Internet Safety

‹ Under 8 • Age 10 - 12›

Online Safety Tips for Parents of Children Age 8 - 10:

• Raise the bar on filtering or parental control technologies if you find they are complaining or are locked out of school-recommended sites. Or make sure that you use a product that will send you an e-mail at work to let you unblock a particular site. (MSN has this feature.)
• If you add IM, make sure only pre-approved senders can send your child an IM.
• Use a pop-up blocker or toolbar (like Google's), an antivirus program and a spyware remover (this begins the age of dangerous downloads).
• Keep using the Yahoo Kids! and Ask Jeeves for Kids search engines.
• Make sure that they understand what info can and can't be shared online with anyone.
• Practice chatting online with them so they know how to handle strangers they encounter online.
• Make sure that they know not to cyberbully someone or say or do anything online that they wouldn't do offline.
• Make sure they know how to use the "notify" or "warning" buttons, or use a monitoring software to be able to review what they are saying and doing.
• Watch for hacking, password and identity theft at this age.
• Also watch for their corrupting your files on your computer with spyware, etc. Back everything up!
• Limit online time (aside from special school projects) to under an hour a day (including all IM and text messaging time).
• Use filtering or parental control technologies. Block everything that isn't pre-approved, rather than just filtering out the "bad" sites.
• Think about whether they really need e-mail or IM, and if you determine they do, block all communications from anyone other than pre-approve senders.
• Make sure that the buddy list is no longer than the age of the child, and that you know (in real life) everyone on it.
• Bookmark their favorite Web sites so they won't mistype them and end up at a "bad" site.
• Use kid sized search engines : Yahoo Kids! and Ask Jeeves for Kids.
• Limit their online time to no more than ½ a day, unless they have a special project for school.
• Check with their teachers often for suggested Web sites and for recommendations for good resources online.
• Don't let them use interactive games, such as Xbox Live or Sony Playstation network yet. You should use Toontown.com instead.
• Sit down with them as often as possible and find out where they go online, what they like and ask or answer any questions.
• No Web sites or profiles or blogs or other interactive communications without pre-approval of whatever is posted.
• Look for safe site lists you can trust. Check out the WiredKids Best of the Web Web site list.

Safety Tips for Parents of Children Under 8 • Age 8 - 10 • Age 10 - 12 • Age 13 - 15 • 16 and Over