Internet Security ABC - IM Rules to Live By and Protect Your Kids

IM Rules to Live By and Protect Your Kids

One of the most favorite online activities for kids these days is instant messaging. Parents if you have no clue what IM is, you better educate yourself real quick! While you cannot always keep an eye on their online activities, especially since they can instant message from any computer, you can instill in them some basic guidelines to follow to ensure that they will make smart choices while on the Internet.

Kids should be aware of the latent hazards of instant messaging and why they should be so careful when using this software. Work with your child and establish a basic set of rules. That way, they have a good foundation in which to act upon if they are away from you. After all,

you dont have the only computer in town! Your children could do the instant messaging thing at school, at a friends house or even at the library. Here are a few things you should do with your child in regards to IM:

Work with your child to create an instant messaging profile you both can agree with. And if you leave the profile to your child to create, be sure to read it. You want to ensure that there is no personal information even hinted at like phone numbers, pictures, ages, names and anything else that could give away your childs real identity outside the internet world. In addition, make sure that your childs screen name is not linked with a website.

Talk with your child about the proper way to conduct themselves online. For instance, they should be respectful to others by not using rude or foul language. In addition, instruct your child to not answer any instant messages that promote hate, dirty language or sexually explicit information. Responding to hateful instant messages only eggs on the perpetrators.

Get to know your childs online friends. Kids are nave and dont think that some weird adult would intentionally pretend to be another kid online. By learning who your child corresponds with online, you will get a better understanding of who they are talking about and to. Your child should also be told that not everything is always what it seems online. That thirteen-year-old girl who appears to be a kindred spirit could just as easily be a whacked out adult looking for easy prey.

Kids will bend every implied rule in the book, but if you set clear parameters for the use of instant messaging when online, they will likely do the right thing. For instance, you could institute a limit of time your child can instant message when online. Schoolwork should take first place before instant messaging and late night jaunts on the Internet should simply be barred.

Cell phones these days have instant messaging. Do all parties a favor and simply stop the instant messaging service. That way your child is not tempted to play around with it when you are not around to police them.

Learn about your childs online friends. Teach them to not accept chat invitations or buddy list requests from strange people that they do not recognize. First and foremost however it should be stressed that your child should never, ever meet someone in person that they met online.

Keeping an eye on children can be tough. And when you figure instant messaging into the equation, its a whole new ball game. If you keep a good line of communication open with your child, chances are that they will not think twice about informing you when they are approached by a stranger online through instant messaging or if they are being harassed.

Five Ways that Your Personal Information Finds Its Way to the Internet
You think that you are so careful when it comes to revealing your personal information on the Internet. However, you willingly provide information in a number of instances that you probably dont even realize. No matter what medium you work in,...

Importance of Deleting those Temporary Internet Files
Every persons computer holds a temporary history of his or her Internet activity. The temporary Internet Files folder contains a travel record of the items that have been seen, heard, or downloaded from the Web. The typical folder holds files, such...

Internet Privacy and Safety Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Online privacy and safety are hard to obtain, and are huge issues for many people. Privacy and safety basically go hand-and-hand in terms of the Internet, but they are not the same thing. There are many ways for users to protect their privacy and...

What Firewalls Can Do for You
What can a firewall do for you? To the computer novice, this term appears to be somewhat dubious, yet because of the literature that is always included with the computer system, even the most inexperienced computer user knows that a firewall is a...

Six Savvy Moves to Protect your Privacy when Shopping Online
E-commerce can be sweet! You can shop online twenty-four hours a day; seven days a week for practically anything you want. Cant get to the grocery store? No problem! Order your groceries online and have them delivered right on your doorstep. Do...

Internet Security
◦ Are You an Enabler? What Enabling Cookies
◦ Can the Spam-How to Filter Out All the Unnecessary Junk
◦ Channel the Cookie Monster in You - Computer Cookies Can Be Bad For Your Computer's Health
◦ Chat Room Challenge - Five Tips to Ensure Your Anonymity
◦ Computer Band-aid - How to Know if You Need to Download that Security Patch
◦ Computer Deep Freeze - Ten Tips to Keep your PC Up and Running
◦ Computer Junkyard - Does Spam Filtering Really Help?
◦ Dial-Up vs. Broadband - Which is the Safer Alternative?
◦ Doesn't Ad up - Three Things that Adware does to your Computer
◦ Don't Click No! How to Safely Close those Pop-up Windows
◦ Don't Get Hacked Off-How to Stop Computer Interlopers in their Tracks
◦ Exercise Parental Control - Five Tips to Keep Kids Safe on the Internet
◦ Exterminate those Bugs on your PC
◦ Getting Down With Downloads - How to Protect Your Computer
◦ Hijacked at Home - Five Steps to Protect Your Home PC
◦ Identity Theft via Internet Security Flaws
◦ Inoculate Yourself against Computer Viruses
◦ Internet Anonymizers - Why and When You Should Use Them
◦ Key Logging Capers Part Two - Three Reasons why it is a Problem
◦ Key Logging Capers - Three Reasons Why You Need It
◦ Let's Go Phishing! - Five Ways to Avoid Being Hooked by This Scam
◦ Maintaining Your Privacy on the Internet - Five Things you can do
◦ Malicious Instant Messages-Three Ways Instant Messaging Compromises Internet Security
◦ Malware is bad for your Computer
◦ Picking Blackberries - Why Mobile Technology Needs More Security
◦ Pound Those Pop-Ups
◦ Six Tips for Staying Healthy in a Computer Virus World
◦ Something Doesn't Register - Cleaning your Computer's Registry for Safety
◦ Spies Everywhere - What is Spyware and Why is it so Bad?
◦ Squash those Worms - Four Ways to Keep your PC Critter-Free
◦ That Wasn't Scripted! Why Scripted Viruses are Bad News
◦ The Basics of Internet Website Encryption
◦ The Cookie Monster - How Do Cookies Influence Internet Security?
◦ The Digital Certificate - What's It Mean and Why is It Important?
◦ Three Benefits to Using an Internet Remailer
◦ Three Reasons to Wipe Your Computer's Internet History Files Clean
◦ Three Ways that an Internet Firewall Can Be Compromised
◦ Three Ways to Identify a Virus Hoax
◦ Three Ways to make sure your Online Credit Card Transaction is Safe
◦ Toolbar Traps - What You Should Know BEFORE Downloading that "Helpful" Toolbar
◦ Top Five Reasons to Install a Firewall
◦ Top Five Spyware Threats to Internet Security
◦ Top Five Vulnerable Areas in Internet Security
◦ Top Five Worst Viruses and How to Protect Your Computer against Them
◦ Top Four Ways to Ensure a Secure Password
◦ Top Ten Tools to Boost your Internet Security
◦ What IP Addresses Mean in the Scheme of Internet Security
◦ When Formatting the Hard Drive is Your Only Recourse

Internet Privacy
◦ Remote Access Trojans Hijacking your Computer
◦ Precautions You Should Take When Installing WiFi in your Home
◦ Sold! How to Maintain your Privacy and Still Indulge in Online Auctions
◦ Social Networking Be Careful of What You Post!
◦ Sneaky Ways to Get Around those Internet Privacy Issues

Identity Theft
◦ Electronic Mail Identity Theft
◦ Facts on Identity Theft
◦ Fighting Identity Theft

ID Theft

Download Free eBook "The Dangers of Identity Theft and How to Protect Yourself!"