A parent's guide to online communities

The first important consideration here is about you and technology:

If you are intimidated by the technology, frustrated by the technology, or uninterested in the technology... you are going to have a difficult time protecting your child. Take the time to learn it, be comfortable with it, and help make wise decisions with your child.

It is common for a teenager or tween to know much more than their "out of date" parents when it comes to emerging technology. This is common all around the world. It's nothing to get intimidated about. In fact you can use this to your advantage.

Have your child teach YOU everything they know about the computer, internet, or whatever technology is in question. After that, do the additional research yourself, so you know more and can help them with security and privacy. There is no getting around it; it will take you time to brush up on all the technology, but it's the most constructive way to go about it.

Here is a primer for protecting your child in online communities. The most popular online communities for children currently: social networking sites (Myspace, Facebook, Orkut, etc...), instant messaging, blogs, chat rooms, and emails. Basic information (like what is an online community!) can be found here.

Here are some things that you can do:

If you have a home PC, put it in a communal place like the family room, so you and your child can engage the internet together and you can oversee their use.

If your child has a laptop, have them do their work on the kitchen or family room table.

Check site privacy policies to make sure your child's name or information won't be sold to direct marketers.

If you think your child may be doing something unsafe and talking the them hasn't worked out, there are many parental control programs that are available for retail, where parents can oversee conversation logs, web browsing history, etc... Ultimately, you are the parent and need to decide what is safest for them.

Here are some things that you can talk with your child about:

Talk to your kids about sexual predators and identity theft. Make the language appropriate to what they understand (this varies more by personality than by age).

Explain to your kids the dangers of speaking with or flirting with strangers online.

Use privacy settings on websites to limit who can see your child's profile or information. Many online communities don't allow user's under 13 years old, while other's allow user's under 13 with parental consent.

Explain why it is important that they don't share their address, phone number, social security number, school name, or any personally identifying information with strangers (in the real world and online).

Make sure their screen names don't identify them by age, name, school, or town.

Many people can see their page, including their teachers, the police, a college admissions officer, or a potential employer.

Talk to your kids about the type of information that is appropriate to post. Just like when you are using an online service, only post information that you would be comfortable with complete strangers seeing. A frequent source of drama in tween and teen life stems from a classmate finding out another classmate loves or hates them from their social network account. Aside from this, employers and college admission staff may search for their profile.

Tell your child to trust their "gut." If they meet someone online, or thought they knew someone online, and feel threatened, they need to tell you. From there, you can decide the correct course of action.

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