Do you watch your kids online surf & chat activity?

[AreWeThereYetMom]

Do you watch your kids online activity? Do you turn on MSN chat history?
Do you use online monitoring software? What works and what doesn't?

Some of it works for me but it's becoming downright scary by the latest news stories with the online predators right in our backyards... my kids are computer smart, but with different age ranges at home it can be tricky to keep up.

I found a few websites with important kids safety rules and info for parents..
www.wiredkids.org
www.wiredsafety.org
http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/net_safety.html

Would like to hear your experiences of stuff that works besides the open communication and open family computer area. I like the idea of a safety contract like the ones in the above websites, is there a better filtering software out there?

[AreWeThereYetMom]

wondering if there is any local feedback on monitoring software??

[Mandi]

My fiance and I lived with a rather immature person who was not allowed to use our computer, we put a key logger on when we were out. It keeps track of every key typed, so yo ucan see exactly where they were, what they were doing, and what they were saying. I can see that being good for children too , know where they've been. it's a hidden thing and you have to hold like 4 keys at once to get it to pop up.

[Cherry Pop]

Our pc is in our diningroom and I am always in the room when my daughter is on it. She is only allowed on certain sites and is not allowed to use chat yet. She is still young, almost 9 yr old, so I use that as the excuse to not allow her on chat but I imagine soon she will want to use it. I hate to say it but I don't know much about finding out online history. I would be interested also in finding out how to monitor her online use for when she is older and I might not be able to be right in the same room as her.