Your Children Online
A Guide to Online Parenting
by Scott Lamberty
May 13, 2008
Do you ever wonder, or fear, what your children on doing online these days? Do you ever wonder if there are ways to protect them while they are on the Internet? What do those funny acronyms mean? What about those cute little pictures (emoticons)?
Well, don’t be afraid, you’re in the majority of parents out there. As a parent of a soon to be teenage boy (and 3 young girls also on the Internet) who loves the Internet, I share many of the same fears.
Several websites have been developed to help ease our fears and to help you better protect our children while they are online; http://www.wiredsafety.org/ is one of those sites. Wired Safety will help to answer the above questions and will help you to be better informed Internet parent. To find other sites, simply go to www.google.com and search for Internet Safety.
Clicking on the above link to Internet safety will help you begin the process of “catching up” to your child’s online knowledge.
If your child is like mine, he/she might spend a good portion of online time on youtube (an online video networking site). The following is a short guide you can download to your computer that will help you deal with your child's youtube experience and make it a positive experience. Click the youtube download. There are thousands of great videos to watch with your children.
Your child might also be into the social networking sites such as myspace and facebook. Those sites allow people to communicate with each other and allow people to express themselves to the outside world. Click to download the social networking tips.
Since we are mostly all new to these types of online activities, the following guide is for general parenting online and even comes in spanish as well (spanish version).
The Internet doesn't have to be intimidating, but it does need to be used properly. Please police your children and set ground rules to be followed to keep them safe.
