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Child Safety and Online Dangers

by Marion Jones on Jul.05, 2009, under Security

What is there to say about the world children live in these days? Sexed-up television, pornographic Internet sites and videos and violent board games. A world that is dropping its standards, values, and morals each day, surrounds our kids.

What makes it even worse is that we cannot use Parental Controls any more to prevent our children from visiting websites of an adult nature. These days children are knowledgeable about technology and sometimes more so than their parents. How can we keep our children safe from online dangers? How can we as parents provide safety for our children, while still fighting the corruption that goes on in the world?

Parental Controls are available on most types of Internet software, yet today, children are skilled at by-passing these Parental Controls. So, what can we do? We can protect our kids by overseeing their activities on the Internet closely.

How to use parental controls: It depends on which Internet provider you have, however, I will speak only of the Internet providers I know about, since all programs are different. To use AOL Parental Controls, you will have to go to Safety at the Toolbar and click on Parental Controls.

Once you get there, you will see a drop-down list of available usernames. Search for your child’s username and click on the username. You will see a popup window appear. Click on ‘Edit Web Control’ and then click ‘Kids Only’, and close. Now your child is guarded against websites that hold potential dangers.

Chat rooms pose serious threats to children, since anyone can go into these rooms. Often predators frequent these areas, so as to entice children into a web of danger. In the AOL program, click on ‘Safety’ and then click on ‘Parental Controls’.

Next, following the same steps click on the ‘Edit IM Controls’, ‘Edit E-mail Controls’, and ‘Edit Chat Control’ and follow the same steps as you did to setup the ‘Parental Controls’.

It is wise to setup passwords. Passwords will offer additional protection and safety to your child. Do not give your child the passwords, since this will give the child control of your Internet connections, and the child might reset the controls.

It is also a good idea to activate your ‘Popup Controllers’ too, since if you do not turn on the controls, pop ups could corrupt your system, or popup adult content, which your child will see when online. You can go into ‘AOL Safety’ at the toolbar to start these popup guards.

If you use Internet Explorer; open a page. Click on ‘Tools’ at the top menu, then click ‘Popup Blocker’ and then click ‘Popup Blocker Settings’. Read the information carefully and set the program at medium. Medium is standard and will block most pop ups. If you put the settings higher than medium you could find it difficult to open websites for browsing.

Some of the dangers posed to children online include: Internet Porn; Child Porn; Child Sexual Abuse; Mobile Porn; and more. As you can see, your child is at serious risk, and if you want to master safety, you have to monitor, and take the steps to safeguard your child against online dangers.

According to recent surveys, students have encountered sexual malpractices through webcams, instant messengers, and mobile phones. Additional studies reveal that pornographic websites are making more profit than each of CBS, ABC, and NBC television channels in a year. The surveys say that the largest group that views porn sites are children. These children are between the ages of twelve and seventeen.

The results showed that around 74% of all the porn sites had unmonitored banners, while another 66% of the websites did not give adult content warnings. Furthermore, another 11% of the sites did not have ’sexually explicit content’ warnings and 25% boxed in their visitors by not letting them leave their websites. Only 3% of the websites out of more than 14 millions adult sites requested adult permission for minors. So, it is vital to protect your child now!

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