	Trying to conceive

	Pregnancy

	Newborn

	Baby

	School Age

	Teen

	Baby Names

	Baby Links

Monitor Your Child's Internet Surfing, TV Viewing and Video Game Playing

The Internet/World Wide WEB - a network of computers that connects people and information all around the world-has become an important part of how we learn and of how we interact with others. For children to succeed today, they must be able to use the Internet.

In today's world, learning about the dangers of the Internet, and discussing those dangers with your children, is just as important to their safety as talking with them about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and inappropriate sexual activity. If you are not able to effectively answer your children's questions about the Internet, they will seek that information elsewhere, which will greatly diminish your ability to influence their proper use of the Internet.

It is beneficial to share the Internet experience with your child. There are numerous good and valuable uses for the Internet. Go online with your child and visit the highly informative Web sites that are available. There are also numerous game sites and other fun sites that are completely safe for children of any age.

Here are some suggestions for helping your child learn to do so properly and effectively:

• Spend time online with your child. If you don't have a computer at home, ask your librarian if the library has computers that you and your child may use. Learn along with your child. If you're not familiar with computers or with the Internet, ask the librarian if and when someone is available at the library to help you and your child learn together to use them. If your child knows about computers, let her teach you. Ask her to explain what she is doing and why. Ask her to show you her favorite Web sites and to tell you what she likes about them. This will help her build self-confidence and pride in her abilities.

• Help your child to locate appropriate Internet Web sites. At the same time, make sure that she understands what you think are appropriate Web sites for her to visit. Point her in the direction of sites that can help her with homework or that relate to her interests.

Pay attention to any games she might download or copy from the Internet. Resources such as a public service provided by Internet corporations and public interest groups and a service of the American Library Association, can help you to make good Web site choices and give you more information about Internet use.

You might consider using "filters" to block your child from accessing sites that may be inappropriate. These filters include software programs that you can install on your computer. In addition, many Internet service providers offer filters (often for free) that restrict the sites that children can visit. Of course, these filters are not always completely effective-and children can find ways around them. The best safeguard is your supervision and involvement.

• Monitor the amount of time that your child spends online. Internet surfing can be just as time consuming as watching TV.

• Teach your child rules for using the Internet safely. Let him know that he should never do the following:

- tell anyone-including his friends-his computer password;

- use bad language or send cruel, threatening or untrue e-mail messages;

- give out any personal information, including his name or the names of family
members, home address, phone number, age, school name.

Many minors do not realize the numerous personal dangers they may encounter online.

For example:

* A child or teenager may not fully understand that a number of Internet users are not exactly the persons they claim to be online.

* Internet chat rooms are well-known havens for pedophiles seeking to engage in conversations with young teenagers.

Disguising themselves as fellow teenagers, pedophiles visit chat rooms frequented by teenagers. They typically empathize with troubled teens and, once they gain a teenager's trust, reveal their true age and suggest a real-life meeting. All too often, troubled teens have romantically bonded with their corresponding pedophile while online and decide to meet the pedophile in real life in the hope of participating in a mature (meaning sexual) relationship, even after the teenager learns that the pedophile originally lied to the teenager about the pedophile's true age. Pedophiles can also trick minors conversing in Internet chat rooms into revealing who they are, even though the minor may believe he or she is not giving out very specific personal information. Pedophiles are very skilled at acquiring bits and pieces of personal information about minors online and it does not take a great deal of information to piece together a youngster's true identity. For example, chat room participants typically reveal certain aspects of their backgrounds in a file frequently referred to as a "profile." That profile can contain such information as a teen's personal hobbies or interests, age and community. It is also very common for participants in chat room conversations to ask for the basic physical description of another chat room visitor. Hence, a pedophile armed with the knowledge of a minor's community of residence, age, general physical description, hobbies (a cheerleader or athlete, for example), can fairly accurately deduce the school the teen attends, what sporting events he or she will be participating in, and gain a basic idea of what the youngster looks like. That is about all any pedophile needs to track down and stalk the minor.

* Many parents would be reluctant to allow their children unrestricted freedom to use the parents' credit cards at a real-life shopping mall. Unsupervised children on the Internet can, however, gain access to a world's worth of shopping malls online and, armed with their parents' credit cards, can do a considerable amount of online purchasing in a very short period of time. Since very few Web sites engage in age verification of an online purchaser, rarely is a minor blocked from using a parent's credit card to make online purchases, the way a minor would normally be stopped by a cashier at a real-life shopping mall. Moreover, many banks view a child as an authorized user of the parent's credit card so that the parent cannot void a purchase made online by the child after the sale occurs, meaning the parent is ultimately responsible for paying the online charges made by the child.

* Web sites and newsgroups contain a variety of textual and pictorial depictions on subjects not suitable for viewing by children. For example, the Internet abounds with:

• Graphic depictions of pornography, including child pornography and bestiality.

• "Hate sites," among the most common of which promote Nazism.

• Locations where information is freely available on the purchase and use of drugs or guns and even open discussion on how to commit suicide.

Monitor TV Viewing and Video Game Playing

American children on average spend far more time watching TV or playing video games than they do completing homework or other school-related activities. Here are some suggestions for helping your child to use TV and video games wisely:

• Limit the time that you let your child watch TV. Too much television cuts into important activities in a child's life, such as reading, playing with friends and talking with family members.

• Model good TV viewing habits. Remember that children often imitate their parents' behavior. Children who live in homes in which parents and other family members watch a lot of TV are likely to spend their time in the same way. Children who live in homes in which parents and other family members have "quiet" time away from the TV when they read (either alone to each other), talk to each other, play games or engage in other activities tend to do the same.

• Watch TV with your child when you can. Talk with him about what you see. Answer his questions. Try to point out the things in TV programs that are like your child's everyday life.

• When you can't watch TV with your child, spot check to see what she's watching. Ask questions after the program ends. See what excites her and what troubles her. Find out what she has learned and remembered.

• Go to the library and find books that explore the themes of the TV shows that your child watches.

• Limit the amount of time your child spends playing video games. As with TV programs, be aware of the games he likes to play and discuss his choices with him.