How To Ensure Internet Safety For Kids?
The meteoric rise in the popularity of the internet has come to a stage when as many as 400 million users are part of the World Wide Web. The internet is no longer the exclusive domain of the United States Armed Forces. In fact, users are from a variety of age groups and origins.
The flipside of this internet boom is that millions of kids are now hooked on to the internet and spend endless hours of their precious childhood sitting in front of the computer screen. Kids' internet usage is a cause for concern now. The children can access the internet from many places like cyber cafes, phones and even homes.
Research data shows that 20% of homes have internet for children. The kids can access the web from their very own room. However, kids' internet usage opens up a world of unwarranted information to them. Most parents have jobs and do not have the time to see to it that their child is not spending an excessive amount of time on the internet. TheiInternet for children creates the risk of the kids getting obsessively addicted to internet or being too dependent on it, hence the importance of internet child protection.
When the web was in its infancy, the internet was a non entity for kids. Yet, in the last few years, television networks, advertisements, cartoon shows and especially friends all encourage kids to go websites for web games, web stickers, wallpaper and so on. With this explosion of the internet, parents need some Internet Safety Tips for Kids. Here are my suggestions:
The increasing popularity of the internet has infiltrated the child's world too. Nowadays, the children are encouraged by friends, advertisements and other publicity stunts to log on to the internet for various things like fun games, wallpapers, screensavers etc. Thus, to ensure internet safety for kids, the parents can follow certain tips given below:
One of the first things you can to do to ensure safe use of the internet is to keep the computer in the common room and not in the kid's room because that way you will be able to notice what the child is upto.
Restrict the internet use. Allot a specific amount of time for logging on to the internet.
Try to spend some time and surf the internet with your child. That way, you will be able to see the websites that your child usually visits.
Convince your kids not to reveal their identity or say their name, address or any personal information to someone on the internet. Explain to them that a person on the internet is equivalent to a stranger. This is a very important step to ensure internet safety for children.
Tell your child to confide in you in case they are being exposed to something that hurts their sensibilities or makes them feel insecure on the net.
In the internet options of your computer, keep the Internet Cache on. This will enable you to see the sites that your child has been visiting.
In case the cache history is empty, you have to conclude that your child has been deleting the internet records.
Once you are convinced that the child is actually deleting the past visit records, you can go ahead and create a separate and restricted account for your child. In fact, there are certain browsers like Buddy Browser that are created especially for the safe use of the internet for kids. These browsers are ideal because the child will be unable to surf without using the settings that you have finalized.
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