A better way is to simply include their gmail account in your own lists of email accounts and monitor their email and notify them you are doing so. If they have a problem with it, clarify for them the definition of child and parent. If they are teenagers, explain to them that in the real world, trust is earned.

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"If they are teenagers, explain to them that in the real world, trust is earned."

Then watch them get their own account, and understand that real world rules apply to parents too. Then be prepared for some hard work as you try to regain the trust of a person whose privacy you denied.

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This really only works until your children figure out that they can change the password (or create a second account, or make their evil plans by instant message, etc., etc.). If your children are teenagers and it's lost on them that, in the "real world," email privacy is *not* an earned privilege, then you just have dumb children.

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One would have to set an Open Firmware password to fully lock down an OS X machine. Even then, that password can be defeated by taking out a stick of RAM. So unless you're using a tower that can take a padlock to keep the case from being opened, any reasonably bright adolescent/teenager can find a way around parental controls.

Physical access=full access.

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I'm not a child by any stretch of the imagination, but I've got to say that not only will parental attempts at lock-down control always be defeated, they will also diminish your child's respect for you and make them more distant. I understand the impulse to protect them, but its the wrong way to go about it. A parent's job is to prepare children for the world, not prevent them from experiencing it. Children understand this, which is why their curiosity and ingenuity will trump your attempts at control every time. If you think you have been successful, that is only because that is what they want you to think. If you love you children, don't make them feel bad for following their natural curiosity.

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