Keeping Your Kids Safe On The Net

I was asked by my minister, Judy Brain to kick off the Fall Parenting Series, speaking at my church last week on "Keeping Your Kids Safe On The Net". If you missed my lecture September 20th, we'll be doing another in the spring, since so many parents wanted to hear all about it.

My friend, Larry Magid, has written extensively about this and I wanted to let my church members know about his sites, SafeKids and TeenSafe. Check them out!

Of course, the most useful thing was to compare different parents' stories about how they manage the difficult line between letting their kids use the Net to learn and be social versus teaching their kids to avoid dangerous schemes, dangerous people, addictive or nasty sites on the Web.

Our kids need to use the Net to succeed in Middle School and High School -- that's obvious, as most of our school post all their class notes and homework on the Net -- so denying them access isn't possible any more, if they are to excell in school. But to keep our kids safe at the same time, and to keep them from getting "glued to the screen" and never leaving the house to play outside or be social in the REAL world, that's the challenge.

Thanks to all the attendees for sharing their thoughtful ideas and suggestions. Now that I'm teaching Sunday School at church, these real stories helped me think about how our kids face challenges in the world we never had to think about.