Guest Post: Keeping Your Children Safe Online (Plus a Giveaway!)

This giveaway is now closed!  Thank you for stopping by and entering.  This is an important subject and I appreciate all of your questions and comments.  Stay tuned for a follow-up post from Marian that will answer your questions.  The winners are Sarah B., Jason, djp,  Carolsue, and Xenia.  Congratulations!

The internet is a fabulous thing.  It opens up a world of possibilities.  In the last week I’ve chatted with friends and family online, reunited with old friends from high school, paid bills, updated our family schedule, and found a recipe for dinner.  And that isn’t even a glimpse of what you’ll find online.  Children, in particular, are drawn to a world where they can chat with old friends and make new ones.  Online safety is a topic many parents are concerned about.  Norton recently conducted a comprehensive global survey on people’s online habits and found that three out of four parents say they are worried about strangers approaching their children while they surf the Internet and more than half of these parents admit that they don’t set parental controls on their family computer.

This week I am honored to feature Marian Merritt, Internet safety advocate for Symantec (makers of Norton security software) as she shares with you some tips on keeping your kids safe on the internet.  

Keeping Your Children Safe Online by Marian Merritt

I just got a new washing machine and the front panel is a festival of light-up buttons and dials. It looks so complicated and a little dangerous. I had a mental image of soapsuds flowing over the machine and out the laundry room door if I made a mistake. Nevertheless, I powered ahead and was able to run my first load without opening the user manual and everything worked just as it should. It was so intuitive and easy.

Unfortunately, “ intuitive and easy” aren’t words we use to describe computers and the Internet. We know computers are complicated but your children don’t. They go onto the family PC and connect to the Internet just like I used my new washer. By trial and error and clicking around.  They have no idea of the various dangers on the Internet that might cause them to lose information, download infecting viruses or cause the family computer to “go haywire.” Not unless you talk to them about it.

I know you aren’t a techy person and why should you be? But you have adult knowledge of the world. You know that the Internet isn’t just a computer; it’s an environment of people. And some of those people want to cause you trouble. You need to talk to your children about using good sense when they go online to avoid those dangerous environments where trouble might be hiding.

The top issue kids contend with is Internet or cyber bullying. This is electronic teasing or harassment that comes in through instant messaging, email or on social networking sites like MySpace. If this is happening to your child, you might not even know because kids hate to admit when something goes wrong and they don’t think you’d understand. Make sure your child knows that you would understand and are available to help them.  And more importantly, help empower your child with these four key steps so if they are cyber bullied again, they know that they can do something about it:

1. keep a copy

2. don’t reply

3. block the sender

4. contact school or website authorities for help to remove offending information online 

There are many other concerns of course so if you want to learn more about online safety for your family, please visit our website at www.norton.com/familyresources or send me your questions at marian@norton.com.

Profuse thanks to Marian for speaking on such an important topic.  Please check out Marian’s blog for more information.  

Win It! I have five copies of Norton 360, Symantec’s all-in-one security software to give away courtesy of Symantec.  Head on over to Marian’s blog and take a look around.  Come back and leave me a comment about one of her posts that you found to be particularly useful to you.  Alternatively, you can leave a question about children and online safety for Marian to answer and that will also enter you.  Comments will close on September 25, 2008 at 10 pm PST and I will announce the winner here the following day. One comment per person, please. US residents only. Duplicates and comments not including the above information will be disqualified. Comments are moderated. If you don’t see your comment in a reasonable amount of time, send me an email. Bloggers and non-bloggers may enter. If you don’t want to leave your email address, please be sure to check back for my announcement on the winner. Please note that winners must respond within 48 hours of being announced/contacted or another winner will be drawn.

Want an extra entry? Follow me on Twitter. Be sure to send me a message letting me know since it’s getting a little difficult keeping up with everyone who just started following to gain an extra contest entry!

I’d love to continue to feature guest bloggers on the site, so if there is someone you’d like to see featured or a topic of interest you’d like me to cover, send me an email!