Internet Safety for Your Kids
Search:

Home | Computer


Internet Safety for Your Kids

By: Phyllis Wheeler

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.

I bet you would like to find a program you could buy that you could install on your computer to block objectionable content, but permit research.

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 like this fail when trying to filter objectionable photo sites that have no objectionable words. So, how do I know this? I am sad to say that my teenage son enlightened me. Using Google Images, he searched for objectionable sites and found them, even though the filtering program was on.

The problem is that filter programs search for individual words. They never look at pictures, and in fact cannot.

So, what can you as a parent do?

*Put the computers the kids use where YOU are in your home. Then monitor what they are doing.

*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 NetNanny or a similar filter. It can only help.

*Make sure the kids know your expectations and the consequences for disobeying.

*If a child is just using a word processor or some other local program, disconnect the Internet cable.

*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.

If you take these measures and are watchful, you will help your teenagers withstand a temptation that is everywhere on the Internet, and get them into the habit of making good choices when sitting down to use the computer.

Article Source: http://www.justarticles.org

Phyllis Wheeler, the Computer Lady, gives these tips for mothers and fathers.. She also furnishes homeschool computer courses through MotherboardBooks.com, which has provided do-it-yourself computer skills and programming courses for kids and teens since 2003.

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Computer Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Computer
Sign Up for a free account or learn more.

Submit Articles
Member Login
Top Authors
Most Popular Articles
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
New Stuff
About Us
Site Blog
Forum
Link to Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service
Unique Article Wizard
Instant Article Wizard.
Create Top-quality Articles On Any Subject In 15 Minutes Or Less (even If You Dont Know Anything About The Topic)!
New Article Submitter Software.
New Article Submission Software Lets You Instantly Submit Your Articles To Over 660 High Quality Articles Directories!
ArticleStars SuperNova Secrets.
An Article Marketing Revolution! Super Charge Your Article To Page #1 Learn How I Earned $10,000+ Writing 1 Article.
How To Write Succesful Feature Articles! Excellent Handbook On How To Write Successful Special Feature Articles That Editors And Publishers Will Love You For.

More Info

Powered by Article Dashboard