Keeping Kids Safe on the Internet

It's inevitable that kids will end up using the internet - either at home, at school, or both. While it's potentially a fantastic tool for research and information, it can also be a two-way portal: it can bring harmful images and ideas to children, and it can enable them to share private information with strangers. Following you will find some suggestions for keeping kids safe online.

The importance of a child-safe search engine

Most of us use Google or Yahoo search on a regular basis, and that means our children (whether in the home or at school) are probably using those search engines too. You probably know that they both have a "Safe Search" feature that filters out adult-oriented websites and images. But, there are loopholes in Safe Search that let inappropriate things slip through.

There is still always the possibility that a child using these search engines will be exposed to inappropriate material even when using perfectly innocent search terms. I used to suggest in some of my materials that Google be used if children want to search for additional info, but I will no longer make that suggestion.

Instead, I highly recommend that children use kid-friendly search engines. These search engines search only specific sites that are hand-picked, rather than searching the entire web. You are pretty much guaranteed that only appropriate content is displayed. One example would be www.yahooligans.com - Yahoo's kid safe search site. For info and links regarding child-safe search engines, visit this page from Search Engine Watch. They also have info about safe search filters for all the search engines, as well as filtering and blocking software.

Filtering programs for your computer

It has many great options, including one that simply shuts off the internet during time periods that you set. For instance, you could disable the internet during the night - no one could login. It also gives you monthly reports about every search and site visited. You can know exactly where your kids, their friends, the babysitter, and anyone else is going while using your computer. It's a fantastic way to protect your family, and at $49.95 for an entire year, a great value too.

Internet safety DVD

MySpace and other social sites

My friend Miriam Ellis, of Solas Web Design, had this to say in her blog:

"Likely you’ve heard of Myspace.com. In just a couple of years, this entity has come to be the most popular hangout in cyberspace for young people. It has been promoted as a way for youths to chat with their friends, share photos, and information about themselves. The ugly truth behind this Internet goldmine is that an ever-growing list of children have been assaulted and abducted because they joined Myspace. In their poignant innocence, children post not only images of themselves, but also give out their addresses.

Criminals trolling Myspace for exactly this type of evil opportunity then make use of the information to find and attack the children. It is truly distressing to realize that Myspace is responsible for creating this false sense of friendliness and security, where a child who may know better than to give out their personal information to a stranger, is lulled into a sense of privacy because, after all, they think they are talking to their ‘friends’. Whether their friends are the children down the block, a nice kid living in Idaho, or a criminal who wants to harm them simply may never occur to the child."

If you do decide to let them join, here are a few things you can do to keep them safe: