Web Wise n Oh So Savvy

Parents with children of all ages whether single or a couple, assume the responsibilities and roles including being a teacher. How best to operate in this mode?

Parents are the center of a child’s world. They depend on the parents to provide food, clothing, shelter and protection. Today’s technological society has access to many high tech gadgets and extends to our children learning about these items, to the point of asking, ‘Can we get one?’

The internet is global and a majority of societies have one in their homes. This is also a opportunity for predators to prey on our children. Are you aware of their abilities to coerce and manipulate a child? It’s part of the ‘grooming’ process. Gain trust, personal information, prey on vulnerabilities, meet and abduct our child.

A great tip for parents is to review the above items again and create answers to solve this shadowy threat and ask yourself the following;

– Why, what, when, where, who and how to teach trust and dangerous strangers to my child?
– How and why to teach importance of not telling personal information?
– What, when, where, how and who are areas my child doesn’t know about personal safety?
– How and why to teach my child about meeting strangers? Safety about meeting with friends?
– How, why, what, when, where, best ways to prevent abduction of my child?

The internet is known to be filled with pedophiles trolling for potential victims, specific to certain age and gender. As parents, we can take steps to ensure our child’s safety online, by first learning ourselves, about the available tools on the computer and how to limit areas where our children can go online. The following are some tips that can be used on our home computers;

– Filters , block specific sites
– Parental controls, set the computer to require changes be made only by parent
– Password protect, blocks–> access to areas, make changes and bad neighborhood sites
– Shared email accounts, allows monitoring of email exchanges
– Location, keep the computer in central room of house to allow indirect monitoring
- Internet safety software, must buy but adds extra sense of security for parents

Upon taking these actions our child may protest that they will never learn about the internet and pout but ensure providing a explanation about safety and ‘bad people’ online. Show them there are sites just for them that allow them to explore the possibilities of what is available online. These can be sites that allow for fun, interaction with other children, chat, email and the dreaded help for homework, such as the following designed-for-kids safety sites ;

http://webwisekids.org/
http://buddybrowser.com/kids.cfm
http://www.askkids.com/
http://lii.org/
http://kids.yahoo.com/
http://kidsclick.org/
http://www.homeworkspot.com/
http://kids.gov/
http://webwisekids.org/
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/index.jsp

Pride in our children’s abilities makes us sigh with satisfaction and sense of accomplishment or least most of us. Taking measures to ensure the safety of our children online will help ensure their safety offline but there are street rules to also teach. Do you know remember yours?

I grew up as Latch-key kid and one day answered a phone call and was told about a group photo session at my school going on right now and if I hurry they would wait. My mother walked in the door and over heard me ready to meet with this person and she stopped me. Next day, she sat me down and reported there was no photo session at the time of the call, 5:15 pm and the school had confirmed this for her. I was 12 at the time. Usually my mother wasn’t home from work till 5:30pm and father about a hour later. Fate, luck, timing?

A thought to keep in mind too. Teaching our kids knowledge about staying safe today will last their lives and pass onto their own children. Remember to tell your child these sites are ‘kid friendly’ and when they get older and wiser then they will be allowed to go onto the bigger internet.

Ensure they remember their safety rules and encourage them to share their safety knowledge with their friends. Help them remember the rules by having them recite them to you, weekly or during alone time. Teaching them about safety is our long term gift and contribution as parents. Read related —> here and there.

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Article(C)2009 Dame Scribe, all rights reserved. Dame Scribe creates articles and posts online. She creates articles on business skills & development, health, science, technology and society and has a strong passion for writing.