I read a gut-twisting article this week in the South Australian Herald Sun
about several adults, including parents, who were arrested for creating
and selling child pornography on the Internet. The writer had a really
good point near the end of the piece that is worth reiterating: "No
matter how young your children are and how innocent their internet games
may seem, if they're able to chit-chat to other game-users, it's
possible they're interacting with predators."
So feeling rather disturbed about the booming online exploitation of children and youth, I put the issue to some of my techno-geek programmer friends to see what they think parents can do to keep their children safe on the Web.
One of the geeks summed it up nicely. He said, "The only way to guarantee safety online for children is to keep them off the World Wide Web. Every point of access via the Web introduces vulnerabilities. The only way to guarantee no vulnerability is to eliminate all access."
If that's true, that online games are a risky place for children to play, then how do we keep our children safe online?
#1. Never let them surf alone. It sounds counterintuitive. We parents use online games to keep our kids busy so that we can do other more important mom and dad stuff. But, think about it. Would you send your child downtown to hang out by herself while you do the dishes or wash the car? Internet surfing and chatting should be 100% supervised until you know your kids can handle themselves.
#2. Talk about Internet safety. Discuss scenarios just like you would if you were explaining what to do if approached by a stranger. Tell your child to let you know if anyone makes uncomfortable contact with them on the Web and keep the lines of communication open.
#3. Create an Internet safety plan for the whole family. When your children are mature enough to be on the Web without your supervision, create a plan that defines usage, limits and safety rules for surfing and stick to it as a family.
#4. Get Web-savvy. If you are not able to surf the Web with confidence, you need to change that. Ideally, parents should be more confident or at least as equally confident as their children when it comes to all things Internet.
#5. Just say no! If your child is not mature enough to play freely on the Internet and you don't have time to supervise, just say no and get them on a non-Internet connected game. Or get them on a safe, protected online game which doesn't allow access to a browser or have chat or email.
So feeling rather disturbed about the booming online exploitation of children and youth, I put the issue to some of my techno-geek programmer friends to see what they think parents can do to keep their children safe on the Web.
One of the geeks summed it up nicely. He said, "The only way to guarantee safety online for children is to keep them off the World Wide Web. Every point of access via the Web introduces vulnerabilities. The only way to guarantee no vulnerability is to eliminate all access."
If that's true, that online games are a risky place for children to play, then how do we keep our children safe online?
#1. Never let them surf alone. It sounds counterintuitive. We parents use online games to keep our kids busy so that we can do other more important mom and dad stuff. But, think about it. Would you send your child downtown to hang out by herself while you do the dishes or wash the car? Internet surfing and chatting should be 100% supervised until you know your kids can handle themselves.
#2. Talk about Internet safety. Discuss scenarios just like you would if you were explaining what to do if approached by a stranger. Tell your child to let you know if anyone makes uncomfortable contact with them on the Web and keep the lines of communication open.
#3. Create an Internet safety plan for the whole family. When your children are mature enough to be on the Web without your supervision, create a plan that defines usage, limits and safety rules for surfing and stick to it as a family.
#4. Get Web-savvy. If you are not able to surf the Web with confidence, you need to change that. Ideally, parents should be more confident or at least as equally confident as their children when it comes to all things Internet.
#5. Just say no! If your child is not mature enough to play freely on the Internet and you don't have time to supervise, just say no and get them on a non-Internet connected game. Or get them on a safe, protected online game which doesn't allow access to a browser or have chat or email.
Laura Thomas is the Director of Writing for http://Cackleberries.com
which is a 100% safe place for children to play and learn on the
Internet. While Cackleberries' application is Internet enabled and
self-updating, access is restricted to private servers and private
content. Children are never presented with links they can click on to
open random web pages in a standard browser. There is no
player-to-player contact in the game, so no predator can connect with
children in the game.
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