Some Cyber Safety Tips For You To Consider
Do you have Internet access at home? Do your children have their own computers in their rooms? The chances are that you will answer yes to both questions. If you were asked about 10 years or so ago, your answer might have been different but in this day and age, it would be hard to find families without computers and Internet access. After all, the Internet is a very useful tool – even essential – to children’s education.
Of course, as with most things in life, there is a flipside to having the Internet easily accessible to our children. What with the issue of online safety and online predators, it is vital that parents should watch over their children’s online activities.
Linda Criddle, president of LookBothWays offers some safety tips as the school year begins. LookBothWays is a national online safety group. They have actually developed a curriculum for online safety and they offer them to concerned people and agencies. Let us look at some of the tips that they published on Market Watch.
Educate yourself. Set aside some time to become familiar with the devices your children use and the web sites they visit. Don’t know what Facebook is? Visit the site. Learn what kind of information–some of it very personal–children and others post on it and similar sites. Not sure what “KOTL” or other instant messaging lingo means? Sites like http://cyberpatrol.com/familysafety.asp can help.
I think that this is very important. There are some parents who are very much updated on what happens online, what is “in” and what is not. However, there are parents who do not have much time to pay attention to such things. This does not mean that we should not spend time finding out what our children are up to in their spare time. If you are not sure what your children are spending their time on, then I suggest that you get some research done yourself.
Communicate with your family. Once you know the kind of things your children are seeing and saying online, have a discussion about what kind of images are appropriate to view and what information and images are appropriate to share, and with whom. Even in this interconnected world, privacy is still something to be taught and valued.
Communication is very very important. This applies to other things as well – not just online safety. With regard to online safety, however, I think that it would be better to have an open channel of communication with your children so that you can guide them better.
These are only some of the tips that Linda Criddle presented. If you want to know more, you should read the rest of the Market Watch article yourself.
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Posted on September 8th, 2008 by Deborah J Thomas
Filed under: Administrators, High School, Internet, K-6, News, Parents, People Involved, School Grade Level, School Safety Issues, Students
Always say yes
A good resource for parents and educators is the video from the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee: http://www.youtube.com/youthvictimization.
Great resources to learn about Internet predators.