Parenting
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer
says technology and a
trustful relationship is the
best Internet protection.
DAVID SACHS
Copy Editor
eturning to your old
hometown — your late
parents' town — to be the
featured speaker at a parley
on parenting is bound to be an emo-
tional experience.
And Steve Ballmer, president and
CEO of Microsoft Corp., is not one
to hold back his emotions — or his
enthusiasm.
Ballmer appeared May 1 at Temple
Israel at the 22nd annual Alicia Joy
Techner Parenting Conference. He
spoke to hundreds of parents and
grandparents on the impact of the
Internet on children.
David and Ilene Kaufman Techner
of the Ira Kaufman Chapel established
the conference in memory of their
infant daughter who died of meningi-
tis in 1978. The West Bloomfield tem-
ple's Family Life Center, under direc-
tor Kari Provizer, also sponsored the
talk.
Ballmer spoke to several hundred
people the next morning at a father-
son breakfast at his high school alma
mater, Detroit Country Day School in
Beverly Hills.
On the Way into town from Detroit
Metro Airport, the Techners drove
5/11
2001
122
Ballmer up Middlebelt Road to Beth
El Memorial Park in Livonia to visit
his parents' gravesite. David Techner,
in his role at the chapel, had arranged
funerals for Ballmer's parents. The two
had developed a rapport over a mutual
concern for family issues, Techner
said.
"This is a man who puts balance in
his life," Techner said.
Ballmer lives near Microsoft head-
quarters in Redmond, Wash., but grew
up in Farmington Hills. In his talk at
Temple Israel, he spoke earnestly
about Internet safety from the views of
both a parent and a child.
Ballmer admitted that 10-year-olds
proficient with computers could prob-
ably outfox their parents over age 35.
"It took me four years to explain to
my dad what the heck the Internet
was."
And as the father of three boys,
ranging in age from 2-9, Ballmer is
very concerned with their welfare and
safety. In his remarks, he tried to con-
vey the level of freedom and parental
control appropriate when letting chil-
dren find their way around the World
Wide Web.
Ballmer, using exuberant language
and gestures, wandered the length and
breadth of the Temple Israel bimah
(digs), as he praised personal comput-
ents screen out rated Web sites that
ers and the Internet as educational
have bad language, profanity or nudi-
tools.
ty. "But if the contents are unrated,"
"I'm certainly pretty pumped up
he said, "that technology doesn't really
about all this stuff," he said.
work as well."
"I think about the way I used to do
• Kids Passport — On
projects at school," he
Microsoft's
MSN online
said. Living in
service
is
Kids
Passport.
Farmington Hills, he
Above left: Kari Provizer of
"I
assign
a
passport
to
said, "I'd ask my mom
Temple Israel and David
my boys and I can con-
to shlep me down to the Techner of Ira Kaufman
trol absolutely what sites
Dearborn library.
Chapel flank Microso ft
they visit on the Internet
"All that stuff is on the CEO Steve Ballmer prior
and what information,
Internet today ... in the
to his remarks.
which
means none,
convenience of your
about
my
children that's
home."
Above right: Ten-year-old
revealed
to
somebody
Saying that Microsoft's Josh Freed listens to
else,"
Ballmer
said. The
market research shows
Ballmer's speech with his
site
is
that 57 percent of kids
dad, Larry Freed, left, and
today use the Internet,
grandfather Jim Weitzman, hapilkids.passport.com
• Privacy Issues —
he revealed measures to
all of West Bloomfield.
The Children's Online
make the Internet safer
Privacy Protection Act
for children:
requires that operators
of online services or Web sites obtain
parental consent prior to the collec-
Family Rules
tion, use, disclosure, or display of the
• Limiting Screen Time — "My wife
personal information of children
has a limit on the amount of screen
under 13.
time in our family," Ballmer said,
But, Ballmer added, a trustful par-
defining "screen time" as the sum of
ent-child
relationship is paramount fo
computer, video game and television
all
technical
controls to work.
time.
Warnings
About Strangers —
•
Content
Ratings
—
Ballmer
said
•
Ballmer said, "I sat down and had a
there is technology on Microsoft's
conversation with my 9-year-old. I
Windows operating system to let par-