Internet Safety: How to Protect Your Family

Remember using your home encyclopedia set for schoolwork? If you didn't own a set, you had to do research at the library. With the Internet connected in your home, your children can produce terrific reports without having to carry heavy books or leave home. At the same time, the Internet can invite dangerous strangers into your home and deliver pictures and content that is not appropriate for your children. How can you protect your family? You can start by developing safe practices for your children to follow and then look for additional help from software you buy.

Examples of family-safe Internet practices are:

• Set up your computers in visible areas of your house
• Develop rules in your family for Internet use, including sharing information, chat room visits, and Web sites that are off-limits
• Let your children know why you have specific rules and how bad people can harm your children
• Spend time with your children on the Internet and get to know how the programs they use work
• Only allow your children to give out personal information with your permission
• Read the privacy policies of Web sites asking for information
• Let your children know they should not respond to instant messages that make them feel uncomfortable
• Train them to stop responding and get an adult if someone asks them for personal information or something suspicious happens to your children while on the Internet
• Ask your children to share both good and bad Internet experiences with you

Software Tools
You may choose to use a special filter or browser to help protect your kids from strangers on the Internet, but always remember that no computer program you get to protect your family is foolproof. Different programs have different features; make sure your program has the features you find most important.

What you can do with your web browser:

• Customize your current browser to limit what Web sites your children can look at
• Install a Web browser designed for kids

What a filter does:

• Blocks your access to inappropriate sites
• Supports multiple users so you can have a different filter for each of your children, based on what you want them to see
• Blocks your child's personal information from being posted or e-mailed
• Blocks or filters access to certain chat rooms
• Prevents your children from downloading images and files to your computer
• Limits the amount of time your child spends online or blocks out certain times of the day

Note: Some people who run a Web site will voluntarily fill out a questionnaire regarding their Web site's content. The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) marks these registered sites with hidden labels. These labels aid in filtering. However, since labeling is voluntary, not all sites are labeled.

You can also find software that monitors your child’s use of the Internet when you're not looking. This software:

• Records addresses of sites your children have visited
• Records e-mails, instant messages, chat sessions, and passwords
• E-mails you the recorded information

Supervision and Trust
Even after you develop safe Internet practices for your children and protect them with software, there really is no substitute for supervision. Spend time with your children so that you can trust them to follow your rules and to come to you if they run into any troubles while surfing the Internet.