Keep them away from danger
Millions of children use the Internet regularly. The Internet is a great place for finding information for homework, passing the time, or playing, but you should be aware of the threats your children face. The following advice will help avoid Internet risks.
- Speak to your children: The starting point for protecting your children is to speak to them. You must know what pages they view, with whom they speak, what they like to see, etc. You wouldn't let them leave the house without knowing where they're going and with whom, so you shouldn't let them access the Internet without knowing what they are doing.
- Learn yourself, and pass the knowledge on to your children: For many parents the Internet is still an unknown world. Some use it for looking for information, reading the newspaper or downloading music, films and other files, but for many, the services and pages that their children are using are completely unknown. For this reason it is very important to be aware of the tools that the Net offers children, and to know what the risks are and how to avoid them. Once you have done this, you can then advise your children on how to enjoy the Internet safely.
- Set firm rules for using the Internet: You should establish clear and firm rules, with timetables, maximum online time and the way they use the Internet. Make sure they abide by the rules, especially with regard to using the Web at night. Another aspect to consider is the location of computers in the house: if you have just one PC for the whole family, it should be in a family room and not in the child's bedroom.
- Forbid children from giving out confidential information: You must instruct your children not to give out data such as their name, address or photos across the Internet. Advise them to use false names or nicks in forums and show them how to create secure passwords (mixing upper and lower-case letters) to prevent cyber-crooks or other malicious users from accessing their email or messaging accounts.
- Teach your children to be wary of appearances: Appearances can deceive on the Internet. We have seen how malicious code can disguise itself as codecs or movie trailers, how pedophiles can pretend to be someone else in order to establish contact with children or how messages that seem to come from a known contact can be infected. Therefore on the Web, things are not always what they seem to be. Teach your children to be wary and not to do anything that could jeopardize their security or privacy.
- Install an effective security solution: To protect your children from malicious code, the best strategy is to have an up-to-date and effective security solution.
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With its content filter you can decide which pages your children can see and which are off-limits. You can protect your computer from viruses, prevent unauthorized access, block spam or pages designed to infect your system, etc. For more information here.