Keep Your Kids Safe on the World Wide Web
You may be wondering how you can make the Internet safe for your kids. You’d like to protect them from the objectionable sites and emails that would be so easy for them to find.
Maybe you are hoping to buy a program for your computer that blocks objectionable sites, but will allow them to do the research you want them to do.
Here’s the bad news: filtering programs can’t do the job by themselves. NentNanny and other applications like it search for certain words in the Web site your child is clicking on. Simple words like “belly” can be targets for blocking, causing frustration, while research on “breast cancer” may be impossible.
But programs that look for words fail completely if the site has no objectionable words–only objectionable photos. My teenage son figured this out. He used Google Images to look for objectionable sites. He found them despite the fact that our filter, NetNanny, was turned on.
The software could not have detected the objectionable photos, since NetNanny and similar software look for objectionable words. They are not able to evaluate pictures.
So, what can you as a parent do?
*The computer should be where you can monitor what the kidsa re doing. They should be where YOU are.
*Have a login password that only the adults know. The kid has to have permission, and oversight, to use the computer.
*Require the child to log off when he is done. Now the password is required for the next session.
*Use filtering software. It may help.
*Kids should be told what you expect from them, and the consequences of disobedience.
*Unplug the Internet cables if the child doens’t need to access the Internet for his task.
*Require younger children to use your email address. This will allow you to protect them from vicious spam. As they get older, give teens their own email address, but make sure they give it out only to friends.
Your watchfulness will pay off. Your children will be protected from what they should not see, and they will also learn good habits for using the Internet as adults.