Keep Your Kids Safe on the World Wide Web
Are you wondering how to make the Internet safe for your kids? You want them to use the Internet for research, but you don’t want them to find objectionable sites or emails.
Perhaps you’d like to buy a solution that you can use on your computer that will not allow them to look at objectionable sites, yet will allow them to freely browse.
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 problem is that filter programs search for individual words. They never look at pictures, and in fact cannot.
The next question is, “What’s a parent to do?”
*The computer should be where you can monitor what the kidsa re doing. They should be where YOU are.
*To log on, anyone who is not an adult will have to ask an adult to input the password, giving permission in this way.
*Require the child to log off when he is done. Now the password is required for the next session.
*Use a filter like NetNanny. It will help when your back is turned.
*Make sure the kids know you will punish them if they are looking at objectionable sites. Visit their terminals at unpredictable times.
*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.
Following these precautions will help you keep your kids safe, and will teach your teenagers good habits for avoiding temptations.
Tags: Internet
