Looking for suggestions about setting up of PC for a small kid

Imnafoy · May 16, 2021

Hello,

so, in short, I'm looking for suggestions regarding not really building a PC for my daughter but rather to set up environment where I can kinda feel that she will be safe. But first I explain a bit situation I'm in and then I will ask specific questions. If anyone will have some practical suggestions, definitelly tell me.

As I'm 30 and work in IT as a developer/sysadmin I feel like I'm very well aware of dangers on the internet as I kinda grew up in that time when internet just started to going mainstream but still got to "darker" parts of the internet after reaching puberty because till then we got only dial-up and getting to porn even if I knew what it is was completely out of the question. However in this time where kids have smartphones and unguarded access to internet from very young age I really feel that we as a parents needs to be much more aware of what kids are doing.

First... good education of kids about dangers of internet and generally safe using of computer and such is matter of course. But this is something that I don't need much of help and suggestions. But still I want to be extra sure that she is not acidentally getting to harmful sites and etc. But on the other hand I won't try to block social networks all together because for better or worse she will eventually use them to communicate with friends. I don't want to either be a parent that doesn't care at all what my kid is doing on her PC (even though my parents let me play Duke Nukem 3D when I was 7 years old... but it was different times and they didn't know enough at that time) but on the other hand I really don't want to be that kind of parent that would put keylogger to their kids PC and check their history and scold them for anything... I just want to find some middleground.

Thing is that I'm divorced. My daugther is 6 and a half and in September she will start her elementary school. My ex-wife is... well.. not tech-savvy and of course we live separated (though we are on friendly terms). So I decided that I will take care of PC for my daughter and such because she will need it. Especially because of current world situation and our government I cannot be sure that half of the school year she won't be stuck with remote attendance.

I kinda already have PC build for her. Because she is just 6 I refused to go for a laptop (she can drop it or spill something on it, not to mention unhealthy usage with bad sitting, looking down on it and such). So I used Intel NUC 8i3BEH. Added Samsung 980 500GB, and 2x8GB Crucial So-DIMM RAM sticks. This Intel NUC will be either on the back of the monitor or something like that and basically on her desk will be only Logitech MK295 keyboard and mouse. This way it won't take up space and can be easily moved so she can have space for her homeworks and if she spill something... only keyboard and mouse that is around 40€ will need to be fixed or replaced and not whole laptop. I'm still looking for right monitor though, but I have an idea already.

Anyway this was an easy part. I will of course go with Windows (even though personally I would rather install there some Linux) because if she will use it for school I don't want her to struggle with libreoffice while they will be taught only Microsoft Office in school (well maybe not that soon but eventually definitelly. I want for this PC to last at least 4-6 years). Of course I will set up my user as administrator and her account will be kids account without administrator permissions. As I don't live with her I will definitelly set up some kind of remote access (TeamViewer or something) for quick remote troubleshooting and so I can take care of things like installation of new games and software if needed.

So my questions are:

1) What should I use for easy filtering of content so she won't get to any harmful content (minus social networks. Those are harmful but I cannot do much about those), she won't get tracked (or rather to keep it at minimum). But I need to have at least some amout of control over it.
Of course I was thinking about PiHole which would also be useful after she will get her first smart phone... but as it is DNS based... I'm little bit worried about reliability. Also it needs to be completely maintenance-free because I won't have physical access to it. Also remote access will be a little bit harder. And I don't want that my ex-wife would need to do something about that other then maybe restart it sometimes. Also I was thinking if something proxy-based won't be better.

2) Any suggestions about some email provider service with good parental control? Email will be necessary anyway... but I don't want to create some email with shared password.

3) Any general suggestions about other stuff I didn't think about? I'm pretty much sure that there is a lot of parents here that were going through similar situation so... how did you solve it?