I saw something the other day that I had to reread a couple of times to be sure I understood it correctly:

"A child has the right to use the internet"

The remainder of what was written was in regard to protecting children from unsafe or undesirable areas of the web.

With all the rights we have, the right to use the internet is not among those listed.  My children, in this house, have the right to have their opinion voiced and heard.  They have the right to being clothed, fed, housed, taken care of and loved.  Having access to or using the internet is not one of those rights.  It is a privilege, plain and simple.

I'm sure the writer of this particular phrase meant that children have the right to safe surfing while on the internet (having access to being a privilege).  My simple point is, as writers, whether it be as a blogger or a freelance editor, we need to really look at what we write before we post it out publicly.

That being said, I do recommend that parents take a very active role in watching what their children view on the internet.  Many feel this should be done via a "nanny" product - many of these are freely available on the internet or by purchase at your local computer store.  Free variations may create more problems than one anticipates with the possibility of a lot of advertising embedded within.  And commercially available products have not always been proven to give the best results. 

My personal bent on this is to bypass the kid-safe internet products and software and to delve into ones modem settings to set what can and cannot be viewed.  With D-Link modems this is an extremely simple process.  Your own particular modem should have instructions on how to access the settings to restrict access.  A quick search on the web including the name of the manufacturer of your modem should garner some PDFs or documents on how to work with the settings via your browser.

The privilege of internet access and usage by your children definitely should be a safe activity.  Before grabbing freeware that might not be safe or dumping money into software that might not cover all the items you feel may be unsafe or undesirable for your children to view while on the web, check into manually setting these things via your modem.  It should be a safe privilege for your children and always touted as such.