Online Safety

Guidelines for Safe Internet Use

We recommend that children's home internet access be in a common or family room, rather than children's bedrooms, at least through middle school. The best safeguard is supervision.

  • Treat everyone like a stranger.
  • Never give out personal information.
  • Encourage children to talk to an adult about anyone with whom they have been in contact online, whether solicited or not.
  • If someone is bothering you while chatting or IMing, block that user and report them to the company that runs the service like AOL or MSN.
  • Don’t contact people you don’t know.

On the Internet, personal information is valuable.  Protect it.

Never give out any of the following information:

  • Full name
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Grade
  • School
  • Home address
    (even the city you live in)
  • Pictures of yourself, friends, or family
  • Email address or IM username
  • Phone number
  • Password
  • Friend’s or family’s information
  • The fact that the child is a child

For adults, also avoid providing:

  • Social security number
  • PIN number
  • Credit card number

A child’s identity online is important. Children should be encouraged to express themselves in the digital world, but they must remember to protect themselvese. When selecting a username, don’t include any of the following information

  • first and last name (choose one or the other and stick with it)
  • gender
  • year of birth
  • anything personal

Links with information about keeping your family safe online and about software tools that ca filter or limit your child’s access to the internet. No software solution can the place of active engagement with kids on their use of the internet. Most can be bypassed by tech-savy teens.

wiredsafety.com
cyberangels.org
blogsafety.com
safeteens.com
protectyourkids.info
NetNanny.com

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Internet Safety presentation RDS482.5 KB
Net Nanny Internet Safety2.36 MB
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