What are some of the dangers to my kids associated with Internet and what can I do?
There are a lot of things that you can do to protect your kids on the Internet. The first and most important one is, open conversation. Open a communication with your kids. Ask them what they're doing on the Internet, where they're going. If they have questions, make sure they feel open to talk to you about this. The Internet is a very, very exciting place, but it can also be a very scary place. So, kids will have questions, they'll want to have My Space pages, they'll want to have their own blogs, they'll want to open their life up to their friends on the Internet, not realizing they're opening it up to everybody on the Internet. Be aware of these websites. The biggest problem with a website like My Space is that most parents will say, "Well, you can't have a My Space page," and that will immediately cause the kid to get a My Space page without the parents knowing. A better reaction would be, "yes, you can have a My Space page, but I need to be one of your friends on that page. I need to be able to stay in communication with you and know what you're posting, what you're talking about and who your friends are on that website. Social engineering sites are great, but you're the parent here. You need to have a little bit of control over who is interacting with your kids on these web pages. But, if you say no to them, they're just going to do it behind your back. In addition to that, there are many programs that are starting to come out that have the ability of screening and filtering website email, Internet, chat information and chat rooms for protection. There are many different products. The one that I've had the most success with on the Macintosh platform is called Indigo, that's called Content Barrier. It comes with several portions. One portion allows you to filter the information that your kids can see on the Internet. You use a black list and a white list. You can use the predetermined white list that this website Content Barrier provides, or you can adjust it depending on what you feel your kids should or shouldn't see. But, again, being in communication with them is the key to this. If they travel to a website that you don't want them going to, you need to block it, if they travel to a website that they want to go to and you feel it's OK, and they can't get to it because it is blocked, you need to personally approve it. These kinds of programs give the parent the control over what their kids can and can't do. They also filter the information that's on the Internet, and can send log files, or information files to an email address specified in the program to the parent, enabling the parent to see what the kids got onto in case they got somewhere they shouldn't have gone. It can also do that same sort filtering and email log filing for the web, chat rooms, for instant messaging and for the emails that your kids get. It looks for key words, for red flag words or for red, flag phrases: are you alone, don't tell your parents, is your mom there, etc. Information that you know your kids shouldn't give out but they don't know. And if they do give that information out or that information is asked, that site is going to be red flagged, that chat is going to be copied and emailed to you. That same program or other programs like it can also offer ways to restrict the time limit that a kid can be on the Internet. You can specify, for example, that they're allowed to surf the Internet from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm only. And for only three hours combined within that period of time. This is a great way to really protect your kids because if they only have a limited amount of time on the Internet, they're going to be more careful what they do. They're going to do less surfing around and more of what they need and what they want at that time.
