Safer Internet For Kids

Do you ever wonder what all those acronyms your children are using online mean? Let’s face it. It’s not possible to know every acronym and terms used online and still have a life. Thankfully, there’s a place you can go to quickly look up what those terms and words mean and if you should be concerned or worried. NetLingo is like a virtual Internet Lingo Dictionary. It even has a special section just for parents. They cover all kinds of terms and acronyms
that might come in useful for other areas in our tech centered life.

Technorati Tags: internet, lingo, parenting, safety

If you have teens, even young adults, this is something you might want to suggest and talk to them about doing. More and more employers are scouring places like Facebook, picture hosting sites and other social networking sites to check up on candidates. It’s not right, but it happens. A picture of a bright and promising kid drunk at a party does not fare well when he or she’s applying for a job. It’s not only pictures. Employers also look at blogs and how candidates behave themselves on their own
blogs. Kids coming out of high school and entering college are not spared either.

Apart from this, my concern mostly is about untruths. Because of the Internet, rumors that once were confined to a local area is now spread around the world. Heck, I remember even those lies and rumors in school itself were hard to take let alone have them online. So how do you find out if there’s any malicious stuff about your child online? Or maybe they unknowingly let slip their private information once and now that information is out there flitting around just waiting to be caught. You could do searches
but here’s something, someone to do it for you.

I found ReputationDefender.com today. For a monthly subscription they will actively search for information about you or your children online. When they find something they’ll report it to you and if you wish, they’ll remove it for a fee of $30 a pop. Kinda steep but may be worth it. I just wonder though, how do they know if the person requesting this service is really me? I mean it could just as easily be someone who wants to track my info
right? Any thoughts?

I knew this would happen before long. Whenever the media highlights a particular website and plasters warnings all over, creating a frenzy among parents, soon the kids leave. Parents who are just finding out about MySpace continue thinking it’s the space online to watch but their kids have already moved on to yet another ‘secret’ online community. The point?

First, we need to be reactive in our child’s lives not pro-active. There are thousands of MySpace type websites out there. It’s not MySpace that’s the problem. This is a classic case where communication with our kids is the best recourse.

Secondly, we no longer have the luxury of saying “I don’t understand computers” anymore. It is in our children’s best interest we more or less keep up with what’s in. Now I’m not saying to be on top of every new thing online but a general awareness of what’s going on and how to do a little bit of research goes a long way.