A recent article on ABC News offers 12 tips for parents to keep their children safe on the internet. I want to highlight 1, 2, 4, and 12:
1. Spend time with your children online. Have them teach you about their favorite online destinations.
2. Talk to your child about sexual victimization and potential online danger. Explain that whatever they are told online may or may not be true.
4. Keep the computer out of your child’s bedroom. Put it in a common room like the kitchen or living room. 5. Do not install webcams. It is dangerous to put images on the Internet.
12. Be mindful of your child receiving phone calls from men you don’t know or making calls, sometimes long distance, to numbers you don’t recognize. Most predators want to talk to the children on the telephone. They often engage in “phone sex” with the children and often seek to set up an actual meeting for real sex.
Some outdated tips still circulate. For example, telling people not to post pictures of themselves on the internet has little point. Posting a normal picture of yourself on the internet, say on your social networking profile, won’t cause any harm. Telling someone not to post one is equivalent to telling a person to wear a bag over their hand when they go out to the store or park.
In today’s world, the internet is becoming a safer version of the real world. Instead of sneaking out to a strange clubs to meet older men, teenage girls go online in the safety of their own home. The difference is that parents may not be familiar with these new internet-based risks as they are of traditional risks.
What do you think?
Wednesday, December 5th 2007 at 6:52 am
Ya absolutely, these tips should be followed up by the parents with their children at the early stage to avoid serious things…very useful tips great post!