Kids are Online and Loving It!

By Marian Merritt  |  June 23, 2008

Summary: Summer’s here and the time is right for kids of all ages to once again experience life without school. If they’re staying in touch with school pals, you can almost bet your iPod® that they’re using technology to communicate with one another. Be it email, Instant Messaging, live visual chat rooms – oh yeah – phone calls too! The tools that kids have access to today allow for easy communication with each other. But, what else do kids do with technology? Specifically, what are they doing online, and should you know about it?

Let the games begin

Has your child been quiet for four hours straight? If your kid is like millions of others, chances are pretty good he or she is playing online games on the computer. There’s an online game for everyone, and kids are savvy enough to find their favorites. There are fighting games, racing games, shooting games, adventure games, arcade games, puzzle games, sports games... There’s literally something for every possible taste, age, and game category.

But if your child is spending too much time playing online games, it might be wise to limit their time to certain hours, to make sure addictive behavior doesn’t surface. Moderation should be the key with online games and all online kid activity.

“Don’t talk to strangers” and other basic rules

Just like you wouldn’t let your child roam a shopping mall without certain guidelines, the Internet requires some common sense rules when it comes to kids. They should know that nobody is necessarily who they say they are online, so if they are contacted or are communicating with anyone they don’t know, they should know that it’s wrong and stop immediately. Even the game sites and other social networking areas that kids may be venturing into, could result in your child having contact with unknown people. So, it’s important that your child know some real basic rules of the online world:

• DON’T instant message or email people they don’t know
• NEVER give personal information to anyone online
• KNOW the kinds of Web sites you expect them to avoid
• TELL you immediately if something strange, uncomfortable, or unexpected happens

Talk, Talk, Talk

The ideal situation is to keep a running dialog along with open lines of communication between you and your child about their online world. You want to know what Web sites they’re visiting, what games they might be playing, and who they’re networking with. If they’re not forthcoming about the information, there are ways to track their activity without actually spying on them. In fact, I don’t encourage spying at all, and would suggest you really work on the communication part. But, as a parent, you can take advantage of browser history logs and other tracking tools that are part of common programs that they might be using.

You can also use technology to set options that are ‘kid safe’. For example, Google offers safe search selections to filter age-inappropriate content. Both Macintosh and Windows include basic parental controls, and of course Norton 360 and Norton Internet Security provide free parental control features.

How to know things without spying

Yes, there are a lot of programs out there that can actually spy on your kids and provide you with reports on exactly what they’re doing and saying online. But, I firmly believe in a more structured method of monitoring, managing, and collaborating with your child about the dangers and pitfalls of the online world.