Teenagers are little sh@tes - spy software recommendation?

[psychocandy]

After about a million warnings/benefit of the doubt I've had enough of my teenager and his PC usage.

After multiple times where he can't get out of bed for school in the morning, it became obvious he was back on the PC in his bedroom until late at night playing games. Caught him about 5 times. Of course, I can sort of tell by looking at wireshark so its not hard to catch him by sending the mrs running up the stairs and hes sitting there at midnight with his headset on. Like shooting fish in a barrel to be honest.

What I need is something that will log when pc is used and what is running etc? And then email to me. Such a thing exist?

Bit of a draconian measure maybe but the little sh@te has had plenty of warnings and chances to prove that he can be trusted. He obviously cannot.

Yeh I can block his mac address at the router for now. BUT, I want to show him evidence when I catch him next time because he denies it.

[Magpie252]

I had a free trial of Norton Family, years back with a new laptop. Not sure how difficult it would be for a tech savvy teenager to circumvent though

https://uk.norton.com/norton-family-...downloads:home

[vetran]

dd-wrt on the router just block his Mac address after bed time.

Logging here

https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.p...ng_with_DD-WRT

[cojak]

You don’t need evidence - he won’t notice if he’s actually in bed. The evidence will come when he complains that he can’t get on after 10pm (or whenever).

[northernladuk]

Prevention is better than a cure. Take their laptops out of their bedroom. I'm sure the school has sent plenty of literature about gadgets out of bedrooms for exactly this reason. Spying on them won't do any good what so ever, in fact the opposite.

Have you tried searching mumsnet? I'd expect nearly every parent in the country has this problem and I've never seen spyware mentioned as a solution.

[original PM]

You are probably not teaching him the right things

The fact is he needs to get out of bed to go to school - anything that happens prior to that is immaterial - if he wants to play all night - fine as long as you get up for school.

So when he cannot get out of bed chuck a bucket of cold water over him

and keep doing that each day - he will eventually learn that he needs to get our of bed when told.

All the other things you mention are not teaching him about the consequences of his actions and they will also teach him that unless someone tells you otherwise it is acceptable.

Tough love always works best.

If he says he struggles to not go online because he enjoys it so much work ask him what solutions he can come up with which would work.

[northernladuk]

You hope he's playing games online at that time of night.....

[LondonManc]

Don't confront him. Deny his ability to use the internet after 11pm. Easily done on most routers.
If he complains, ask him what he's trying to access.

[Old Greg]

Screens out of bedroom. Simples.

Also, is this the kid with mental health issues?

[LondonManc]

Screens out of bedroom. Simples.

Also, is this the kid with mental health issues?

No, that's the parent.