Why Parents Need to Protect Children Online?

The internet can be a dangerous space for unsuspecting children. It is the responsibility of parents to extend their protection even to the online domain of their kids. The accessibility of internet through cell phones and through public libraries and internet cafes has created the risk of online attacks on unsuspecting children. Parents should be aware of the various aspects of internet that make the children vulnerable to be contacted by a pedophile.

Only being aware is not enough, parents should take adequate steps to protect the privacy of their kids in the online domain. There are several aspects of the internet like blogs, social networking sites, chat rooms etc; and the parents should know how to extend their protection on each of these different perspectives.

However, an important point to mention here is that online protection is a delicate issue and if the child feels too much followed by the parents at their online space (which is supposed to be the place to enjoy freedom), then he or she may be more inclined to hide away from parents and make friends with strangers. For this reason, it is advised to not to forcefully befriend your children on his social networking page but to be friends in real life before that. If you are friends with your child in offline life, your child should not have any problem accepting you as his or her online friend.

The first place where parents should stay in touch with children is on their social network pages like Facebook, MySpace etc. There have been several instances of children being befriended by bad people on social networks. These networks allow these fiends to hide their identity and behave as a completely different person on the online social networks. Since social networks are places where people speak out their emotions, the vulnerability factor is even more. Parents should be friends of their kids on social network pages. When the kids are reluctant to let parents know what is going on in their minds through their Facebook pages, parents should talk to their children on the threat of pedophiles lurking in the online domain. Parents should have a look at the friend list of their kids and if there is anyone suspicious there, parents should immediately talk to the kids about the matter.

The chat rooms are another place where parents should pay attention. Although it is impossible to monitor a chat room conversations, parents should talk to their kids clearly about the perils of chatting with strangers in chat rooms.