Family Resources
It is important for children to have access to the internet. The internet can provide many wonderful and exciting learning opportunities for your children. It is an incredible tool that students can use to keep in touch with families and friends, perform research, and find information about anything they are interested in. The internet is a community within itself that is open to anyone with a computer and a connection.
Just like any community, the internet has dangers. These dangers can include harassment, bullying, cyber predators, identity theft, copyright infringement, or computer viruses to name a few. It is important for parents and children to learn effective strategies to avoid these dangers and provide a safe, responsible internet experience.
Here are some of the most common activities you may find your children performing on the web, some risks involved with these activities and strategies you can use with your children to minimize those risks.
Surfing the Web – Just by browsing the internet, children can come across websites with images, video and content that contain pornography, violence, racism, and other harmful information. A lot of times children will come across inappropriate content without even trying. Pop up adds that look appealing to children may lead them to harmful websites. Simple misspellings in searches can also lead them to these sites. It is very easy to access this sort of information.
Strategies: Talk to your Internet Service Provider about kid safe options. There are kid friendly search engines and kid friendly websites that help create a safe online experience for children.
Install filtering or blocking software on your computer that will help block unwanted content from appearing on the computer. It is important to note that while filtering software does block access to inappropriate sites, it is not 100% effective.
Talk to your children about what to do when they are exposed to inappropriate content. Encourage them to talk to you and let an adult know immediately when it appears on the computer.
Talk to your children about not clicking on pop up ads when they appear, especially if they contain harmful content.
Email – Electronic Mail is one of the most used forms of communication on the internet. It allows people to send messages to each other from virtually anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Documents, pictures and videos can be attached and sent along with the message. Some risks that are involved with email are exposure to computer virus, spam and phishing emails. Computer viruses can be sent as an attachment to an email. Children may open the attachment and unknowingly infect the computer with a virus. The virus may cause to computer to erase important files, give out personal information about you such as passwords and credit card numbers, or crash your entire computer system. Spam is also known as junk email. They are unsolicited messages that can clutter up your inbox. Phishing emails are scam messages that appear to be from legitimate websites, like a financial institution. These messages may ask you to enter your personal information such as a password, social security number or credit card. Once your information is entered, it is sent to someone who can then use that information to steal your identity.
Strategies:
Teach your children not to open any emails from people they do not know. Tell them that they should just delete the email or ask you to check it for them. Make sure that they do not open any attachments with emails from people they do not know. Scan email attachments using your antivirus software. Contact your internet service provider about how to block spam email. Never give out any personal information in reply to an email. Financial institutions or other legitimate website do not ask people for social security numbers, credit card numbers or bank accounts through a link in an email message. If you are not sure if the email is legitimate, play it safe by calling the financial institution by phone.
Check your credit report to make sure that no one has stolen your identity.
Social Networking Sites – Social Networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have changed the way people have communicated with one another. These sites and others like them allow you to create a profile about yourself and your hobbies. They allow you to upload images and video for others to see, keep an online diary or weblog (blog), and they allow users to communicate with each other with messages. The risks of social networking can include the child participating in online correspondence that is inappropriate or sexual in nature. Involving themselves in those situations and coupled with giving out too much personal information can particularly put children at risk to an “online predator”. Online predators will specifically target children through research of their online profiles and chats. Online predators will often lie about their age and true identity. They will initiate contact with children and begin what’s called the “grooming process”. The grooming process involves the predator forging a relationship with the child using the child’s interest and hobbies. They will sympathize with the child’s problems and begin to build their trust. The relationship might then progress on to phone conversations and then a face to face meeting in which a child can be assaulted.
Strategies:
Place the computer in a central location in your home. Keep the computer in a visible, high traffic area of your home. This way you can monitor what is happening and the places your children are going online.
Encourage your children to keep their online profiles private. There are ways to set up their online profiles so that only trusted friends can view their page.
Keep information private! Make sure that your child does not post any personal identifying information that others could use to locate them. Things like address, phone number, and school names should be discouraged.
Keep a safe screenname. Discourage the use of sexually expressive screennames. Make sure your child’s screenname does not include any personal identifying information such as their last name, gender or location. Go online with your kids and have them show you what they are doing. Get to know the information that they are putting online.
Talk to your kids about the dangers that can be associated with putting too much personal information online.
Encourage children to talk to you if they receive messages or begin a relationship online with someone they have never met before. If the messages become inappropriate or sexually explicit, make sure your child feels comfortable about approaching you and letting you know that this has happened. Contact the authorities if someone is being sexually explicit with your child online.
Encourage your child to never meet someone they have met online in real life without your permission first. If you do allow them to meet an online friend in person, go with them.
Instant Messaging – Instant Messaging, or IM, is a means of communication on the internet. Unlike email, people use instant message to communicate in real time. Both parties are online at the same time typing messages back and forth to each other. Instant messaging can be a great way for friends to communicate without the use of a phone and many teenagers use it as a main source of communication online. There are some risks involved with instant messaging including the exposure to cyberpredators and cyberbullies. Cyberpredators can search the profile a child makes up when they sign up for an IM account. The cyberpredator can then initiate contact with the child and begin the grooming process. A cyberbully might harass a child by sending them derogatory or threatening messages. There can also be a privacy concern that children need to be aware of. Instant messages can be copied and posted for anyone to see, they are not necessarily private conversations.
Strategies:
Discuss IM safety with your child. Teach them not to give personal identifying information in their profile account.
Encourage them to let you know if they were approached by someone they don’t know. Especially encourage your child to tell you if they have received sexually explicit or other inappropriate messages from someone online.
Get to know their cyberfriends! Many instant messaging programs have “buddy lists” which are groups of friends that your child communicates with. Get to know who your child is communicating with online just like you would get to know who their friends are in real life.
Encourage you child to tell you if someone has sent them a harassing or threatening message. Tell them not respond to the message and try to block the person from communicating with them again.
Online File Sharing
Peer-to-Peer networks (P2P) are networks that allow users to share files with each other. Users can download files from another person’s computer who is connected to the file sharing network. Users can upload files from your computer when you are connected. All types of files can be shared including documents, music, movies and software. Some risks associated with these networks are downloading a file with a computer virus, downloading inappropriate or harmful material, or copyright infringement. When you download a file from another user on a P2P network you do not usually know if the file may contain a virus that can infect your computer. You may also unknowingly be infecting other computers by sharing a file that contains a virus. Your child may also unknowingly download pornographic material from these sites. They may think they are downloading a video that they want to see, but it really contains pornography. It is also important to understand that file sharing of copyrighted materials without permission is illegal and the user could be subject to a lawsuit.
Strategies:
Talk with your child about the risks involved with online file sharing.
Check out the file sharing site your child wants to use. Make sure they do not offer inappropriate material that your child could download.
There are legitimate file sharing services out there for downloading music and video. Check those out and encourage your child to use them.
Posting Videos or Photos Online – With video sharing sites like YouTube and others, people are able to share videos of themselves, their families and their friends online. Social networking and personal websites also allow users to post videos and photos or use a webcam for a live chat. While it is an incredible and entertaining form of communication online, there are risks attached to it. Once a video or photo is made public online, it can be viewed, downloaded and used by just about anyone. Employers and college admissions officers have been known to check out social networking sites and videos online of their applicants.
Strategies:
Warn your children about posting identifying or sexually provocative photos of themselves or their friends. Once they post it online, they will have no control over who uses the images or what is done with them.
Warn your children that an embarrassing video they post online could hurt their chances at a future job or college acceptance. Once it is in the public domain, anyone can view it.
Encourage your children to talk to you if someone has made them feel uncomfortable or exposed them to inappropriate material during an online chat. Only allow them to video chat online with adult supervision.
Other Tips for Parents:
Talk to your kids about the internet. Find out what they like to do online. Keep the lines of communication open with them. If they think that they can’t approach you about a problem, or that you are just going to be upset with them, chances are that they will not tell you about it. It is important that your children think they can talk to you about any situation that happens online.
Surf the net with your kids. You will be surprised how much they can teach you about the sites they go to everyday.
Set limits on computer use. Students that seem to get in the most trouble on the internet are the ones who spend the most time on the internet. Get your child involved in other activities. Even Microsoft founder Bill Gates sets a limit on his daughter’s time online.
Make rules about computer use. Create a contract with your child about when they can use the computer, how long and for what purpose. Work with your child on the rules of computer use and listen to their input.
Learn about technology. Educate yourself about technical security, software, and other things you can do to keep your children safe. Do research online about ways you can set up your computer to make it safer. Learn about blocking, monitoring and filtering software.
Links for Parents:
www.isafe.org - A non-profit foundation dedicated to protecting the online experiences of youth everywhere. i-SAFE incorporates classroom curriculum with dynamic community outreach to empower students, teachers, parents, law enforcement, and concerned adults to make the Internet a safer place. Educators, students and parents can become i-SAFE internet safety certified.
www.netsmartz.org - Another non-profit foundation dedicated to internet safety. Contains lessons, games, and activities on internet safety for grades K-12. It also contains research and statistics about online risks and children. It is a great site to go on with your child.
Tips for Parents from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children – This site has strategies to help parents deal with online risks as well as the CyberTipline to report instances of child sexual exploitation.
http://msn.staysafeonline.com/parents/default.html - This site includes strategies to stay safe online, tutorials on how to keep your computer safe using software and a helpful glossary of internet terminology.
http://www.mass.gov/da/suffolk/internet_safety.html - The Suffolk County District Attorney’s internet safety website. This site includes a free downloadable book for parents all about internet safety. There is also information about Parental Control Software under the Information for Parents link.
