We live today in the digital age, where most of the society has an access to the Internet and all the good and bad things that come together with it. The Internet can offer unbelieveable ways to communicate with people all around the world. Nowadays it is also biggest source of information and knowledge. But it has also darker side. The Web is full of people with bad intentions, from various kinds of identity stealers and hackers to kidnappers and pedophiles. The latter ones are probably the most dangerous, because they can harm the youngest and they are frequently using social media websites as their hunting ground. Along with fast developement of the Internet, which covers so many aspects of our lives at the moment, various kinds of criminals learned how to use it into their wrong purposes.
What can we do about it?
And this is what should concern all of the responsible parents which children are using the Internet. It is the crucial matter to protect them from any threats coming from the Web. But how can we do that? First of all, we should try to have frequent conversations with our children about ther internet activity. They should know which kinds of websites or people they can meet online can be suspicious or dangerous. We can try to convnce them to not enter pornographic websites, by suggesting that such action would download the virus that might damage the computer, and what should be more convincing, our children’s video games. Another thing is to teach them how to use privacy settings on social media websites in order to protect their personal information from strangers.
Creating family firewall
Talking with our kids is always good and should be strong fundation of our protection, but we can never be 100% sure about the outcome. In such situation, we can obtain one of many kinds of parental monitoring software that are widely available on the Internet, both freeware and licensed versions. Softwares like these can be really a blessing for caring parents because of the range of options they offer. For example you are able to monitor entire online and offline activity on your computer. Also, you are able to create blacklist for suspicious websites that will be blocked, or set filters on certain words in search engines. Moreover, most types of software offer and option to set time limits, during which the computer or the Internet can be used. So if you want to limit your children’s online activity to 2 hours per day – not a problem! No more endless talking about turning off the computer and do the homework because computer will turn off by itself. Those programs can also be installed on smartphones, and such versions are able to report our children’s current position.
Summary
As we can see, there are many ways to protect our children from any harm that might come from the Internet. Honest conversations and awareness combined with parental monitoring through specialized software should be enough for us to feel safe about our children when they are online.
If you want to know more about this, visit www.pcwebcontrol.com PCWebControl is parental monitoring software. It is commonly used in hundreds of households along with private companies and public facilities.
