The Hindu Business Line : Keep cyber sharks at bay

As a parent you never hear the end of the various dangers children encounter in cyberspace. But what do you do when your nine-year-old knows more than you do about tech gadgets and the Internet?

Vidya Reddy, Founder of the Chennai-based Tulir - Centre for The Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (India), tells eWorld how one can keep online predators at bay.

“Those dangers can be managed using the same old warnings we’ve always used to try and ensure our children’s safety in real time. We just need to translate them into the cyberspace context,” she says.

Here are some online resources you can try. While http://www.microsoft.com/protect/family/default.mspx is a useful site for parents, WiredKids.org, thinkuknow.co.uk, InternetSuperHeroes.org are worth mentioning for children.

Disney’s Surfswellisland.com teaches online safety Disney-style.

Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse and Goofy all find themselves involved in tropical island cyber-challenges relating to viruses, privacy, netiquette (cyber-etiquette) and responsible surfing.

There are many technological tools available to help parents control and monitor their children online, which usually come bundled with the OS (operating system).

“Parents have to remember, though, that these tools are not cyber-protectors. They are just another safety tool, like a seat belt or child safety cap. While you have to teach your children to be aware and careful in cyberspace, unless your children know what to expect and how to react when they run into something inappropriate online, they are at risk,” she warns.

“Would you ever allow a teenager learning to drive the use of your Skoda?,” she asks.

Sit next to your kids when they are online for some of the time and start learning about what they are doing.

Ensure that your computer is in a public area. The kids will probably know how to do things faster and be better at getting information but it is the parent who will have to provide the appropriate guidance to the child who is “still in training”, even on the Internet.

And with children and young people‘s constant quest to keep pace with the rapidly evolving changes in technology, she tells parents to keep abreast of what children and young people are up to in the time-tested old fashioned way parenting has relied on.

Be involved in their lives, listen and not just hear them, provide for a congenial setting and relationship that will make your children understand that you are there for them always, without berating or judging them! Simple attributes that technology can never compete against!

Other Web sites to click on are:

http://www.enoughabuse.org/

facts_internet.html

www.nettysworld.com.au

www.kidsmart.org.uk

www.bbc.co.uk/chatguide/teens

http://www.protectkids.com/

www.netbullies.com