Be Web Aware
By Jeff Bourque
www.thecomputergeek.ca
For those of us who grew up with radio and television as our primary connections to the world, learning to protect ourselves - and more importantly, our children - from sexual predators, spam and con artists on the Internet can be a daunting task. Kids understand technology and they use the Internet differently than adults, so it is not surprising that parents often feel at a disadvantage.
While monitoring your children's surfing habits can be intimidating, your involvement in protecting them while online is essential. Kids may be miles ahead of their parents technically, but they still need adults to help them develop good judgment and critical thinking skills to deal with situations, information and people they encounter online.
In this month's issue of 'The Computer Geeks' we have compiled some tips, advice and helpful resources for making the information highway a safe place for your children to travel.
Getting Started
The most important step is to have the computer in an open area of the house, not in your child's room.
Create a list of Internet house rules with your kids. You should include the kinds of sites that are off limits.
Create a username and password for login into your computer that only you know.
Issue: 004 - June 2005
