Child Safety on the Internet   

Over 30 million young people, between the ages of 10 and 17 go on the internet annually. Even though the internet is a wonderful tool to educate our young people it can also present an endangerment to them. All too often, parents are unaware of their child's internet usage and time spent in numerous chat rooms. Within these chat rooms they look for social connections and enjoy the attention given by perfect strangers. They think nothing of giving out personal information about themselves such as their age, where they live, where they go to school, what they look like, etc. Some even embellish this personal profile information to make a stranger think they are older than they are. Once a personal relationship is established on-line, invitations are often sent inviting the young person to meet up with the stranger. This in itself can lead to a dangerous situation.

Here are ten top tips for parents to help ensure the safety of their children who use the internet:

1. Keep the computer in a common room in the house, not in the child's bedroom. The computer screen should be facing towards the center of the room, not the wall. This will make it much more difficult for a computer sex offender to communicate with your child, when the computer screen is visible to parents or other members of the household.

2. Establish computer use and safety rules with your child, including time limits and what internet activities they are permitted to use. Make the rules the same for computer usage at a friend's house, library, or school as well.

3. Don't allow your child to meet with anyone they met online or to post or exchange photos of themselves.

4. Don't allow children to give out personal information about themselves such as age, sex, school attended, home address, phone number, name of parent workplace.

5. If your child has multiple email accounts, always maintain access to them and randomly check them. Be sure you know your child's account password.

6. Keep an updated list of online pals that you have authorized your child to communicate with and post it near the computer as a reminder on who is an approved person to speak with online.

7. Teach your child not to believe everything they read or see on the internet and that nothing online is really private.

8. If your child does receive sexually explicit material or an invitation to meet up with a stranger, report it to authorities.

9. Choose a safe screen name. Don't use ones that are flirtatious, suggestive, or vulgar. Don't use one that incorporates your real name, birth date, or gives out any personal information on the child.

10. Don't give out your child's password. If someone has access to the password, they can read the emails, obtain personal information about the child, change the password or even play pranks using the child's name.