subject: Safe Social Networking For Parents And Kids [print this page] Social networking sites such as Facebook are a great place for children to communicate with friends as well as meet new ones, but also leaves them exposed to many of the wrong kinds of online personalities. Today's sexual predators regularly frequent the Internet in search for potential victims, particularly on social networking sites. Parents need to understand that these risks are real and take the necessary precautions.
It always pays to talk to your kids before they can even register on a social networking site. Rules need to be set and agreed upon, and your kids should know why these rules are in place. The severity or strictness of your rules would depend on the age of your children, as well as their computer savvy - monitor their actions and responses to these rules and adjust them if need may be.
Here are some of the precautionary measures that need to be re-enforced no matter how old your kids are.
Remind them to never share personal information about themselves or their family with any stranger online. Information including their real name, address, name of their school or even sports clubs that they play for can be used to find anyone offline.
Discourage your kids from using their real names or any other screen names that could be directly linked to them. This is helpful, as online predators can be very clever in tracing clues related to a child's online handle and tracing the handle to the real person behind it.
Install internet filtering software on your computer to restrict access to unacceptable site. Be discreet in doing so, but observe the chat rooms and websites that your kids go to. Restrict access to your child's website and only allow family and friends from their school or local club to view it and to post their views.
All this may sound like "tough love", but make yourself approachable in case your child encounters something or someone unpleasant online. It is part of being a supportive parent to be there for your kids when things turn nasty online. Because after all, there is a huge potential of meeting undesirable people when a child accesses the Internet, particularly networking sites.
