Internet Safety for Your Kids | Homeschooling

By PhyllisWheeler
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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.

Maybe you are hoping to buy a program for your computer that blocks objectionable sites, but will allow them to do the research you want them to do.

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?

*The computer should be where you can monitor what the kidsa re doing. They should be where YOU are.

*To log on, anyone who is not an adult will have to ask an adult to input the password, giving permission in this way.

*Ensure that the kid logs off when the computer session is over, or turns the computer off. This makes the password required for the next session.

*Use filtering software. It may help.

*Kids should be told what you expect from them, and the consequences of disobedience.

*Unplug the Internet cables if the child doens't need to access the Internet for his task.

*Make younger kids use your email address. Then you can be sure to delete that filth that lands in the inbox from time to time. Or, as the kids get older, give them their own but instruct them to give out their address only to trusted friends.

Your watchfulness will pay off. Your children will be protected from what they should not see, and they will also learn good habits for using the Internet as adults.

About the Author

Phyllis Wheeler, the Computer Lady, gives this advice for mothers and fathers.. She also furnishes homeschool computer courses through MotherboardBooks.com, which has offered self-study computer science courses for kids and teens since 2003.

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