have catalyzed a bigger-picture assessment on our part: My daughter's computer habits are merely a fractal of her overall approach to life. She is a procrastinator who takes an indignant and self-righteous tone when her behavior and habits--computer or otherwise--are questioned. She is not being honest with us or with herself about why her academics have slid into the ditch. She often blames the teachers for her failings, saying they are "jerks" or worse. She has yet to take responsibility for her own actions and inactions.

Perhaps I will show her some of the responses here as she might give them greater creedence than those coming from her know-nothing parental units ;-)

Again, thank you all.

Oh, one other thing: I didn't pick a "best answer" as I thought they were all quite good.
posted by bz at 11:33 AM on June 4, 2006

Hmm, I'm not sure why some are questioning the poster's ability to gauge whether the girl's grades are falling.

I wasn't doing that. I was asking for clarification of an ambiguous sentence: is it

"I have a teenage daughter who, as far as I can tell, is (A-because-of-B)."

or

"I have a teenage daughter who is A, (which as far as I can tell, is because of B)."
posted by AmbroseChapel at 4:15 PM on June 4, 2006

She often blames the teachers for her failings, saying they are "jerks" or worse.

This is key. Her teachers may actually BE jerks; they're definitely not motivating her to study.

Try talking to your daughter honestly about what's going on at school. That would solve your problem better than anything to do with IMs - that's just a red herring.
posted by divabat at 4:36 PM on June 4, 2006

Try talking to your daughter honestly about what's going on at school. That would solve your problem better than anything to do with IMs - that's just a red herring. - divabat

YES!

Something to think about:

When I was in high school (6-10 years ago) my Dad could have written exactly the same post. I was that teenager - falling grades, incessently on the computer chatting. It drove him bonkers and we fought about it constantly. He resorted to taking away the keyboard which pissed me off immensely but which was very effective in getting me off the computer. Still, my grades didn't improve. The computer usage was only a symptom of the real problem. I'd been raped and hadn't told anyone about it, and I was suffering from depression (which brought on cutting and other self-destructive behaviour) in the aftermath. My parents didn't find out about the rape until a few years later.

I'm not suggesting that your daughter is a rape survivor (although who knows). Only that you should be looking beyond the behaviour and take this as an opportunity to connect with her life more if you approach it in a patient, non-confrontational, patient, understanding, loving (did I mention patient?) manner.
posted by raedyn at 8:13 PM on June 5, 2006