Internet Safety for Kids and Parental Control Software
Internet safety for kids today is challenging for parents today. Being a parent with kids online I know that keeping them safe is quite a challenge. Kids today face safety issues on social networking sites, cyber bullying, and online predators. So, as parents how to do we know our kids are safety online when we aren't around. How do we stay on top of internet safety for kids?
The first strategy is to understand what websites kids are looking at. As kids start to browse more of the interent they tend to explore just to see what they can find. Kids today find gaming sites and sites for chatting with other online. The problem is pedophiles frequent these sites. They go into chat room poising as a 15 or 16 year old. They talk to kids trying to arrange a meeting with them. Parent today need to review what websites their kids visit and if they are using IM looking to see who they have been taking to.
One of the best internet safety to help parents monitor children is using parental controls. Parent control software will monitor and log all the website kids visit and IM messages. Some of the feature of parents control software is setting up different profiles for kids. Kids who under the age of 10 should have very limited internet access. I don't let my 10 year old use Google. The filters can be setup to just allow access to kids sites.
Parents can also setup parental controls to block search results. This means parents can block a child from going to Google or a search engine and typing in SEX or XXX. The results will show on the page but all pages will be blocked from opening. This gives parents a lot of flexibility in what they want their kids to be searching. A log file will also track all words they searched for. This is great way to establish internet safety for kids.
Setting up time limit for kids is also another great was of internet safety for kids. Parent can setup time limits for kids when they can be online. You can setup the feature that turns on and off internet access at certain times. This means you can tell the computer at 10PM to terminate all internet access. The internet will stop working forceing kids to get off the computer. This is also a great way to assure kids don't spend all day online. Kids need to get daily exercise and some just sit in front of the computer all day. Establishing time limits will get kids more active.
These are three safety feature for parental control software. Parent control software can be a great extra source of extra protection. Internet security suites and dedicated parental control software have all of these features built in. Parents if you are looking for dedicated controls look at Cyber Patrol and NetNanny. Internet security suites like Kaspersky and Trend Micro are the best we have tested. Internet safety for kids starts with parents getting more involved. The more parents know about how their kids are using the internet the safer kids will be.