Kids’ Internet safety is a major concern for everyone around the world. It is a topic that should be taken seriously because it can cause serious risks to the innocent ones.
Let’s face it the Internet is an unsafe territory, generally speaking. It is teeming with scam artists, pranksters, and predators who is about ready to trick you of either your money, your body, your mind, and your emotions. If adults are susceptible to the common Internet dangers, much more are the kids.
If you have a computer at home, for sure, your kids are able to use it for school homework and projects as well as for recreation. That means, you should be highly concerned about kids Internet safety, too.
Unsafe Haven #1: Chat Rooms
Chat rooms have been a main concern for years. There were pedophiles posing as kids in many chat rooms, getting in touch with unsuspecting kids and trying to trick them for a secret meeting, where they were being abused. Although some chat rooms have tried to address this problem, there is only so much that they can do. So you still need to be vigilant on your end.
Chat rooms can present great fun for children because they can find lots of great new friends there. That’s why it is not easy to tell them off it. If you cannot monitor and control their chatting activity, make sure that your child understands the dangers. Remind him to observe the following guidelines:
Do not give out personal information including real name, address, school information, phone numbers, etc. Always tell them to use a screen name or nickname when in chat rooms.
Do not agree to meet someone in person without your knowledge. If your child is to meet some friends he/she met online, make sure that you will be able to accompany him/her.
Do tell a parent or any adult in the household if something strange happens in the chat room.
Unsafe Haven #2: Objectionable Websites
In case of sites that may have explicit content, there is an easy solution. That is, to acquire filtering and blocking software, which will control the kind of site your child will have access to.
Unsafe Haven #3: Email
There are, what, millions and millions of spammers all over the world. A good size of them is sending out random emails with explicit content. Although some email providers offer some protection, they are not 100% reliable. So your best resort is to acquire specialized software that will restrict access to certain types of email with certain types of content.