Sunday, August 28, 2011

Children On The Web And How To Protect Them

By Sebastian Pompadour Xavier


The internet has a lot to offer people of all ages, but it poses certain dangers to children. When surfing the web, you will find criminals, stalkers and many undesirable people who are predatory, you need to be wary at all times. This situation is bothersome for a lot of people; luckily there are steps you can take to provide security. Let's go over some of the best ways to keep your children safe while they're surfing the net.

One of the ways that kids can get into trouble online is by having too much privacy. The Internet is a place that you go individually on your computer, and you don't necessarily like someone watching you, and children are no different, but with some of the bad places you find there, children need to be monitored. To keep an eye on the children, especially pre-teens, the computer that they are able to use should be in a family place, so that they are not in the room alone. It's not a good idea to let young children hole up in their room while online. Wise parents will protect their children from any bad influences, when possible, so this goes for the Internet also.

It is important to keep communication lines open with you child so they can talk to you, even though things do not normally reach this extreme. You can notify the school, the parents of the child or the site the bully is using if you find out your child is being bullied. Make sure your children know enough to never meet someone they don't know offline in any public place. Even though this might appear to be a very obvious thing for you, it might not be for young children who have just started using the internet. Additionally they shouldn't talk privately with any strangers, regardless of whether it's in a private online chat room or over the telephone. Public chatrooms are where predators will initially target children, then they will try and move them over to a setting that's more private, which could be online or offline. Make sure your kids let you know if anybody does this, especially if they instruct the kids to not mention this to their parents. Children who are younger need to be told these sorts of things.

Predators who seek out children online may do so in many different environments, but the most likely place they'll be lurking is chatrooms. You will almost certainly have a predator contact you, if you are a child going into a chatroom, as reported by the FBI. Unfortunately, this sad fact of modern life is true. Younger children do not belong in chatrooms, because they are not old enough to know who to trust, especially without supervision. The internet, especially chatrooms, is not a very trusting place, and children need to learn not to believe what anyone tells them, and watch what they reveal online. Another area to watch carefully is AOL Instant Messenger, because, next to chatrooms, this is where predators are looking for children.

If you want to protect your child better then make sure you are familiar with all their online activities. If your child tries to stop you from getting involved online with them, then you need to make it clear to them that you want to know what they are doing and who they are talking to when they are online. You do not need to live in fear about this but it is sensible for you to take basic precautions.

It's really no hidden secret that raising youngsters can be hard. Something that will help is to find a family pet. That will offer the children something to take responsibility for, which could raise their own self confidence. Check with your local family pet store for more information.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment