On the heels of the announcement that Harvard’s Berkman Center is creating a task force to study security applications, Verizon has announced a partnership with Web Wise Kids to teach kids how to safely and responsibly use wireless phones. Unlike the Harvard study, I think this is a much more appropriate use of money to work towards keeping kids safe.
But at the same time, now parents have yet another place that they could get information on keeping their kids safe online. In fact, if you search the term “family internet safety” on Google, you get over 4.2 million results. As a parent, how can you possibly be able to digest all these different messages?
I recommend reviewing the safety messages from a few different organizations. I think you’ll see that many of them carry similar advice for internet safety. Some of these include don’t give out personal information, keep the computer in a central location of the home, make sure your security software is up to date and monitor what your kids are doing online.
As a parent, you need to take this advice and apply them to your own family. Every family has it’s own needs. Perhaps you need a kid-safe browser for the youngsters, or perhaps your little ones cannot go online unless you are sitting with them. Both of these methods will help ensure that your child only participates in approved activities.
It gets trickier as your kids get older. Many families choose to monitor what their kids are doing online with the aid of software. In fact, I need to take a moment to applaud some parents from Wausau, Wisconsin. The parents went out of town and left their teenage daughter at home. They were monitoring her MySpace page and learned that she was planning an underage drinking party. The parents returned early from their trip, called the Sheriff to report the party. In fact, the deputies issued 29 underage drinking citations at the house.
I think this is a great example of responsible parenting. They suspected something was wrong, investigated and when they discovered that indeed there was a problem. And, there were consequences not only for their daughter, but also her friends.
Obviously your child might not be in the exact same situation, but the overall lesson is the same. If you suspect there is a problem, there very well could be. And perhaps you don’t think there is anything wrong, but wouldn’t you be happier if you verified those thoughts through facts that you could get by monitoring their use of the internet?