I know that when my children were smaller, I was always concerned about what they were doing on the computer (other than their homework!).  For a long time, I had the computer near the kitchen so that people were walking by at any time and even though that might seem to be the only thing you have to do to keep your children safe, there are others as well.

1. Have House Rules about Computer Use:  Have a list of rules for using the internet posted near the computer and they don’t do any good unless you enforce them!
2. Security Software:  There is a variety of security software available that might include parental controls, pop-up blockers, anti-spyware, anti-span and firewalls.  Also, learn how to look back into your “History” which will show you all the sites that have been accessed from that computer.
3. Computers in Open Area:  One of the best precautions I took was to have the computer out where anybody could walk by at any time and to make a point to go over while they were working.
4. Have Passwords:  Accounts should be in the parent’s names controlling passwords along with utilizing blocking and/or filtering devices.
5. Sit down with Student at Computer:  Go over with your children the sites they like to frequent and get a little familiar with them yourslef.
6. Find Sites for Them:  You might look for some ‘friendly’ sites for them to get homework help with and then ‘bookmark’ them so that they have some guidance when surfing the net.
7. Chat Rooms:  Chat rooms are not for the young at all and probably not the best thing for high school age either except for IM, etc. where they chat with their friends.  Warn them never to give out personal information (last name, address, phone number, etc.) and to never arrange a meeting without you no matter how ‘nice’ they are.
8. Spam:  Show your children what can cause spam by replying back to certain messages or to open attachments from people you don’t know.
9. Scary E-mails:  If you encounter any e-mails that are scary or have bad words they are to let you look at them so that you can delete them and/or take further actions.
10. Music Downloading:  Make sure your children know the difference between illegal copyrighted music and legal sites to download music from.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 8:56 am and is filed under Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.