Children love the computer. They will log on and stay on the computer all the time, or take up another users time unless you limit their use of the computer this can cause many headaches for family's. As I have said in the past, place the computer in a high traffic area of your home. Never allow a child, or even a teenager to have a computer in their bedrooms. Or permit them to have access to a computer that is placed in a private area of your home. This is really asking for trouble. Preditors are all over the internet, waiting for the opportunity to exploit your child(ren). Preditors are pros, and know what buttons to push.

But I must be frank with you also on this subject.   I have gotten a few emails from parents that said for some reason this fix, is not the fix that stopped their children from accessing the computer.  This method is not 100% secure.  There are ways to go around this method.  To be honest, if you go through a few of the articles that I have you will see two that allow a user to go around lost passwords, etc. This method is just one of many ways for your teen, or tween to bypass any type of secure methods you use.  It is not hard to do, and even if I did not list the methods, there are plenty of people online, in forums, and groups willing to help your teen to bypass anything that you put in place.  Quite frankly, the best way to keep them off of the computer is to sell the desktop, and buy a laptop, or notebook, and just take the thing with you to work, or stash it in your bedroom at night.  Some teens never mess with the family computer, others are little geeks with attitude, and the only way to put a stop to them, is to remove it completely from their reach. 

As a  last note... Yes I also received emails from parents saying that a parent should not have to go to great leaps to allow their child on the Internet only at certain times. When you use these methods to secure a computer in the home, You take the "trust" out of the relationship. The idea is to build trust with your child.  These methods only create less trust between the child and parent.  So... grounding them may work better, than trying one of these methods.  Take a computer from a child these days is like taking candy from them.  Three months or less without one, with you as the parent instilling in them the many reasons as to why you don't want them on the computer is a good line of defense. especially if they hear the many reasons everyday during the grounding.  yes I also know there are plenty of teens, and tweens out there they all claim "It wont happen to me."  But this is also what all of the children/teens said that did run into trouble on the Internet.   Be frank with them, and diligent.  But keep in mind too, they may be grounded at home, but not at their friends home, or other family members home.  So they still could have access to a computer. 

On with the tutor...

You will need to set up user accounts. For each of your children. (If you haven't already) Create YOUR account as administrator, and limit what the rest of the users on your computer can do. You can also limit them from downloading and installing software. I am going to explain how to do this all on one page. It's also a good idea for the administrator to have a extra account too. That way you have even better security on your computer. Then you can log onto your computer as a regular user with restrictions. This way you can protect the computer, but at the same time have added peace of mind. Use the administraitor account for just making changes.

These instructions are for XP Home Edition, and XP Professional Edition.

Create a user account:

Open the User Accounts tool by going to, the Control Panel from the Start menu, and then double click User Accounts.

Your children should ALL be under a Limited account.

Microsoft explains a Limited user as:

• Can access programs that have already been installed on the computer.

• Can change his or her account picture and can also create, change, or delete his or her password.

• Cannot change his or her account name or account type. A user with a computer administrator account must make these kinds of changes.

Windows already includes a powerful tool that can do this. To use it, you must log on to each computer as an administrator.

After you make the users accounts and change privilleges for the users you will then log on as Administraitor, you'll need to use Windows' Command Prompt. Click Start then All Programs then Accessories then Command Prompt. At the prompt, type the following: