With all of the alarming stories in the media about unsavory Web sites and child predators lurking in chat rooms, there is no wonder parents are concerned about their children's safety on the Internet. I recently did a radio phone-in show on favorite children's Web sites and I was surprised by the number of parents who called to voice their concerns and ask for advice. I spent as much time discussing Internet safety as I did callers' favorite destinations.
The Internet is a reflection of the real world—it offers playgrounds, educational opportunities, and homework resources, but also has its share of bullies, criminals and public spaces where children need to be supervised or protected. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to prevent your children from wandering into the wrong neighborhood.
Keeping Your Eyes Open
By far, parents' best approach to keeping children, especially younger ones, safe online is supervision. This is the same idea as watching your child at the local playground—it is not a lack of trust on your part, rather it is your way of providing guidance and being there if they need help.
Before you go online with your child it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with the Internet, how it works and what's available for kids. Joining your child at the computer allows you to observe where they are going, what they are seeing, and direct them along the way. If you don't have time, or feel it is necessary, to sit at the computer alongside your youngster, then you can put the computer in a high traffic place where you can still keep an eye on them.
Net-Proofing
Just as you street-proof children in the real world, you can net-proof kids before they are let loose on the Internet. If you teach your children a few simple rules they will be better equipped to look out for their own safety.
The Yahooligans! Parents' Guide has a good overview of Internet safety issues, as well as a list of safety rules. You'll also find sample family pledges that you can print and use in your household. These pledges are official-looking documents that both parents and children can discuss and sign to ensure that all family members know the rules and agree to follow them.
One of the most important rules for kids is: don't give out personal information, any details that could be used to identify, locate or contact them. This includes their name, address, phone number, email address, school, team names, hometown, and so on. If children are ever asked to give information they should get their parents' okay before providing it. I see so many kids giving out too much information about themselves in chat rooms and on their personal homepages; as a result I only feature links to monitored chat areas on Berit's Best Sites for Children and I don't include kids' homepages anymore.
Kids should not meet any online pals in person. Most of the scariest media stories about child dangers on the Internet involve secret meetings and abductions. In rare cases, young online friends can turn out to be child predators, so children shouldn't rendezvous with anyone they meet on the Net.
Children should also know what to do if they run into inappropriate Web sites. In advance, you should discuss with your child what kind of sites are suitable for them to use. If kids do come across a site that is out-of-bounds or makes them uncomfortable then they should immediately leave the site and tell a grown up. Children need to know that coming across an unsuitable site isn't their fault and that they haven't done anything wrong.
For more information about Internet safety and what you can do, visit FamilyPC magazine's Safety section. FamilyPC offers a selection of concise and useful articles from the print magazine. There is a parent's guide to the Internet, an article of "what if" scenarios with tips on what to do in various online situations, print-and-post Web rules, and more.
So many Internet safety sites are geared for grown-ups and feature boring lists of rules. In the Internet Safety section of Berit's Best Sites for Children, you will find several sites that teach safety rules in a more entertaining way. Disney's Surfswell Island and Cybernetiquette Comix are two of the best offerings. They both feature a cast of familiar Disney characters teaching kids about privacy, manners, and computer viruses. The Disney adventure games, quizzes and printable activity pages reinforce the rules while kids play.
Parental Control Software
If you are looking for more peace of mind, then you may want to use parental control software. While these products aren't foolproof, they can provide another level of assurance, especially for younger children.
Parental control software, typically installed on your home computer, prevents children from visiting inappropriate sites and may also prevent them from giving out some personal information. These products basically work two ways—using blocking and filtering. Blocking software stops children from accessing a specified list of sites compiled by the software company, sites which deal with gambling, pornography, violence, hate speech, drugs, and any other topics they deem unsuitable. Unfortunately, new sites will appear and others may be missed, so these lists must be updated frequently. Filtering software will check Web pages for inappropriate words and will not display the pages if they contain the unacceptable terms. Parental control software is often criticized for being too strict, screening out even safe and useful sites. They are also all fee-based products which parents must struggle to install on their own. Computer-savvy kids may be able to disable the software too.
Each software product has its own strengths and flaws. FamilyPC magazine has a great article on parental control software entitled Software to Keep Your Family Safe. The author reviews seven popular products summarizing features, the technical details, and how each one measured up in testing. You can test the competing parental control products yourself by downloading free trials.
Safe Surfing
During the radio phone-in show, I was also startled that so many of the favorite Web sites shared by children were not actually made for children. Several callers even recommended generic search engines that have no safeguards.
For young children, I strongly recommend that they use search sites designed specifically for them. Check my Kids' Search Sites section and you will see that there are several to pick from, such as Yahooligans, Ask Jeeves for Kids, KidsClick, and Berit's Best Sites for Children, of course. The strength of these search tools is that people hand-pick sites to ensure that they do not have inappropriate content.
Sometimes, however, the content of children's search sites isn't comprehensive enough for users. If children find them unsatisfactory and they want to use general search engines, there are several with child-friendly filters and other safety features. Safety Net, another article from FamilyPC, reviews so-called child-friendly portals and Internet Service Providers. In my opinion, specially designed children's search sites are far safer choices than these filtered search engines.
Let me know how you keep your kids safe online. I'll share your ideas in a future column.
Berit's Browse is where Berit highlights her favorite sites on various themes and discusses her opinions and observations about kids' sites and kids on the Internet. The column is also a great place for to cover topics that you are interested in. Let her know what you'd like to read about!