Your Child and Internet Safety: a Resource for Parents


comp_photo.jpgThis page is a collection of links, opinions, reviews, and news regarding internet safety for children. We focus primarily on issues affecting grade school age children (and occasionally tween and teenagers). The opinions expresses herein are not those of the Lower Lab School or Lower Lab School PTA but of the respective writers.

Education and supervision are essential
The two most under-appreciated and under-utilized techniques for ensuring "safe surfing" and "safe computing" in general for children are:
  • Educating children to the problems and perils, so they know what to avoid and what to look out for.
  • Parental supervision of a child's activities on the Internet including Web surfing, downloading, email use, instant messaging, and participation in chat rooms.
No software will ever substitute for these actions. We recommend that the computer used by children in the family be placed in a family room NOT in the child's room or out of the way study.

 

Online Resources
Netsmartz Workshop: Keeping Kids Safer on the Internet
Family Web Safety advise from Kids Fighting Chance and Earthlink
Cyberbullying "mobilizing educators, parents, students, and others to combat online social cruelty"
GetNetwise "the challenge is to stay 'one-click' ahead of would-be pornographers, hackers, child-predators and those who would misuse your and your child's sensitive information. GetNetWise can help."

Kid Friendly Search Engines
Ask Jeeves for Kids
Ask your questions in plain English and Jeeves will find the answer for you.
Education World
Search over 500,000 Web resources. The opening screen is somewhat teacher-centric, but the search results tend to be strong.
KidsClick
Search over 600 categories for Web kid-friendly Web sites reviewed by librarians.
Yahooligans
Monitors its list of web sites to ensure all are child friendly.

Links to internet safety software
Kidzmail email mac/pc
Specter Pro emails, chatroom, keystroke, website monitor pc/mac
Bumpercar web browser mac
Norton Internet Security pc/mac
AOL Parental Controls (aol customers only) pc
Earthlink Parental Controls (earthlink cutomers only) pc
McAfee Internet Security Products pc
CyberPatrol pc
Net Nanny pc
Surf Control pc