It's an unfortunate
fact of reality, but children are the most
mistreated computer users on the
Internet today. The good news is that there are some practical steps you can
take to protect your children from sexual predators, hackers, and other seedy
individuals who want to cause harm. This article will describe a few of them.
The first step in
protecting your children at the computer is to prevent their access to
passwords. This will keep them from sharing passwords with others and
inadvertently enabling hacking into your system. If you think about it, there’s
no reason why a five, seven, or even twelve year old needs to know the
passwords to sensitive areas on the computer unless you’ve given them
permission! In fact, children don’t need to know the password used to access
the Internet either. It may be a hassle to type it in each time they want to
get online, but it’s better to know the times that they connect than to have
them sneak online without your authorization and knowledge of their activities.
The second step
towards protecting your children online is using the computer together. Siting
next to your child while he or she peruses the Internet, you can guide him or
her to make safe and intelligent decisions. You can approve websites and
bookmark them together. You can monitor the conversations your children have
with their friends and teach them appropriate online behavior at the same time.
You can make recommendations and create a private time for quality time as
well.
The third step
involves blocking access to inappropriate areas altogether. You and your
children may not always agree about what’s appropriate, but as a guardian,
you’re in control and you’re ultimately responsible for their safety. Take the
time to look into software tools that put you in control and allow you to block
access to certain websites. If you use an online service like AOL (America
Online), you can use its internal Parental Control settings to block access to
various chatrooms and websites. You could even block instant messaging and
email from anyone who isn’t a fellow AOL user.
Other tools available
online operate similar to the way that AOL’s Parental Control settings work,
however no collection of tools could replace the reinforcement of mom and dad.
Never let your children speak with strangers and never leave them alone at the
computer unattended. Children just don’t have the experience that adults have
and they don’t have the skills required to handle inappropriate conversations,
emails, or images found online.
NOTE: Some of these
tools include kid-specific web browsers that will visit pre-approved websites.
Others include browser plug-ins that won’t allow access to online areas that
contain forbidden keywords.
Another step requires
teaching your children to never ever volunteer personal information. Under no
circumstances, should children give their personal names, home addresses, phone
numbers, or school information to anyone over the Internet regardless of the
situation. In the even this information
is required to enter a contest of some sort, be sure that you’re the one who
makes the decision to supply it and that you’re the one who does it.
Performing all of
these steps won’t be easy. However you can help minimize resistance to your
monitoring efforts by explaining why you’re taking these precautions. Smaller
children will probably enjoy the time you spend together at the computer, but
older children and pre-teens may resent it. To help build a case for your
concern, you might want to show your older children a few news stories that
exemplify the dangers that unsupervised children are exposed to. The newspaper
is unfortunately full of examples but with your help, we can shrink them world-wide.
