There's no need for paranoia when you and your kids go online: just a little commonsense and some basic ground rules. Here are some suggestions that will help make your time online purely pleasurable.
- Talk. Talk about the dangers and your fears as well as your wonderful discoveries and experiences online. Encourage your child to talk about their surfing. Discuss any guidelines or rules you establish for computer usage.
- Learn enough about the Web to understand what your child is experiencing. Don't let fear bred by ignorance of technology limit your child's chance to explore and make use of resources.
- Place the family computer in a general living area so you can monitor your children's online activities unobtrusively.
- Accompany very young children when they go online.
- Spend time online with your older children. Offer to swap favourite sites. Check out suspect sites together.
- Establish a set of rules or a contract for computer usage for children.
Some things you may want to cover are:
* types of sites they can and cannot visit;
* courses of action to take when they encounter suspicious sites or activity (such as someone asking for their real name, address or phone number);
* ways to deal with uncomfortable, threatening or hurtful postings and interactions online;
* types of online activities that are allowable (surfing, chatting, e-mail, shopping, downloads, instant messaging, and so on);
* types of information they can divulge to others online;
* whether they can erase the browser cache or history;
* length of time they can spend on the computer and online;
* ways in which you'll respect their privacy if they stick to the guidelines.
- Make agreement to abide by the rules a pre-condition for using the computer.
- It's highly likely that your child will (eventually) know more about your computer than you do, and will be able to track your activities just as you can track theirs. If you visit sites you want them to avoid, keep this in mind.
- Teach your child to question the reliability of information online and to dig for sources. Teach yourself to do the same thing!