Your Top 5 Items For 2010 !!

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1. Parental Education Parents need to take time and educate themselves to understand what all the fuss is about. 'Google' some keywords like 'internet threats for kids' etc, and you will find plenty of resources.

2. Get that Computer Out of the Bedroom! If its still there, get that computer out of the bedroom. It's a no safe zone when they have unfetted internet access. Computers need to be in a visable location so you can see what your children are doing.

3. Educate Your Kids Once you have educated yourself around the dangers and risks, sit your children down and explain it to them. Draw up a set of internet house rules. You can find examples of these on Google. That way your children can agree with you, what the terms and appropriate behaviour should be.

4. Understand the Issues Around the 3 C's Contact: understand the various scenarios: you may be contacted by fraudsters, scammers, sexual deviants and predators. Scammers are often after personal details for criminal gain, such as your birthdate, social security number, bank account number, credit card information or online passwords. Learn how to identify these.

Content: learn about the appropriate content, not only pornographic imagery, but also extreme speech, sites relating to drugs, alcohol, explosives, and more.

Conduct: Discuss with your children appropriate conduct. Posting sexy or adult like images on the internet may seem harmless at the time, but can be used against you by anyone. Any personal material posted by anyone becomes part of their electronic footprint. This can last a lifetime, and can be problematic when applying for a job.

5. Educate, Discuss, Monitor Once you have educated yourself, and discussed issues with your children, make them aware that as part of the internet house rules, you will be monitoring their internet activity. You do not want to pry into their personal messages, but merely want to ensure they are kept safe while online.

Install Parental Control software as a minimum. There are many software companies out there producing fantastic products at reasonable prices. For a total monitoring solution, look at PC Pandora by clicking the link on this page. As a minimum, I install K9 or OnlineFamily.Norton as a minimum, depending on the home configuration.

FaceBook Privacy Settings

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Research has shown that around 80% of children don't use privacy settings on social networking sites. There are several issues with this, and they all relate to how much information someone else can see about you.

Employers are now searching social networking sites on prospective employees, to gain additional information on their personality. Photos of you engaging in out-of-hours activities can sometimes have a negative effect on a job prospect.

Due to the many compaints FaceBook must have received, they have recently forced users to review their privacy settings, before continuing to their profile page.

FaceBook users need to take time reviewing their privacy settings, and understand how these settings are applied. FaceBook provide a button allowing for the user to view their profile as it would look to others. It's a good idea to make use of this, so you can understand the results of the settings you are applying.

Its also a good idea to be reviewing these settings, as many users have found that there is more being exposed to everyone since FaceBook made this change. An explaination of some of the settings you should take a close look at can be found here: http://bit.ly/6UjbA5

Cyber Bullying

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Cyber bullying is bullying. Its still in its infancy, but growing fast. Its bullying via an electronic medium, either by cell phone or computer. It may be nasty, mean or offensive messages sent by text, instant messaging, email, or on any other electronic medium.

What may start out as a harmless prank, can soon spiral into a taunting and destructive scenario. Cyber bullying is relentless, sees no boundaries, and causes great damage mentally and phsycologically.

Text messages spread very quickly, as do messages online. The victim often feels they have no escape, and withdrawl from all activities into themselves. They often find that they cannot explain the situation to parents, as they often do not understand how damaging cyber bullying can be.

In New Zealand, Netsafe have an entire site devoted to cyber bullying. At http://www.cyberbullying.org.nz/teachers/ you will find a link to 2 online videos. These are about 5 minutes each, and the first is an NZ dramatisation of a cyber bullying scenario being played out.

In Australia, Ross Bark has just made a 12 minute dramatisation of cyber bullying, called Best Enemies. This is about real life situations, and shows how destructive they can be.

In the US, cyber bullying has resulted in children taking their own lives. In Christchurch, NZ this month, a mother removed her 11 year old child from school, due to relentless bullying.

Parents need to understand how the technology works, know how destructive it is, and ways to prevent it.

Crisp Thinking in the UK have developed software called IMSafer, that monitors chat sessions of popular messaging programs and social networking sites. Any conversations it identifies that are related to bullying, self harm or sexual grooming, are copied and emailed to the parents instantly. This software forms part of my cyber safety packages I install InHome, for parents in Christchurch, New Zealand.

What Parents Don't Know about their Kids on the Net

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In days gone by, a parent would give their wee Johnny or Jackie instructions of how to keep safe while playing. These would consist of playing nicely, not to play on the road, be nice to other kids and don’t be late.

These days it’s a totally different ball game. Our kids have swapped the fun of running around the neighbourhood, to running around cyberspace. With it, come more dangers than you could imagine, by playing in the neighbours backyard.

The internet is a fantastic reference tool. It is also uncensored and uninhibited. In addition, if it is also unmonitored and unmanaged, it can be a hive for everything you wanted to protect your young ones from. As parents, we now have the responsibility of protecting our kids online. After all, they are exposed to cyber stalkers, sexual predators, impersonators and bullies.

The internet has become a necessity for most of us. Finland has become the first country in the world to declare broadband Internet access a legal right. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/finland.internet.rights/index.html ) Ask your child what they would rather do without from a cellphone, tv or internet and see what their answer is. More than likely the answer will be the internet.

For children, the internet is all about communication. For adults, it is the CONTENT that becomes a problem. Children often do not understand issues surrounding privacy, and in many cases do not use privacy settings within social networking sites.
In two surveys reported this year by Pew Internet Research -- of 700 and 935 teens, respectively -- 38 percent of respondents ages 12 to 14 said they had an online profile of some sort.
Sixty-one percent of those in the study, ages 12 to 17, said they use social-networking sites to send messages to friends, and 42 percent said they do so every day. In a lot of cases, 2 out of 3 parents are unaware their kids have a social networking site.
Social networking sites require a user to be a minimum age of 13, but often this is flaunted by younger users who will provide a false age. There is no way to verify the true age of the user.
Children are not equipped to understand the importance of privacy. As a result, they often post images of themselves up on the internet. Once a photo appears on the internet, it no longer belongs to you. Anyone can copy a photo and do as they please with it.
In the past, we had 17 and 18 year olds dressing in sexy clothes and heading off to the local dance. Today we have 12 and thirteen year olds dressing in sexy garb, photographing themselves with their latest camera phone, and posting the images to their social networking profile. There is a growing trend for young girls to post sexual images of themselves to give the impression of a more edgy character.
Many teenagers have unlimited access to the internet and their parents have no idea what their children are doing. Many children are receiving unrealistic sex education through hard-core websites.
Recent studies show that the average age of first exposure to pornographic material is 11 years of age. This is usually when the child is doing their homework, and accidentally stumbles on it. 90% of 8 – 16 year olds of viewed pornographic images at least once, while doing their homework.
Parents need to understand that installing Parental Control software is a minimum. We are prepared to pay for baby sitters to look after our kids when we go out in the evening, yet are prepared to leave the kids at home in the school holidays to use the internet unmonitored?
I recommend installing the K9 software product from Bluecoat Technologies. You will find it at www.getk9.com