My ParenTime | Article - The Dangerous Side of Social Networking Sites: Tips to Keep Your Children and Teens Safer When Using Social Networking Sites

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Tips to Keep Your Children and Teens Safer When Using Social Networking Sites

1. Discuss the dangers and future repercussions with your child.

2. Enter into a safe-computing contract with your child about his or her use of these sites and computer use in general.

3. Enable Internet filtering features if they are available from your Internet Service Provider.

4. Install monitoring software or keystroke capture devices on your family computer that will help monitor your child’s Internet activity.*

5. Know each of your child’s passwords, screennames, and all account information.

6. Place the computer in a family area of the household and do not permit private usage.

7. Monitor what your child’s friends are posting regarding your child’s identity. Often children and their friends have accounts linked to one another, so it’s not just your child’s profile and information you need to worry about.

8. Know what other access your child has to computers and devices like cell phones and PDAs.

9. Report all inappropriate non-criminal behavior to the site through their reporting procedures.

10. Report criminal behavior to the appropriate law-enforcement agency including the NCMEC CyberTipline at www.cybertipline.com or the Internet Fraud Complaint Center at http://www.ic3.gov.

11. Contact your legislators and request stronger laws against Internet crime.

12. Visit the NetSmartz Workshop at www.NetSmartz.org for more information.

13. Remember that every day is Halloween on the Internet. People on the Internet are not always who they appear to be.

*For information about monitoring software, visit www.getnetwise.org.

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