Help our Children

One of the greatest resources for information is also the Internet. Also one of the greatest dangers facing our children is the Internet. We as parents now have to be more diligent and aware of the dangers and the solutions out there to keep our children safe.

Some of the dangers include:

Identity theft
Abduction
Hate literature & e-bullying
Dangerous Internet games called pass out, space monkey and the chocking game.
Explicit immoral content
Programs that can be accidently downloaded that compromise the integrity and security of your personal information
Loss of financial resources due to unmonitored use of the Internet

That sounds like quite a list of bad stuff and it is. Here is how some of it works:

There are news reports from some IT sites children as young as 13 years old have had their identity stolen. There are social networking sites out there that require profiles be made so that the children (and adults) can interact with each other. MSN, Youtube, MySpace, and Flickr are just a couple of the sites out there that are considered social networking sites. These sites are a bank of information that a tech savvy crook can use to steal your child’s information, get a social insurance number, credit card, passport, and then proceed to do illegal activities, run up financial bills, etc. If the child is young, they many not find out for years that this has transpired and then it is too late.

Some sites ask that your child log on, fill out information to possibly win something like an IPOD or XBOX. If your computer is also used as a fax machine and can hook up to phone line, there have been instances where the web site program actually dials some far away place (long distance charges then apply) and the destination site will also bill your phone like some of the dating sites do at whatever $ per minute and you are stuck with the phone bill.

Recommendations

Monitor and restrict what your child has access too. Here is a set of guidelines as to what a child should have access too and at what age:

Ages 2-3: - don’t really need Internet
Ages 4-7: - still no real reason for Internet, but maybe some child related online sites fit
Ages 8-11: - direct interaction with Internet for school starts as do friends and chats
Ages 12-14: - direct interaction with more refined search skills required, still chat
Ages 15-18: - Increased skills and curiosity will enable dangerous activity on the Internet

Some Rules for Internet Use:

Limit the use of the computer short periods of time …. After the homework is done
Chat Lines should be discouraged (see our MSN page)
Make sure that no "sharing programs" are used on the computer to ensure data integrity
Make sure that you never send a picture of you or your family over the Internet
Make sure that all of your virus definitions are up to date and your children have been instructed on what to do when they encounter a virus
In the beginning share e-mail addresses with your children so you can train them in netiquette (and keep track for safety reasons)
Keep track of the history files in your web browser
Don’t be afraid to pull computer privileges for not abiding by the family internet rules, there are still books available to do school projects
Some setup Recommendations for the Home workstation
Make sure that the computer is placed in a central location for monitoring purposes
Make sure that you have the proper securities such as firewalls and Anti-Virus protection is concerned
Make sure that you are aware of how to track any movement using the firewall software, or hardware solutions that you implement (Keep in mind that if your child has been to the site, they have seen the images, the damage is done)

If there is an issue with too much time spent on chat sites, we can now offer a home based per computer solution that we are sure parents will appreciate. We recommend limited time on Chat sites. Call and ask us how it can be implemented.