Despite all the merits of the internet, parents consider it a threat. Web conscious parents are worried about the hazards of the increasing unethical and immoral activities online. Some parents are simply concerned that their children are spreading too much time connected to the Net. There are a number of ways children can be educated to utilize their time in a constructive manner - laying all your doubts to rest.

Netiquette for kids:

Most young kids connect to the internet for entertainment. Bearing this in mind, parents can draft ground rules for surfing.

• Young kids must be made aware that passwords are a matter of high security. In any case, they should not reveal it to anyone they meet online or offline.

• Installing anti-virus software to keep the computer free of viruses is important for both of you.

• Set limits on your child. Make sure they do not give out any personal information including, date of birth, phone number, home address, school name etc while they chat or email.

• Explain to your child that Net-based friendship are based on the false declaration of identity. you never know who is on the other side of the computer.

• Keep in close proximity to your child while he is chatting so that you can monitor his/her activity.

• Never allow kids to meet alone with their Net friends. Predator often meet kids and teens alone after striking up an innocent conservation in a chat room.

Protect your kids:

Chatting is popular among youngsters. They feel comfortable expressing themselves with a number of anonymous people, often acquainting with who they see is a 'Net buddy'. Kids are constantly in danger of becoming friends with predators posing as Net buddies. These predators are skilled enough to win the confidence of your child without coming into your notice. So how can you protect your kids? Instead of imposing a ban on chatting; it is better for you to permit your kids to visit chat rooms that they are recommended for them.

Kidscom offers a fun and safe chatting service. this colorful and lively website offers thousands of positive activities for kids between 4 to 15. These activities comprise of games, music, making new friends and other creative exercises. Along with your kid, you can too join the kidscom club. This club has large number of members from 120 countries. To become a registered member, parents need to submit their email address along with their child's email address. Registered members are allowed to use kidscom chat and kidscom "find key pal" programs. The kidscom staff monitors their conversation.

Spyware Benefits:

Sending and receiving email is a hot favorite pursuit among young kids and teens. Normally, it is hard task for parents to explore their child's inbox. Software developers make this task easy. internet monitoring software not only spy on your kid's email but also give you a complete report of your child's online activities.

One such useful software is "I am Big Brother". As the name suggests, the software can monitor all online activities including inbox chat and instant messengers, websites viewed, and screen capturing functions. A trial version of the software is available at the official website. The software can detect all sorts of in programs such as Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, Outlook Express and instant messenger services. The main screen is dicided into four categories. parents can click on any date from the calendar given on the main screen to observe recent web surfing. If your kids like chatting programs like MSN, ICQ, and yahoo, then see the second category.

Guard against spammers:

Your kid's personal email address can bring gigantic problems in the form of spam or junk e-mail. Spammers are active enough to fetch teen email addresses for bulletin board services and websites which have access to your web browser via cookies.

There are several types of spam. Spam messages can carry web addresses of pornographic websites; it could expose your child at any kind of product. Spam can carry vicious viruses to destruct your personal date or most probably it has "good news" for your kids: 'Guess what, you've just won a million dollars. Click here to claim the money'. Obviously, this is just another hoax to get more information out of your child.

To tackle spam, instruct your child not to download any file attachments that come over email until he or she knows its objective and the senders identity. It will protect your computer data from Trojan attacks ad deadly viruses.

Your child must know that he or she should never reply any spam message because it will certify his or her address and identity. if possible hunt down spammers by reporting them to your ISP. There are many anti-spam software's available.

Restrict websites and Ads:

Filtering software makes it easy for parents to stop their children from viewing harmful websites. One such software is kidsnet which is a highly sophisticated filtering program for parents peace of mind. This filtering mechanism is developed and controlled be web experts. These experts divide websites into different categories based on Childs mental and physical allocate passwords for their kids to visit permitted websites.

A number of websites encourage vulgar ads and pop-ups to attract more visitors. To protect your child, install Net Nanny's (netnanny.com) ad-free software. The software consumes 4 MB on your hard disk and blocks unwanted ads from its three blocking filters.

You can also keep a track of your kid through the History folder (ctrl+h) of Internet Explorer. The history folder gives you access to previously visited web pages. A Blank history folder reveals that your child is trying to hide something from your.

You protect your kid from "porn predator websites", teach him to close browsers windows using ctrl+w command. This command stops the cycle of opening unwanted pornographic windows.

To getting rid of unsolicited emails, upgrade your browser. Old web browsers are unable to provide appropriate security and privacy settings. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 offers many security alerts features. Do the following:

• Open Tools and select Internet Option.

• Now click on the Privacy tab and scroll the slider to low.

• Scroll up the slider to set privacy settings to high level only to block cookies from all websites including first party websites (currently viewing websites).

Cookies can also help parents to track their kid's online activities. These are stored in your hard disk by websites you visit. If you find the History empty, follow:

• Open "Tools" and select "Internet option"

• On the "General tab", choose "Settings" of Temporary Internet Files option.

• Click on "View files" to find out Internet address of visited websites

So parents, be on your guard and give your kids the protection they need to surf smart in cyberspace!