Do You Know What Your Kids Are Surfing on the Internet?

Computers and online services are now a large part of our children's lives. The Internet provides a vast amount of useful and educational information. It also holds potential for harm. Did you know that pornography, sex and nude are among the top search keywords today? Are you aware that hate groups and cults have websites, and that a quick click will return bomb-making instructions? Parents must provide guidance from the setup of the web browser to continued supervision of sites visited, e-mail and chat room activities.

The information within this section of our website will introduce parents to safe web surfing and different computer monitoring techniques.

Did You Know???

• The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) became effective April 21, 2000. It states that commercial websites must obtain parental permission before collecting children's (under 13) personal information.
    
• A variety of filtering and blocking software is available and most work in the same way. Once installed, parents/guardians can restrict certain "key" words. Pages including these words will then be inaccessible.
   
• Most web browsers allow content rating to enforce parental control. Explore you menu options for the content rating feature.
    
• Check with the company that provides your Internet connection. Some may provide control or blocking features. Do a search for "Filtered ISP Providers" for more information.