Safe Surfing Tips For Parents

The Internet can be a wonderful tool for young and old alike, but sadly it can also be a very dangerous place for children. There is always someone out there ready to take advantage of a child online. Keep your child safe, below is a list of things you can do to help you in this.

• Place the computer in an area of the house that receives a lot of traffic, i.e. the Kitchen or Living room. Never allow your child to have the computer in their bedroom!
  
  
• Talk to you children, and draw up a list of places that they can visit and of places you don't want your child to visit. Then place this list on a wall next to the computer. Check often that they are staying with in this agreement.
  
  
• Add book marks to all the family search engines.
  
  
• Don't allow your children to use unmonitored chat rooms. There is a large number internet filtering software available on the market. And some of the best ones blocks access to all chat areas, this will keep your child safe from the threat of dangerous people who masquerade as children.
  
  
• If your child really wants to chat on the Internet with other children, subscribe to a site that specifically caters for this. These sites have some one monitoring the chat area at all times. And as they are password protected, just anyone will not be able to use them.
  
  
• Purchase a filtering software. These will block any sites with inappropriate content such as drugs/alcohol, sex, violence/hate related, gambling etc. And some of these also allow you to block the use of chat rooms.
  
  
• Know the password for your child's email account.
  
  

Instruct your child to never do any of the following without your permission:

• Never to arrange a face-to-face meeting with someone they meet online. If you do give permission, be sure that the meeting is in a public place and that you or another responsible adult accompany your child.
  
  
• Never to give out personal information such as their name, age, home address, school name or location, telephone numbers or financial information.
  
  
• Never to download pictures from an unknown source, as there is a good chance there could be sexually explicit images.
  
  
• Never to upload pictures of themselves on to the Internet or online service to people they do not know personally.
  
  
• And finally, let your child know you are there at all times if they need to talk about anything.

A printable version can be found here