Ten Tips To Keep Children Safe Online

Author: Alyice Edrich

Every year, thousands of predators visit online gaming sites and child-friendly forums in search of children they can manipulate and hurt. To help keep your children safe on the Internet, ask them to follow these simple rules:

Never give out private information about yourself: such as your name, address, phone number, name of school, city where you live, normal everyday activities, or where your parents work.

Parents: It’s imperative that your children understand the seriousness of this action. According to a survey by the NOP Research Group, 29% of the children they surveyed had no problem giving out their home contact information.
Never use a sign-in or screen name that suggests something you’re not. In other words, stay away from sexy, provocative names that tend to draw unwanted attention.
Always pick sign-in or screen names that don’t identify who you are in real life. Avoid first and last names, cities, school mascots, etc.
Sign up using a free email service, like yahoo.com, for all online gaming and forum experiences (including chat rooms). And make sure mom and dad have complete access to that email account.
Never reply to emails from people you do not know. Many times emails come with viruses that can harm our computers. Other times, emails come from bad people trying to trick us into providing personal information they can later use to cause harm to our family and/or our finances.
If a person begins to bully you, or asks too many personal questions, notify mom and dad immediately. If this behavior continues, notify the site owner and/or your Internet provider. If the behavior causes enough alarm to be taken as a threat, contact the local police and Cyber Tip Line.
If you continue to get harassed by certain individuals, and they seem to follow you around from gaming site to gaming site, then locate a gaming site that allows you to set up a “group” gaming experience. In these groups, you only allow people you know and trust to play when you’re online.
Before signing up for anything, ask mom and dad to read the privacy policy, the rules, and any other information that may play a factor in giving out your private information or email address.
Never agree to meet anyone in person—ever! It doesn’t matter if you’ve been chatting with the person for one day or one year, you’re to never agree to meet up with anyone you’ve met on the Internet. If you’re really serious about meeting someone on the Internet, talk to mom and dad about this person, let mom and dad do a background check and make sure it’s a safe idea. And only make arrangements with mom and dad present—in other words, don’t go alone, even if mom and dad say it’s okay to meet this person, in-person!

Parents: Never assume that because you’ve put this rule in front of your child that he or she won’t be lured into meeting an online “friend” in person. According to a survey conducted by the Intelligence Group, Dateline, 58% of the teenagers they surveyed have been approached by someone asking to meet them in person. And according to a survey conducted by the Polly Klaas Foundation, half of the teenagers they interviewed actually met an online “buddy” in person!
If you violate any of the above rules, your computer privileges will be suspended and you’ll face restriction.