Safe Surfing - Protect your Children

If you are a parent you will already have your own concerns for your children when they are surfing the web.

Be aware, that free stuff will hold an attraction for children, and they may not have your good judgement in what information to supply in their quest for that free sample online.

Establish good ground rules for your children when they are surfing and looking for free stuff (or at any time on the web).

As a minimum get them to agree;

1) Never give their REAL name to anyone online without a parents permission - it is very easy to have an online name that can be given out.

2) Never give out their home address.

3) Never give out the name and / or address of the school they go to.

4) Never give out their home or mobile 'phone number.

5) Never send anyone who is not known personally to the family a photograph of themselves.

6) Never give their parents' credit card details. (It really does happen!).

7) Never give out passwords to anyone. They only work as passwords if no-one else knows them.

8) Be cautious and use judgement when giving their email address to anyone online - whether a company or an individual.

As I said, these are the minimum, you should advise / discuss these issues with your child - there are better authorities on the web in this matter than me - seek them out!

In all cases encourage your children to involve your own, adult, judgement when they are asked to provide ANY personally identifiable information online.

I, Carbuncle, the author of this article, give permission for this page to be copied and reposted to any other website as long as a link back to this page is provided from the page that displays the information. Copyright Carbuncle 2005 All Rights Reserved.