Are your children going online?

The National Child Safety Council offers these tips for parents.

Get involved. Know how to use your computer.

Locate your computer in a public area of the house, not in a bedroom

Never provide personal information, including names, ages, addresses, phone numbers, etc., when setting up your user/member profile. It may be made available to others.

Make sure your children: A. Know how to use the computer properly with respect, before using it alone. B. Only use the computer with permission. C. Never check e-mail unsupervised.

Set clear rules, including the sites they may explore, people they are allowed to contact, and reasonable time limits.

Become familiar with the Internet. Visit areas such as chat rooms so you can better monitor your children’s use.

Have children use search engines just for kids that block access to inappropriate sites.

Review a “use history” or a “run log” of online activities to see every site your computer has recently visited.

Set up quick access “bookmarks” for sites that are safe for your children to visit.

Talk with your children about online dangers. There are real people on the other end of their correspondence and not all of them are nice.

Use caller ID to monitor incoming calls to you and your children. You may also want to block your number from appearing on someone else’s caller ID.