Internet Safety for Kids

Scams? With missing children?

You Bet! Its unfortunate but true. There are some scurrilous individuals around that play the "missing child" alert to scrape and steal email addresses for their spamming purposes.

Even child safety experts get side tracked by this.

The alert came via a business contact who emailed an Amber Alert to us. The alert mentioned a 13 year old girl missing in Ohio. It was sent via an email chain with innumerable addresses on it.

One of the respondents, a journalist colleague, shot back an email immediately saying it was a scam and how it works and why it is potentially being sent around.

How did he know? How can you understand what is a phishing scam and what is not? Here's what he knew and how you can start to pick out the scams, too, and protect yourself.

First, stay calm. "Oh No! Another Child Missing! Let's help!" is a natural reaction. That is my point, it's a reaction. Take time to read further.

Two, true and valid Amber Alerts do not come as singular emails forwarded on from individual to individual.

Third, check to see if the email address is valid or a dead link.

As a rule, whenever you get questionable stuff like this type of email, go to Google. Simply enter it in the Google search box and add the word urbanlegend. Or, you can go to www.snopes.com.

With these two tools you can find out very quickly whether it is real or not. The second thing that people are not aware of is that often these emails are used to gather email addresses for email spamming. If you scroll down you can see everyone who every got this line... when you get those ads for breast enlargement etc, you know where it came from!

Does your teenager want to use the Internet to meet and communicate with new cyber-friends? Are they looking for others who share similar interests? To do this, they may want to go into online chat rooms.

Internet chat rooms are fun and a way to meet new friends. Its also easy to use and interact with others. There are some pretty safe places for teens to go online however, not all online chat rooms are safe. That is one reason why many parents often allow their kids to use message boards instead of chat rooms. You may wonder, though, if its really a safer option.

Even if you aren't an avid internet user yourself, you likely know that online message boards and online chat rooms are different. Online chat rooms have live communication appearing on the screen. Conversations are held at that very moment. Message boards involve communications that may carry on for days or even weeks. There are also more detailed and themed discussed that occur on message boards, as opposed to chat rooms. Common message board topics for teens include homework, parents, pets, music and sports.

Message Boards do not have conversations that are live. Multiple posters may be online at the same time, but it is common for someone to post a topic and not get a response for a few hours or even a day or two. In fact, if your child makes a post about their new pet, someone may ask about their pet or congratulate them when they aren't even online themselves. This gives many parents comfort and peace of mind in suing Message Boards instead of chat rooms.

Another reason why some parents prefer letting their children use online message boards is that they usually are monitored by a trusted adult. This person is sometimes paid for their work. This means that all offensive posts should be removed in a relatively short period of time. Many times, the moderator will also ban that user from returning.
As a parent, you set the rules for your teenager online. If you are going to allow them to use message boards, remember that not all message boards are moderated. Most message boards for adults also have someone who reviews the content. With that said, there is no harm in checking. In fact, the same should be done with internet chat rooms.

If a chat room for children or teenagers is only open for a few hours a day, as opposed to 24 hours a day, there is a good chance that a monitor is present. This may give you some comfort and peace of mind. Also, be sure to examine internet chat rooms and message boards for kids that do not allow other users to privately communicate with each other through the use of private messages, also commonly known as a PM.

Whether you let your child use an online chat room or an online message board, you should first check it out for yourself. Visit a chat room. Do not talk to anyone, but see for about five minutes what type of content is being talked about. The same should be done with online message boards for kids. Do you think that the content is safe or do any chatters or posters seem too mature for the room or message board?

As for how you can go about finding online message boards and chat rooms that are safe for your child to visit or to checkout for yourself first, you may want to perform a standard internet search. Search with a phrase like "safe online messages boards for children." There are also television networks, like Nick and The N, which are designed for both teens and tweens, that have online message boards.

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On line safety protect your child from the violence, explicit language, pornography, sex, nudity, gambling, predators, viruses, spyware, and adware and WHEW! Anything else that might be out there!

These are some of the threats that your kids can encounter while on line. And since you can't monitor them all the time, you need to find ways to teach your child how to protect themselves from these threats. Here are some of those ways:

1. Teach them to keep themselves safe and secure. Talk to them about personal security while using the internet. Tell them to refuse giving any personal information to people they meet online. Talk to them about avoiding filling out membership and survey forms that would entail them to state their personal information.

2. Set up house rules to limit your kids' internet access. Talk to your kids about what these rules are and have them agree to stick to them.

3. Discourage them from making personal profiles using online networking websites that can be viewed by anyone. Sites like MySpace create venues for online predators to access different personal information for their predatory purposes. If your kids already have profiles posted on the web, make sure that you know what pictures and personal information they post.

4. If your kids are young enough to use the regular web browser, download web-browsers that are made for kids. They filter bad websites and limit your kids' access to pre-approved webpages.

5. Tell your child to avoid peer-to-peer (abbreviated P2P) file-sharing softwares. This is because viruses, spyware, and adware can freely enter your computer through these softwares.

6. Use internet filtering software to block bad websites from your computer. Anyone, including you or your child, can stumble upon adult websties.

7. Attend to your kids immediately if they report any uncomfortable online exchanges they have encountered.

8. If they enter chat rooms, tell them to stay in the public room so that the chat room administrator can monitor your conversation. Tell them to ignore private messages.

9. Tell them not to agree to meet personally with strangers they only meet online.

Finally them to approach you whenever they have any doubts on the emails and messages they receive, window popups that appears, and forms they were asked to fill-out. It will keep your child the safest they can be on the web.

An online safety course?

Is there such a thing?

I get a lot of inquires from parents about just this question. My answer is, "Yes, there are a lot of online safety courses."

I also know a few other things:

-They take time.
-You're busy.
-They can be in-depth and confusing.
-Your have to sit at your computer to take them.
-Applying the principles can be challenging if you do not understand them.

My solution?

Follow this blog. Sign up for our free online safety ebook at www.FreeOnlineSafetyBook.com.

As a busy parent you life is not going to get any easier. You may know that I'm I want to tell you, you are correct. You need to protect your child online in plain, simple terms in minutes a day. That's me.

Head to www.InternetSafetytoday.com/content and this blog regularly for short, quick bullet points that you can use immediately. Read any of my posts in 5 minutes. Get 3-5 quick tips you can use immediately for your child. Learn quickly how to implement online safety focused for your child's age and your parenting rules.

That's my online safety course. It can easily be your online safety course, too.

If you have the luxury of time, do go more into depth but when your busy, stressed and frazzled, let me help you keep your child safer online.

Setting up internet safety rules, no matter how old your child is, can be a good step for your child when online.

Whether it's a school project, emailing friends or poking around a chat room, children on the Internet go many places. Internet safety rules for going those places and doing certain activities can help keep them safer.

What would some of these internet safety rules be? First, let your child know that they should never give out their personal information online. There is absolutely no reason why they should give anyone their address or phone number online. Make sure that your child knows that just because the person they are talking to online claims to be a 16 year old boy or girl, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are.

Two, it is also important to prevent your child from posting personal pictures or videos of themselves online. However, this is something that many children do. Make sure they are portrait type photos, those that show head and shoulders only. If your child wants to post pictures or videos online, be sure to at least review them yourself first.

Three, make sure your child knows that they are not allowed to meet, in person, with anyone who they meet online. This is important, as this is how many children and teenagers fall victim to internet predators and sexual predators. Yes, the person who they are talking to on the computer may be who they say they are, but are you willing to take that chance? If an in person meeting does take place and you know about it, attend with your child. Let multiple people know where you are going and who you are meeting with. Be sure to do so in a public place.

Four, set rules for your child on their use of internet chat rooms and social networking websites. For starters, if you don't want your child to use these things, don't let them. If you do, sit with them when they first sign up and negotiate the site yourself. Then set time limits they can be inside these rooms. For example, make sure you are in the room if your child is using an internet chat room.

Five and finally, make sure that your child knows that all of the internet safety rules you set concerning internet use apply to all computer use, not just on the computer at home.