Monitoring your Child’s Activity on the Internet
Student safety is always a concern for parents and school staff. With the increasing use of the internet, instant messaging, blogging and other electronic communication by students, it is important to be aware of the potential security issues attached to these online interactions. Students should never disclose personal information such as first and last name, home address, telephone number, or the date and place of a gathering of friends. It is wise to presume that stalkers may be monitoring online chatrooms or blogs in order to entice a tween or teen into a face-to-face meeting.
Two popular communication sites for teens and college age students, http://myspace.com and http://facebook.com provide a venue for posting personal pictures and intimate thoughts in an online journal format. The commentary sometimes includes seductive language, discussion of underage activities or derogatory or harmful messages about other students The consequences of any of these online activities could affect their safety; academic and professional problems may also occur if potential employer discovers such information on the web posted by a potential job candidate.
Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer programs both provide methods of checking the history of your child’s internet use. Netscape navigator users open the Go menu and choose History. To access the Location Bar list, click the arrow at the right end of the Location Bar. To quickly open the history list, press Ctrl+H (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+H (Mac OS). Internet Explorer users click on View and drop down to Explorer Bar and select History for a list of recent websites visited. For advanced techniques, in the case the user knows how to clear the History, see, http://familyinternet.about.com/cs/internethelp/a/blhistory.htm.
For further information on this topic, please visit http://www.safekids.com/ .
Additional Parent Resources for internet safety:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10882307/
Recent Washington Post article
http://www.wiredkids.org/parents/parentingonline/index.html
http://www.netsmartz.org/netparents.htm
Copyright ©
2001-2005 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and
Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguidee.htm
