• Home
• About

Custom Search

Keeping You Child Safe Online

The internet can be a dangerous and scary place.  Even for those of us fluent in “geek”.

When my family first got connected (in the yesteryear of 1998), my mother was a huge ball of nerves.  She was convinced I was going to get stalked, kidnapped and a thousand other grizzly fates (and some I honestly still can’t figure out how she came to those conclusions).  Although, she’s calmed quite a bit in the years since she’s still a bit anxious when it comes to anything online.

Although, our connection has changed from the beast that was called AOL I’ve noticed a lot of the same fears still in many parents.  Surprisingly, it might not be the outside sources that you need to be worried about as much as what your child is showing on their profile (at least according to one study):

More than half of today’s teens make references to sex, alcohol, drugs or violence in their online profiles, according to new research out Monday. In a 2007 study of 500 publicly available MySpace pages created by 18-year-old Americans, researchers found that 54 per cent mentioned or showed pictures of risky or unhealthy behaviour. Sexual content showed up in 24 per cent of the pages, 41 per cent of the pages included drug use, 37 per cent alcohol and 14.4 per cent violence. 

From this article.

I will say the fears are (or at least can be very real) there are things you can do to protect your kids in the vast world of the internet (without being a spy). My daughter is still a bit to young to be worrying about  her online activities (15 months old) but the day will come.

There is a solution:

*If your child has a MySpace or any social networking page, ‘make’ them to add you.  Also get them to keep their pages privacy set to private. Check it often.

The general rule of thumb I’ve always used what don’t put forth what you wouldn’t want your mother and/ or grandmother seeing (and yes it has stopped me from posting up anything insanely out there many a time).

Another helpful thing is to have the computer set up in a high traffic area (the living room, for instance).

Does anyone else have any helpful tips on keeping you child safe online?  If so, feel free to post them.

Related posts:

1. Keep Your Child Holiday ‘Party Safe’
2. How to Find Safe Baby Gifts

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.