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Featured Guest Series

by Todd Jordan

In those days, things were much simpler.

When we were growing up, what our parents worried about, when trying to keep us safe, is much different than what parents need to know today!

What Has Changed?

Parents once focused on keeping kids safe in their neighborhoods and warning them of the dangers of talking to strangers. Today’s parents still must warn and educate their children about strangers, with the difference being, that strangers now have global access. Threats can come from around the corner, a neighboring state, or across the country. Our access to the online world predominantly comes through the use of our web browsers. Popular web browsers include: Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox.

Through these browsers, our children don’t just have access to read content, but to view photos, download music, and to privately chat. The ability to be watchful is quickly exceeded and becomes out of our immediate reach! So what are we to do? It’s no longer as simple as keeping questionable things physically out of their reach.

Your Online Safety Arsenal

Their are numerous tools and ways for parents today to keep their children safe online. A child’s safety can be increased considerably by implementing some or all of the suggestions in our new series "Keeping Kids Safe" online. The series will consist of three main articles which are outlined below.

Keeping Kids Safe Series

Part 1: Keeping Kids Safe – Parental Control Software
Part 2: Keeping Kids Safe – Internet Browser Replacements
Part 3: Keeping Kids Safe – Increased Knowledge of Internet Safety In this first article, "Part 1: Keeping Kids Safe – Parental Control Software" we will use NetNanny software for our case study. Parental control software is designed to control and filter access to the internet. Let’s examine what it is and how it is used. More… »

Featured Guest Series

by Todd Jordan

In part one of this series, Keeping Kids Safe – Parental Control Software, I talked about software suites like NetNanny. These aren’t the only tools available to parents. For those of you who are less technically inclined who may find a package of programs complicated, browser replacements are much easier to manage.

Internet Browsers

The majority, over 80%, of internet users are using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to access and visit web sites, with a handful more using other browsers. In most cases, concerned parents are not given the expertise nor are the parental control settings adequate in these browsers. To make life a little easier for parents, especially those with younger children, easy to use browser replacements are available.

Locating And Evaluating Browser Replacements

It’s easy to locate these browser replacements by doing a good search engine search. Here is the search criteria that I used. I would like to point you to a couple of promising choices:

• KidRocket
• KidZui

I’ve only mentioned two, but there are several choices available. The key point to understand is that each bowser offers a different experience at a different price. It is worth your time to spend a little time evaluating the differences and finding the right choice for your family.

More… »

Featured Guest Series

by Todd Jordan

In the previous articles we’ve talked about a variety of tools you could use to keep your kids safe online. There are browsers, suites, and toolbars, but each requires something not included in the package.  

That something is parental involvement.

Increase Your Knowledge

Internet safety is more about knowledge of the pitfalls and coming along side children instead of waging a war of prevention.  Each of the tools already mentioned require downloading, installing, setup, and monitoring.

That said, they lull parents into a false sense of security.  They make us tend to set and forget, and hope for the best.  What can we do to step out off attrition mode?

Get safety smart and get involved.

Get Safety Smart … Get Involved

So what’s a parent to do to get educated and take part?

I recommend play!   You can have a good time and learn a bit at the same time, so dig in!

Get an account on your kid’s favorite network  – (let’s take Faceboook for example, very popular these days)

 Step 1:  Set up your profile

1. Don’t share your birthdate – real friends will know, for the rest it doesn’t matter

2. Don’t share your phone number – again, your real life friends should already have this

3. Leave the address information blank – it adds no value, and those that need to know do

4. Leave the Political views blank – not only do your friends know, this is a magnet for trouble

5. Religious views – this is a safe one to fill in – but realize this won’t ward off folks of opposite beliefs

6. Instant message – leave it blank to start with

7. Work and college info – leave it blank – this is not picked up on by Facebook except for ads – there is no automatic connection with others involved

       
      A little more common sense about our profile

• What is in your profile is visible and searchable by others, at least in part?

• When you make someone a contact, they have much higher access to your profile information.

• Leaving fields blank isn’t dishonest. (Don’t be trapped into the myth that only predators keep information private)

• Anything shared with your profile that’s public is not only searchable, but likely to be permanently available in Internet archives.

More… »