A Guide to Safe CyberTreking - Part 4

Here are some tips that you can convey to your child so that his or her surfing on the web will be safe:

• Advise your child never to give out your password on the net..

• Tell your child to not give out any personal information without your consent. This would include his or her name, phone number, address, email address, school name and any other personal and confidential information.

• Inform your child how personal information can be unconsciously disclosed such as when he or she joins an online club, enters an online contest or quiz, completes an online survey or questionnaire, responds to spam, posts a message on a newsgroup or bulletin board or completes a website guest book.

• Advise your child to stay away from undesirable sites which could contain sexually explicit material.

• Let them know that there are people on the net who try to sexually exploit children and who might try to contact them at chat rooms or other sites.

• Keep the computer in a room open to everyone where everyone can see the monitor. Have your child use a gender neutral user name. Girls tend to get more attention than others on the net.

• Travel with your kids on the net and pick out with your child, sites that are safe for the kids to visit.

• Talk to your child about the net. Discuss what they want to get out of it, what they want to do and what to watch out for.

• Finally, purchase software filters that allow you to restrict their visits to appropriate sites and filters that can control the type of email you get.