Keep Your Kids Safe on the World Wide Web

You may be wondering how you can make the Internet safe for your kids. You'd like to protect them from the objectionable sites and emails that would be so easy for them to find.

Perhaps you'd like to buy a solution that you can use on your computer that will not allow them to look at objectionable sites, yet will allow them to freely browse.

Here's the bad news: filtering programs can't do the job by themselves. NentNanny and other applications like it search for certain words in the Web site your child is clicking on. Simple words like "belly" can be targets for blocking, causing frustration, while research on "breast cancer" may be impossible.

But programs that look for words fail completely if the site has no objectionable words–only objectionable photos. My teenage son figured this out. He used Google Images to look for objectionable sites. He found them despite the fact that our filter, NetNanny, was turned on.

The software could not have detected the objectionable photos, since NetNanny and similar software look for objectionable words. They are not able to evaluate pictures.

So, how can you protect your child?

• Keep your computers where you can monitor what the kids are doing. Put them in the kitchen or wherever YOU are.

*Have a login password that only the adults know. The kid has to have permission, and oversight, to use the computer.

*Require the child to log off when he is done. Now the password is required for the next session.

*Use NetNanny or a similar filter. It can only help.

*Kids should be told what you expect from them, and the consequences of disobedience.

*If a child is just using a word processor or some other local program, disconnect the Internet cable.

*Make younger kids use your email address. Then you can be sure to delete that filth that lands in the inbox from time to time. Or, as the kids get older, give them their own but instruct them to give out their address only to trusted friends.

Following these precautions will help you keep your kids safe, and will teach your teenagers good habits for avoiding temptations.