Web Safety: It’s Time To Be A Parent
If there’s one thing a kid needs, it’s a parent. That may sound odd, but how many adults do you know who have kids, but really aren’t a parent?
This is especially true when it comes to Internet safety.
Do you really take part in your child’s Internet activities? Do you know where they’ve been online and to whom they’re talking to? Seriously, when a computer is hooked up to the Web, it’s a window into a whole world of things AND it’s a window into your home.
Sometimes parents forget this one crucial piece of information. They’ve given their child their own computer in their room and they think they’ve done a good thing by making them happy. Okay, happy they may be, but are they safe? Are they getting to know other people that, if you met them in person, you’d run screaming the other way?
Sexual predators know this. They know parents tend to let kids have unsupervised Internet activity and use this to the fullest extent of their skills. They groom kids into trusting them, get to know more about them, send them gifts to dig their claws into their prey even deeper. Don’t let your child be another statistic.
I watched a video this morning where a woman explained that her husband of 10 years was a sexual predator. He wasn’t someone in a dark trench coat either — what some people still think sexual predators look like. No, this guy was a children’s dentist and got a long swimmingly with his patients.
She didn’t have a clue until she was told by authorities that he went out of the country on what she thought was a business trip, but was actually going to meet up with young boys to have sex. I’m not going to sugar-coat this. Parents have to realize this stuff goes on all the time and the Web has only made it worse.
The Web is just like fire — it can help you or burn you or a loved one. Don’t let that happen. Get to know where your kids are going online. You’d want to know where they’re going out on the street with their friends, right? This is no different.
I’ll be posting later this week steps you can take to help make for a safe Web environment. Please stay tuned.
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Comments
@Luke
Welcome to Family WebWatch and thanks for taking the time to comment. I also appreciate the links to other informative posts. 
Dear Ken,
Thank you for your posting on web safety. I especially agree with point 3. Explain to your child what’s acceptable and what’s not. There is a tool that makes that conversation easier for parents and teachers, Web of Trust.
Web of Trust is an online community for reputation rating that lets Internet users share their knowledge of websites. The Website Reputation Scorecard is a useful feature showing the underlying data of a website’s rating. The scorecard allows users to write comments and share their knowledge in a more concrete way. At WOT, we believe that this scorecard can be a valuable tool for parents, teachers and kids when deciding whether to visit a site or not.
WOT gets it site reputation data from two sources: ratings from the WOT community and trusted sources such as listings of phishing sites. Reputation data is recalculated every 30 minutes, so it’s fresh. Users have reported that the people-driven approach gives more accurate ratings than automated ones, especially reputation ratings regarding “vendor reliability” and “child safety” where human input is crucial.
Please check out our demo, and join the community for safer surfing.
Deborah,
Web of Trust
@Deborah
Welcome to Family WebWatch. Thanks for sharing this information. I’ll be sure to check it out.
Hi,
Being abused myself I can relate to this article, keep up the good work, and if you are interested check out some of my personal stories on child molestation.
Thanks,
Angie
@Angie
Welcome to Family WebWatch. Thanks for taking the time to comment and share. I browsed your site a little. You have a lot of courage and it’s good to see you helping others the way that you are.
Thank you for the article. As parents, we are terrified of anything wrong that could happen to our children, imagine kids being in danger in the safety of their own home. It´s too horrible to imagine. Thanks for the advice.
Excellent article. I think parents need to be educated more about the danger they are exposing their children to on the internet. There are so many risks that people don’t know how to safeguard them and their children from.
After a little loss of my identity theft(yahoo and paypal) i have learned the lesson. Who was the culprit, my son? or the person who hacked? I think it is internet itself. We love to shop and to do everything over internet. I think we should allow our kids a limited access to internet and site should have some criteria to know that.
@Ryan
I’m sorry to hear about your experience. I hope you have things worked out now between you and your son.
Welcome to Family WebWatch, btw.
Interesting read and kind of disturbing. I have no kids yet but I’m seriously thinking of allocating time maybe like 3 hours a day to surfing the Internet in a public area like the living room. Kinda scary what is available to them out there on the Net but I think being a good parent comes first. If you teach them right, then exposure to the bad stuff won’t be very harmful. JMHO.
@incognito
Welcome to Family WebWatch!
Kudos to you for being a concerned parent (even if you’re not one right now). Indeed, the Web can be as useful as it can be destructive. I love being online. I wouldn’t have a job without, nor would I have the ability to do so many other things without it. But used wisely it can really be beneficial to families.
Excellent article. I think parents need to be educated more about the danger they are exposing their children to on the internet. There are so many risks that people don’t know how to safeguard them and their children from.
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Great thoughts! Parents need to take responsibility for their children and Internet safety in their home.
For more information on children’s Internet safety, check out the Breaking Free blog. I’d love to hear your comments!
1. Safety Tips for Parents: http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/2008/03/25/a-parents-guide-to-internet-safety-for-children/
2. Online Predators: http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/2008/04/03/protecting-kids-online-the-myths-and-realities-of-online-predators/
3. Cyberbullying: http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/2008/04/07/cyberbullying-the-new-playground/