Tips for Parents: Protect Your kids online

Disclaimer: This website is NOT associated with CBSE, for official website of CBSE visit - www.cbse.gov.in

Anyone whose children use the Internet feels caught in a technology paradox.
On th one hand, they know how important it is for children to experience new
technologies and the wonderful benefits they offer. On the other hand, parents
are afraid of the dangers in cyberspace. In many cases, kids are more
technologically advanced than adults, so some parents may feel intimidated and
refrain from enforcing rules that are imperative to protect their children as
they surf and socialize online.

Fortunately, security software is available that can restrict what kids see
and do on the web, taking a lot of pressure off parents to stay current with
every new risk. But it is still important that parents get involved with their
kids&; online lives, and make sure that their children know how to act and
how to react to what they see on the web.

 

 

Biggest Online Risks

Meeting a predator online ranks among the worst dangers children face today,
but there are many other online experiences that can result in inappropriate
or illegal activity. Kids need to be told that not everything they read online
is true, and that there is a lot of material on the web that is not meant for
them. There are fascist sites, pornography sites, drug sites, and other
explicit content that an
unprotected child can easily view. Fortunately, there are filtering
technologies, child-safe browsers and search engines that restrict where they
can surf.

Web Sites and Chat Rooms

Loss of privacy is a big risk. Kids must be shown how important it is to
protect their personal information and the information of their family and
friends. Many child-oriented web sites solicit information from kids in
surveys and forms in exchange for prizes, and get them to register online for
fan clubs. In chat rooms, sharing their gender, age, and favorite hangout
could seem harmless, but predators can easily use this information to track
down the child.

Digital prowlers masquerade as children in order to gather information and
ultimately meet their unsuspecting victims. But kids also flirt and pretend to
be older than they actually are, not thinking about the potential results of
such actions.

It is also common for kids to get into online fights or become the target of
bullying via email, chat, and instant messaging, especially when they are of
middle school age.

Blogs and Social Networking

Blogs and social networking sites such as MySpace are places where kids
sometimes share too much information—not only names and addresses
but also personal photos that sometimes show illegal acts, such as underage
drinking. Ask your kids to share their blogs or online profiles with you so
you can check the content. You can
also use Google, along with the search tools on social networking sites, to
search for profiles your child may have posted. Use your child’s
full name, phone number, and other identifying information.

 

P2P File Sharing

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing invites new privacy problems. These programs
allow
people to browse and download files from Internet-connected personal
computers of
anyone else who uses the same program. This makes it easy for cyber
criminals to spread viruses, Trojan horses, and spyware. Kids can also
accidentally download pornography that is labeled misleadingly.

 

 

What Can A Parent Do?

Parents can protect their children from online threats. Sitting down with
your kids and reviewing these 10 rules with them will ensure a worry-free
experience that fosters learning and understanding.

1. Make sure kids understand basic rules for using social networking sites
such as MySpace, Facebook and blogs. They should guard their passwords, and
never post personally identifying information or inappropriate photos. Blogs
and social networking sites offer privacy tools that can be turned on to
restrict potentially dangerous users. The sites automatically provide these
protective tools to kids under 15  Kids should share information only
with people they know
from the real world and should never include any photos that may have their
address, license plate number or other identifiable information in the
background.

 

2. Monitor your children's use of the Internet. Put the computer in ahigh-traffic
family area and limit night use. You may even want to check on the websites
by using the history feature on your web browser to make sure your kids are
visiting sites that you'd rather them not visit.

 

3. Always know when your kids are meeting someone they met online. Before
any such meeting, you should confirm the person’s identity, and
you should accompany your child to the meeting in a public place.

 

4. When using P2P file-sharing programs, kids should not download files fro
users whom they don't know. They could be downloading infected files,
pictures, games, and music that are inappropriate, or media files protected
by copyright law.

 

5. Make sure your kids know not to fill out any online forms. If there is a
legitimate site where they want to register, such as Nickelodeon or Disney,
havethem come to you first so you can check the site & its privacy
policy and rules of conduct.

 

6. When chatting online only allow your kids to use monitored chatrooms and
tonever reveal their real name or identity. As with blogs and MySpace, kids
shouldnever reveal personal information or share photos. Make sure they
understand that people can lie about who they are and that online friends
are still strangers.

 

7. Teach your kids to ignore emails and instant messages from people the
don't know. They should never open attachments they are not expecting nor
click on links in messages. As with blogs and MySpace, they should not send
out personal information. Configure your child's instant messaging
application correctly to make sure it does not open automatically when they
fire up their computer. Have them turn off the computer and disconnect the
DSL or modem line when they're not using it.

 

8. Use browsers for kids and kid-oriented search engines. Children's
browsers such as Kid Browser 1.1 do not display inappropriate words or
images. It comes pre-loaded with kid-safe web sites and pre-set word
filters. You only need to make sure you approve, and review the default web
sites and words.
Kid-oriented search engines including Ask for Kids and Yahooligans perform
limited searches and screen search results. There is a great list of engines
at Search Engine Watch. The site also tells you how to turn on parental
controls in regular search engines including Google, HotBot, and MSN Search.

 

9. Set your Google adult-filter to on. By using the adult filter on Google's
search site your kids won't be able to search for inappropriate content and
you can always turn it off should you wish to search for your own
age-related content.

 

10. Use a strong firewall and spyware software. Firewalls such as the
built-in Microsoft Firewall for XP and Vista or even a freely available
firewall such as Zone Alarm will provide additional protection to your kids
while online. Using strong spyware software such as System Sentinel will
also help to ensure that your kids movements while online are not going back
to someone else.