Digital Trends

Being online is part of the world of every kid these days. For teenagers it's the main way of communicating with friends (along with their cell phones), while younger ones use it for gaming (such things as Runescape, for example) and research. It's an inescapable fact of life, and kids spend an average of 16 hours a week online – a figure that continues to rise. But how safe are they in cyberspace?

According to a UK survey, 30% of kids have made friends online, and 8% have met face to face. 57% came in contact with online porn, mostly by accident. The US Internet Crimes Task Force has reported that in the last year over five and a half million kids received unwanted sexual solicitations while online. Put those figures together and they're quite disturbing; your kid is at risk.

Essentially, we can break kids into two groups – teens and those 12 and under. The latter we can do a lot to protect, but the former, well, that's a harder task. They're coming of age, more independent, and often more computer-savvy than we are. But for all they think they know, they're still socially naïve, and can be easily manipulated by predators of all kinds.

The Basics

With younger kids, keep the computer in the living room, where it's easy for you to supervise everything. Put a limit on how long they can be online each day, and make sure they adhere to it. Make sure you kids never share an e-mail address, or, if chatting online, that they never give their real name.

It's also important that they know not to register with any site unless they have your specific permission, and that if any situation arises where they feel uncomfortable, they should come and tell you immediately.

You should have a pop-up blocker, and make your children very aware that they should not click on any pop-up or link that appears on screen. With younger ones, have them come and fetch you if one shows.

Above all, take the time to talk to your children about things they can find online, and how dangerous it can be. Communication between parents and children can be a powerful tool in itself.

Built-In Protection

There are many things you can do to protect your family online, with all kinds of software available. But one of the easiest steps, although not always the best, is to use the controls built into the programs you use every day.

Windows Vista has addressed the problem well. Previously, with XP for example, each user account essentially gave that user administrator privileges. With Vista, parents can create logon accounts for their kids, but set the parameters for those accounts, such as what sites the kids can visit, what programs and games they can use, when and for how long they can use the computer, and the parent can also bring up a report on all of the child's activities. Nothing is surreptitious; if your child tries to access a forbidden site, the following screen appears:

Screenshot of Vista's Parental Control

Note that the child can ask the parent (administrator) for permission, although the parent will need to type in his or her password to grant it – so make sure your password isn't one your children can guess easily.

Whether you like Internet Explorer 7 or not, it does do a better job than its predecessor on parental controls. One great feature is download blocking, which stops your kids from accidentally downloading a virus, or illegal music, movies, etc. You can find it in the centralized parental controls setting panel. Instead of seeing the usual run/save/cancel dialogue box, kids receive a message that due to Parental Controls restrictions they can not download the item. If you're using IE6, you can activate the filters that are available by going Tools > Internet Options > Content, then in the Content Advisor box, select "Enable." You can block language, sex, violence and nudity by setting the sliding tool below the categories and clicking "Apply."

You can also configure various search engines to make them safer for kids. With Google, go to their home page, follow preferences, and in the section marked "Safe Search Filtering" click on "Use strict filtering (Filter both explicit text and explicit images)." Yahoo lets you switch on SafeSearch filtering from the Preferences page, and MSN also has a SafeSearch filter in the Settings page. These aren't perfect, by any means, but make a good start.

For younger kids, child-friendly search engines offer another choice. MSN has a page for kids with a search engine, as does Yahoo and NetNanny. In all cases, sites that can be searched have been vetted as appropriate for kids.

AOL, Earthlink and MSN all offer filtering, as do some other services. They're often effective against porn, but the nature of the filters can mean that informative sites are blocked – indeed, overblocking and underblocking are constant problems, although there are manual overrides for parents.