Every
generation faces the challenge of keeping children safe. At one
time the threat no doubt came from wolves and bears. A hundred
years ago, parents were having to warn their children about the
new dangers presented by horseless carriages. Today the threat
is insidious, hard to identify - or even understand, for some
parents. It comes from new technology, such as mobile phones and
access to the Internet.
What
are the problems? Here are a few examples.
-
There have already been a number of well publicised cases in which
children have made friends with other people on the net, only
to find that the other person is not another teenager but a predatory
adult.
-
Children may feel too weak to block an unsuitable contact, and
may pass him/her on to a friend, who may be even more vulnerable.
-
Equally poisonous is anonymous text bullying to which some children
have been subjected.
-
Children have sent embarrassing pictures by phone which have reached
their parents and teachers or got onto the Internet, and they
have become laughing stocks. Once sent, the pictures are irretrievable,
and can travel fast.
-
Children may be pressured by sales techniques into ordering goods
on the net.
-
At a less dangerous level, children may spend hours at their machines,
becoming obsessive, cut off from their families, and running up
huge phone bills in the process.
What
can parents do about this? A number of organisations have been
set up to help, and a lot of advice is available.
*
www.childnet-int.org gets you onto Childnet International, which
has been set up to help. There is also www.kidsmart.org.uk
.
*
If one wants to complain, there is the Internet Watch Foundation,
www.iwf.org.uk,
who are on the look-out for websites which pose threats to children
and should be closed down.
*
Filtering packages are available such as www.getnetwise.org
, and there are search engines which filter as well, such as www.googlekids.com
and www.yahooligans.com.
*
Helpful websites for children are www.kidzdom.com,
www.froguts.com
, www.childnetacademy.org
, www.kidsmart.org.uk
and www.chatdanger.com
.
*
For learning about IM, contact www.websafecrackerz.com
.
As
good practice, follow these tips :
*
It is recommended that children should not have computers in their
bedrooms, where they can access unsuitable sites unseen, but should
work in one of the rooms where other members of the family may
latch on if something goes wrong.
*
If unsuitable material is accidentally downloaded onto your computer,
you can remove all traces with “Cyberscrub” on http://buy.cyberscrub.com/csutility/index.php?ReferrerId=473.
This programme is also useful to completely remove private data
from a computer if you are selling it for example.
*
Children should have email addresses which do not contain their
names, so that they can avoid getting spam.
*
Use Adaware to get rid of spyware.
*
Limit children’s time on line to, say, an hour a day. This
can be done via “zone out”.
*
If children get “pop-ups”, use AltF4 to get rid of
them.
Follow
all this advice, and your children should be at much less risk,
and you will help them avoid the wolves and bears of the twenty-first
century.
