Safety Online for Children; a Guide for Parents

This day and age most children are very efficient on computers sometimes even more then their parents. They have grown up around them and the schools are providing proper training when it comes to learning computers. Our homes and schools have the internet now and children are picking up on them quickly. The schools make sure most sites that are not child safe are blocked, they have filters in place to prevent children from going to sites that are not kid safe, not to mention they block kids form chat rooms and messengers. Now the school is safe guarding your children from the internet but at home are you?

In this article I will be taking you through a list of products and ideas you can use to safe guard your children's internet activity.

Net Nanny is a very versatile program that not only protects your child from sexual content on world web browsers but it also protects against sexual content in chat rooms and messengers it also protects from any other questionable material. Not to mention it protects your child from seeing adult images. If your child tries to turn these filters off on a search engine Net Nanny automatically turns this filter back on. "Net Nanny integrates flawlessly with "Safe Search" options found in popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, AltaVista, Lycos, AllTheWeb, and MSN." This means your children can't search on a search engine and even see links to blocked sites. Net Nanny is the way to go if you want to protect your children from pornography and hate sites. It also helps protect your child from areas of the web you would probably prefer your child not deal, Like Peer to Peer, Usenet, and downloads which inreturn help your computer from getting virus, spyware, adware and trojans.

Another great feature to Net Nanny is the Remote hosting. You can see your children's internet activity, including messenger activity from any computer anywhere when you turn on remote hosting. So your child may behind a closed door in there bedroom but your only a click away to see what your child is up to online. Net Nanny is even simple to use. They offer a free trial on their website to see if this program is what will work for you and your family. Please check out the Net Nanny website for even more information or clarification on just the small list of features I have provided.

Another truly amazing product out there is Children's Internet. This program covers all ages groups from 3 to 14. It's a safe community that a parent has the control over. It offers your child a safe place to go and a safe community of sites that you will not have to worry about them being exposed to elements that are not kid friendly. "Children's Internet is a internet security application, SafeZone Technology® "locks down" your computer to allow your children online access only to the sites and the pages within the protective area you set." With its secure e-mail function, it allows messages only with contacts in the address book that you the parent must set up and approve. You can try their service for free for two weeks to see if The Children's Internet is something that will work for your family.

Yahoo Family Account is a great way to monitor what types of email your child is receiving and may be sending. A Yahoo! Family Account is a free account that allows you to control the information your child shares using Yahoo. The only downfall is they do require you to set up your account using a credit card since they want to make sure people setting up these account are indeed adults. They also have a cap on the age you can sign your child up under a Family Account, the child must be 13 or younger.

On Yahoo Family you can control what your child sees on yahoo, there email settings and their friend list on messenger. The one advice I do give to people about their children's yahoo messenger is to always set in the options that only members on your child's list can message them. This way someone browsing or entering random names will be prevented from messaging them.

You also need to check with your internet provider what parental controls they have set up to help protect your child. If they do not have any ask them why they don't? All internet providers should have something in the way of parental controls.

So what's all the hype about Myspace, Let's say your child comes home and you discover they have a myspace profile. Personally I say steer your child away from this site as fast as possible but if you feel the need to let them have an account. I suggest you get one too and you remain on the top 8 of your child's friend list. Most predators will stay away from a page with a parent on a child's and move on to a page that looks more like a target. Also make sure you have your child's log in information. This way you can check the page periodically to make sure nothing that should not be happening is happening.

If your child has a problem with supplying you passwords and user names to log into their accounts they need to be reminded that the internet is a privilege and not a necessity and if they want to be able to use it they have to abide by your rules when it comes to the usage of the internet.

Another tip is to set a time frame for your children to be online. How we work it in my family is homework and chores must be completed first. Then dinner and family time we all have unwind time later and then the kids are allowed online during that unwind time (your personal time). We set usage to an hour to an hour and half a day. If they need to research something for school this time does not count towards their personal time online.

When your child is done using the computer you can always check the history and the cookie folders to see where your child has been online if you do not have a program like net nanny installed. This can show you little traces of what type of websites your child is viewing. Just make sure not to confuse your own activity with theirs if you are sharing a computer. Also keep in mind most children now a days know how to clear the temp files and the cookies so this may not help you if your child is doing this.

Lastly if you feel your child is hiding something from you online you can place a key logger on the computer. This will record everything that is being typed out on your computer but will not show you what another person is typing to them. This will also help with getting any password to sites you need to check on.

I know this article looks a little like your spying on your child or you may not trust them. But in this day and age the safety of your child should come first. Yes, you should have trust in your child but if the situation arises that you need to use any of the tips in this article you will be glad you have them and now know them. To prevent having to spy on your child the best bet is to get a program like net nanny and install it on your computer to stop any problems before they even happen. Its your priority to make sure your child is safe.

Keeping in mind most kids today know more about computers then their parents. If this is the case its always best to take a course on computers, especially one on the internet. This will help you better understand your computer and the internet, not just the basics. It will also teach you the dangers that can happen online when it comes to children. Children are basically trusting people by nature, They do not realize by giving out the grade they are in, their real first name, the name of their high school, they have just given a predator everything they need to find your child.

Lastly, since the internet is a privilege you can have your child sign a safety contract. This will ensure that you have taught them the dangers behind the internet and you know they now understand what can kind of people are out there lurking on the internet.

To draw up a contract you can get an idea from the website: Safety Online