by Marion Jones
What is there to say about the world children inhabit these days? Sexed-up television, pornographic Internet sites and videos and violent board games. A world that is lowering 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 kids 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 children by monitoring their activities on the Internet closely.
How to use parental controls: It depends on which Internet provider you use, however, I will speak only of the Internet providers I am aware of, since not all programs are the same. To use AOL Parental Controls, you will have to go to ‘Safety’ on 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 it. 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 can be very serious threats to children, since anyone can go into these rooms. Often predators frequent these areas, in order to draw children into their dangerous network. In the AOL browser, 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 the 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 carry a virus that could corrupt your computer or popup adult content, which your child will see when online. You can go into ‘AOL Safety’ at the toolbar to set these popup blockers.
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 met sexual malpractices through webcams, instant messengers, and mobile phones. Further studies show that pornographic websites are making more profit than each of CBS, ABC, and NBC television channels in a year. The surveys claim that the largest group that views porn sites are children and that these children are typically between the ages of twelve and seventeen.
The statistics showed that about 74% of all the porn sites had uncontrolled banners, while another 66% of the websites did not give ‘adult content’ warnings. Moreover, another 11% of the sites did not have ‘sexually explicit content’ warnings and 25% trapped their visitors by not allowing them to leave their websites. Only 3% of the websites out of more than 14 millions adult websites requested adult permission for minors to visit. So, protect your child now!