Is your child safe online?  

The Internet is a wonderfully fun and educational tool. Children use the Internet to communicate with peers, complete homework assignments, and learn. However, innocent web surfing can sometimes lead to sites that you’d prefer your children weren’t exposed to. Web searches for items such as the White House, your child’s favorite toy brand and more can sometimes lead your child to a site with questionable content. If you have older children, you probably don’t know what MySpace.com is, but your teen most likely does. Free websites like MySpace.com and Xanga.com have grown wildly popular in recent months and teens use these sites to post information and to communicate with peers. What most parents and teens don’t know, however, is that child predators have been surfing these sites to gain personal information about teens such as their class schedule and even home address. Lightning Jack Netwatch Keeps Your Child Safer While on the Internet In households with home Internet access, only one-third of parents said they had filtering or blocking software installed on their computers, but every family with children in the home should have content filtering. Lightning Jack Netwatch is one way to ensure that your children are safer while surfing the Internet. Netwatch is easy to use, there's no software to install and it's FREE!. Questionable material such as violence, adult material, and drugs is banned as well as sites that include on-line auctions, gambling and on-line chatting. If you'd like to add Lightning Jack Netwatch or want more information, call our Internet Help Desk toll free at 888-565-3200.   Tips for Keeping Your Child Safer on the Internet 1. Establish online rules and an agreement with your child about Internet use at home and outside of the home (i.e., at a friend's house, at school, at the library, etc.) 2. Implement software tools to protect your family from the intrusion of inappropriate content and sexual predators. Nex-Tech offers FREE content filtering through Lightning Jack Netwatch. 3. Spend time online alongside your child and establish an atmosphere of trust regarding computer usage and online activities. 4. Regularly ask your kids about their online friends and activities. Role play with your child various dangerous scenarios that they could encounter online. 5. Place your computer in an area of your home where you can easily supervise your child's Internet activity. 6. Recognize that chat rooms are the playground of today's sexual predator. Do not allow your children to enter into chatrooms. 7. Block instant/personal messages from people you and your child don't know. Regularly check your child's buddy list to ensure that it has not been altered. 8. Do not permit your child to have an online profile. With this restriction, he or she will not be listed in directories and is less likely to be approached in chat rooms where pedophiles often search for prey. (Some Online Service Providers such as America Online, offer subscribers online profiles.) 9. Check with your child's school to see if student projects, artwork, or photos (where material is identified by name) are being put on school home pages. Schools often want to post school newsletters or sports scores, but every time a name or photo is displayed, there is vulnerability. Schools need to be reminded of that risk and encouraged to allow access to student activities posted on the school's website by password only. 10. Monitor the amount of time your child spends on the Internet, and at what times of day. Excessive time online, especially at night, may indicate a problem. Remind your child that Internet use is a privilege, not a right. 11. Watch for changes in your child's behavior (mention of adults you don't know, secretiveness, inappropriate sexual knowledge, sleeping problems, etc.). 12. Report any content or activity that you suspect as illegal or criminal to local law enforcement and to the CyberTipline.   Tips provided by Donna Rice Hughes at ProtectKids.com Notice: While content filtering helps reduce children from entering unwanted sites, there is no proven method that filters 100% of material. For more information about Nex-Tech's FREE Content Filtering, call our Internet Help Desk at 888-565-3200. For more information about children and Internet usage, try visiting ProtectKids.com, mysafesurf.org, http://www.ikeepsafe.org/  and Youth Internet Safety Survey    Additional