Net Surfing With the Kids
Parents have a few choices to make when it comes to introducing their children to computers and the Internet. Surely No. 1 is choosing to be closely involved with a child’s computer education and potential Internet interests.
Nowadays, your kid will find a way to get onto a computer, somewhere, with or without your guidance. You could assume that your boy or girl will do quite well on his or her own, but that is the moral equivalent of dropping a child off in Chatsworth and expecting him to find his way to Disneyland.
The problem of kids and the Net is that there are depravities as well as wonders out there. Some sites attract the curious with “search bait”: innocent words or even children’s story titles that lead to pornography.
Software to block access to porn has been on the market for years but hasn’t always worked. Now there are better options and more of them to choose from. A variety of Yahoo-style search engines avoid hate-, violence- or sex-oriented Web pages. Other programs have links to as many as 118,000 approved sites. Among the sites are KidsClick!; Awesome Library; Berit’s Best Sites; OneKey Kid Safe; Searchopolis; Super Snooper and Study Web. Two others to review are the Web pages www.netmom.com/ and www.safekids.com/. The latter offers good advice on what to look out for when your child makes friends with strangers in online chat rooms.
Parents should visit the sites that their kids visit and offer watchful guidance. They can take the initiative and introduce their children to computers and the Net--or let someone or something else do that without their knowledge. Make the first steps count.
