Internet Safety Tip #3

One of my favorite musicals is Meridith Wilson's The Music Man. In it, Harold Hill forms a boys band in order to protect the youth of River City, Iowa from the evils of the world.

As parents, we all want to keep our children 'pure'. The internet makes it much harder to keep our children safe. Our children need to be on the internet to do school work. We need to limit what they have access to while letting them get their work done. Unless you are willing to sit with your children whenever they are on the internet, it can be very difficult to control where they go and what they do.

Fortunately, there is an answer. Many internet security suites have parental controls built into them. These programs will by default, prevent access to adult web sites, chat rooms, web mail and other locations where your children could be harmed.

These programs need to be customized after being installed. By default, they lock down much of the internet. As a parent, you will need to decide what to leave locked down and what to open up. Parental controls software also includes the ability to log the web sites that have been both blocked and visited. Many of the programs can also control what time of the day the internet is available.

If your internet security program does not include a parental controls feature, there are many free and paid programs available. One of the free ones is from K9 Web Protection (http://www1.k9webprotection.com/). Other options include Net Nanny (netnanny.com), CyberPatrol (http://www.cyberpatrol.com/) and Safe Eyes http://www.internetsafety.com/safe-eyes-parental-control-software.php). Read about each product, decide which one will work best for you and install it on your computer.

To learn more about cyberstalking and other online threats, read the articles "Teens online: Easy Prey for cyberstalkers" (http://www.examiner.com/x-21588-LA-Cyber-Safety-Examiner~y2009m9d3-Teens-online-Easy-prey-for-cyberstalkers) and "Beyond Parental Controls (http://www.macworld.com/article/136339/2008/10/parentalcontrols2.html).