Safe Websites-Protecting Your Kids

As a parent, have you ever thought about family safe websites? Anyone can post whatever they want on the internet. In some ways this freedom of speech is a good thing. In other cases, it isn't so good, especially when mentally disturbed people can post images and messages online that are disturbing and not appropriate for adults or kids to see. Luckily, there are plenty of family friendly internet sites out there that keep you and your family entertained. It is fairly simple to set up your home computer so that family can only access these good and safe websites.

You should teach your children from the time they are very young that the internet is not a safe place and they are only allowed to visit sites that you approve of. When selecting these safe websites, you should visit them yourself to make sure they teach the values that you are teaching your kids at home. Your younger kids may be more than willing to abide by your rules. However, once they get older and more curious about what they can get into, then they’ll look for ways to pull up unsavory websites.

Kids will be kids after all, and you can't rely upon them to willingly stay on family friendly sites. Sometimes they can follow links and wind up in bad neighborhoods and not even know how they got there. That's why you need to take action and make sure your computer is childproof. You can block some sites by setting up filters on the Google search engine. You can also go into the computer's administrative account and set parental filters on the accounts of your children.

The best bet is to buy and install software that blocks all bad sites and only leaving  family safe websites. There are several different types of filtering software available. You can read reviews of them online to help you decide which one to buy. You can buy some of them locally from an electronics store or download them from the internet. Software is not difficult to install but if you don't know how, then you can have a friend help or take your computer into the shop and have it done.

Never underestimate the abilities of your older kids. Frequently check the "history" button on your browser to see what sites your kids have been looking at. If your child clears the history after using the computer, then that could be a sign he has been on sites he doesn't want you to know about. You can even leave the computer in a busy room like the family room or kitchen so that you can always keep one eye on what your kids are doing. Be upfront about monitoring your child's online activities. Tell him you know what sites he has looked at and if he does stray off of family safe websites, then he loses his internet privileges.