Parents 

What are the dangers?

1. Exposure to inappropriate material.
This may be sexual,  violent , hateful, dangerous or illegal.

2. Provision of personal information .
A child could, whilst online provide information or arrange meetings which could, in extreme circumstances put themselves or a member of their family at risk.

3. A child could be harrassed through bully ing or distressing email,  or chatroom or bulletin board encounters.

4. A child could do something which has legal or financial consequences eg giving out a parent's credit card details.

5.  A child could inadvertently open files received through email which contain computer viruses.

What should a Parent Do?

Firstly it would be easy for a parent to lay down the law to such an extent that  they may put the child off using the internet at all.  That would be a pity because there are so many more benefits to using the internet than there are risks.  The internet can be exciting and informative and of enormous value in helping your child to learn.

Here are some suggestions of how you might proceed by giving your child advice and setting sensible rules:
Advice

• Don't give out name, address, mobile phone number, passwords
• Do NOT meet someone you have contacted online UNLESS you have your parents permission and they are present when you meet.
• Don't open emails from people you don't really know or trust and don't open any  email attachments without asking your parents.  These could contain viruses or  unsavoury images or text.
• In chat rooms, stay in the public areas.  Do not have private conversations.  If you are not sure about someone you are chatting with then get out of the chat room altogether.
• Tell your parent if something online makes you feel uncomfortable or worried.

About  Rules

• If  you do set rules then discuss them with your child and post them beside the computer.
  

• Set reasonable times when the computer can be used and ensure that your child only spends a sensible number of hours each day on the computer.  
• Be clear about what you consider to be unacceptable information.
• Be clear about what you consider unacceptable online use of the computer.
• Tell them they must never download any files without your approval.  Explain the dangers of  computer viruses.
• Explain in advance that you will monitor your childs compliance to the rules.  It may help if you ensure that the computer is located in a place which is well used by you and makes monitiring easy without being too obtrusive.

What Else Could I Do?  Add Child Protection Software?
You could add some "automatic safety features" to your computer by  installing some child protection software.  However ,  you may have to pay for this and to date there is not software which will give you child 100% protection.
Here are a few links to software which helps filter objectionable material from the Internet.



Other Advice & Support.
There are plenty of web sites on the internet which offer advice and support in trying to protect your children from dangers online.  The following are worth a look:

Disney's CyberNetiqutte Page: An entertaining comic that helps teach families cyber safety

Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace: A web site with advice and sample book  chapters by Internet child safety advocate Donna Rice Hughes

NetParenting.Com: Designed to "brush you up on the basic features of the internet that you and your child may or may not know."

Internet Watch Foundation (based in United Kingdom).

 SafeSurf  An "organization dedicated to making the Internet safe for your children."