Keep Kids Out of Cyber Trouble

This post is from our friends at Safe Eyes.

We blog a lot about the dangers out there, and there are so many
that take so many different forms it can at times seem overwhelming.
Because of this we decided to isolate six problem areas and give
parents one really useful strategy for dealing with them. These
strategies are just a starting point, and please visit our tips section for more.

• Sexting – The increasingly common practice of
  sending sexually suggestive text messages, photos or videos through
  cell phones is a big worry. It can invite public humiliation,
  cyberbullying or even sexual assault. Teenagers are even being charged
  with child pornography for sending or posting racy photos. One way to
  limit children’s sexting opportunities is to retrieve their cellphones
  at night and charge them in the parents’ room. Phones today are simply
  small computers, and they should be regulated in the same way as those
  larger machines.

• Social Networking – Rule #1 is that children
  should never post anything they wouldn’t be comfortable showing to
  their parents, teacher, or youth worker. One way to discourage
  inappropriate entries is to join the social networks that your kids are
  on and ‘friend’ your own children so that you can monitor what they’re
  posting.

• Chatting – Chat rooms are not only nesting places
  for predators, but they often indirectly encourage rude and even
  abusive interactions between users due to the anonymity and lack of
  consequences. If your child is using chat rooms, find out which ones
  and check them out for yourself. If you are uncomfortable with specific
  chat sites, you might consider using filtering software to block access
  to those sites or log all chats for later review.

• Gaming – Increasingly popular MMOGs (Massive
  Multiplayer Online Games) like Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft are
  massively addictive, with reports of non-stop sessions as long as 48 or
  72 hours. To prevent the unhealthy practice of spending more time in a
  virtual world than a real one, parents should either refuse to buy
  these games or impose time limits. (The American Academy of Pediatrics
  recommends no more than two hours of screen time per day per child 12
  and under.) If the child breaks the rules, simply uninstall the game
  from the computer or confiscate the disc.

• Searching – On most popular search engines
  including Google, the safe-search settings aren’t completely effective
  and are easy to turn off. For that reason, younger children should not
  have a computer in their room, and their computer use should be
  supervised. Filtering software can also protect both younger and older
  children from exposure to websites with adult, violent or other
  inappropriate content.

• File-Sharing – Peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing
  networks such as BitTorrent, uTorrent, Bearshare and Limewire allow
  totally unregulated access to files that other network members have
  shared, including illegal pirated material and child pornography, not
  to mention opening computers to security risks. Banning these programs
  in your home is a good idea. Check your family computer periodically to
  be sure that no one has downloaded any of them, and remove them if they
  have.