Steps
Toward Making Your Computer “Weirdo-Proof”
It’s
an unfortunate fact of reality, but children are the most victimized computer
users on the Internet today. The good news is that there are some practical
steps you can take to protect your children from sexual predators, hackers, and
other seedy individuals who want to cause harm. This article will describe a
few of them.
The
first step in protecting your children at the computer is to prevent their
access to passwords. This will keep them
from sharing passwords with others and inadvertently enabling hacking into your
system. If you think about it, there’s no reason why a five, seven, or even
twelve year old needs to know the passwords to sensitive areas on the computer
unless you’ve given them permission! In fact, children don’t need to know the
password used to access the Internet either. It may be a hassle to type it in
each time they want to get online, but it’s better to know the times that they
connect than to have them sneak online without your permission and knowledge of
their activities.
The
second step towards protecting your children online is using the computer
together. Siting next to your child while he or she peruses the Internet, you
can guide him or her to make safe and intelligent decisions. You can approve
websites and bookmark them together. You can monitor the conversations your
children have with their friends and teach them appropriate online behavior at
the same time. You can make recommendations and create a private time for
quality time as well.
The
third step involves blocking access to inappropriate areas altogether. You and
your children may not always agree about what’s appropriate, but as a guardian,
you’re in control and you’re ultimately responsible for their safety. Take the
time to investigate software tools that put you in control and allow you to
block access to certain websites. If you use an online service like AOL
(America Online), you can use its internal Parental Control settings to block
access to various chatrooms and websites. You could even block instant
messaging and email from anyone who isn’t a fellow AOL user.
Other
tools available online operate similar to the way that AOL’s Parental Control
settings work, however no collection of tools could replace the reinforcement
of mom and dad. Never let your children speak with strangers and never leave
them alone at the computer unattended. Children just don’t have the experience
that adults have and they don’t have the skills required to handle
inappropriate conversations, emails, or images found online.
NOTE:
Some of these tools include kid-specific web browsers that will visit
pre-approved websites. Others include browser plug-ins that won’t allow access
to online areas that contain forbidden keywords.
Another
step requires teaching your children to never ever volunteer personal
information. Under no circumstances, should children give their personal names,
home addresses, phone numbers, or school information to anyone over the Internet
regardless of the situation. In the even
this information is required to enter a contest of some sort, be sure that
you’re the one who makes the decision to supply it and that you’re the one who
does it.
Performing
all of these steps won’t be easy. However you can help minimize resistance to
your monitoring efforts by explaining why you’re taking these precautions.
Smaller children will probably enjoy the time you spend together at the
computer, but older children and pre-teens may resent it. To help build a case
for your concern, you might want to show your older children a few news stories
that exemplify the dangers that unsupervised children are exposed to. The
newspaper is unfortunately full of examples but with your help, we can reduce
them world-wide.
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