Children's Internet Safety - Childproof your PC

It will depend on the age of your child as to what child-proofing is required. For the younger child you may be thinking of removing the physical hazards (electric sockets or sharp corners on tables etc as well as stopping them chewing your favourite mouse!), but this article is designed to give some tips on how to allow your kids to use the computer safely.

The Internet can be a nightmare with lots of problems to be avoided. However, it can also be a lot of fun and a great resource of information, so simply not connecting to it is not a viable option in this age of technology. Children's Internet safety should be a major concern for any parent whose child has access to a computer. Just as you would watch your kids in a playground or park, they also need monitoring when they are playing on the Internet. So what can we do to protect ourselves? How do we ensure that our kids are safe on the Internet? Read on to find out.

To protect your computer and all the users from the Internet and other external sources you need firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware software. There is no need to spend a great deal of money on these items, in fact many great fully-functional products can be obtained for free. There are lots of options, but the most often recommended are:

Firewall	- Download ZoneAlarm (Free)
Anti-virus	- Download AVG (Free)
Anti-spyware	- Download Spybot - S&D (Free)

The firewall stops people from the outside remotely accessing your PC without your permission. Anti-virus software searches for malicious programs (virus') on your PC or in your email and stops them from running. Anti-spyware scans your PC for spyware and other malicious threats. Spyware is software that tracks your surfing behaviour, often in the form of cookies (but that should not stop you using cookies, as most cookies are good). There are other products that will help 'protect' you from spam, malicious downloads etc, but provided you are vigilant, the above three are a good start.

The next thing to do it to protect the settings on the computer from being changed via small fingers on the keyboard. This can be done in XP or Vista by passwording the adult accounts and creating a separate children's account (or perhaps an account for each child, especially if of differing ages). An adult's (or child's) account should never have admin rights - always keep the admin account just for times when you need these privileges eg installing programs, and use a standard account the rest of the time.

To password an account in XP go to the 'Control Panel' and select 'User Accounts'. Select the account and change the password. In Vista you need to (be in the admin account and) go to the 'Control Panel' and select 'User accounts' and 'Change your Password'. NB don't forget to make your password hard to guess [at least 6 digits long, preferably containing a mix of upper/lower case & numbers] and change it regularly!

To create a new account in XP go to the 'Control Panel' and select 'User Accounts' then 'Create a new account'. Type the child's name in the box and click on 'Next'. Put a tick in the option for a 'Limited Account' to restrict the privileges. In Vista you need to (be in the admin account and) go to the 'Control Panel' and select 'User accounts' and 'Manage another account'. Click the link at the bottom to 'Create a new user account'. Type the child's name in the box and click on 'Next'. Turn on the 'Parental Controls' and 'Activity Reporting' if required. Other settings in Vista control time limits and access to games, programs and websites.

Vista gives you far more control than XP (especially if your hard disc is formatted in NTFS rather than FAT). Activity Reporting is a particularly useful Vista feature as it allows you to see a detailed account of the child's computer use so it is easy to see what they have been looking at and for how long. It is then easy to change the settings according to the child's behaviour. If this sounds a bit sneaky, then don't worry - an icon appears on the desktop so kids can see that the feature is turned on. [You may think that an alternative simpler way to view their browsing behaviour is to use the 'history' button {in Internet Explorer, click the Favourites Centre button on the toolbar, and then click the History button.}, but this history can easily be erased by an Internet savy kid - and it does not offer any of the features of proper account control mentioned above.]

If you are still running XP then K9 Web Protection is a free alternative, although it is not as comprehensive as the controls in Vista. Some instructions can be found at http://www.computeractive.co.uk/2209102.

Did you know that you can turn on 'SafeSearch' in Google search. While no filter is 100% accurate, SafeSearch blocks sites and web pages containing inappropriate content from search results. There are three settings: Off, Moderate and Strict. These can be adjusted by going to the search preferences page. Obviously this does not stop your child using other search engines (use the parental controls above) or unsetting the SafeSearch options. However you can use our own Manor School Search page - where SafeSearch is permanently set to strict!

For those with younger children there are a variety of programs available:

Maddie is free. This program creates a simple, safe and kid-friendly environment to let toddlers pound on the keyboard and play with the mouse. It temporarily disables the Windows key, to help protect your settings, and hides the other windows to prevent your baby from accidentally reconfiguring anything. It can be configured to suit each child's needs.

Kbang is a free program that displays images of different animals and plays corresponding sounds (like meow for cats and bark for dogs) when keys are pressed. The program locks the keyboard so that children can't do anything to your computer.

Computer filtering and monitoring programs offer a lot useful assistance to parents who simply cannot always be there watching what their children are doing. But a monitoring program is just a tool. It is not a babysitter, and it is also very important to realize that none of the programs are foolproof. They are no substitute for active and concerned parental involvement in your child's online activities. One of the best things you can do to increase their Internet safety is to spend time with your child on the computer. Put the computer in a place that can easily be accessed by the entire family. Have your family use a friendly search page that filters out unwanted material. Use the Internet with your child to play games, plan for a family vacation or learn about new places and people. Ask your child to teach you more about the computer and to show you certain tricks he or she may have learned. Not only will you gain knowledge, you will also get valuable information about just how much your child knows about the computer. Make sure to ask your child what he or she likes on the Internet and to show you their favourite sites. The Internet will probably never be "kid safe", but then there are many places in the real world where kids should be supervised.

What can parents do?

What you can do...

Commerce

• Install software to protect your computer's security
• Be careful which sites the rest of the family visit
• Use a family email address for shopping and online forms
• Use the free technology: pop-up blockers & SPAM filters; and your good judgement: don't reply to SPAM!
• Check sites for extra security (padlock/https)

What you can do...

Content

• Talk to your children about what to do if they do come across something unpleasant and teach them to be critical
• Use child-friendly search engines or set a search filter
• Encourage them to use browser tools - Bookmarks & History
• Install filtering but don't rely on it
• Find appropriate sites to visit and try not to overreact - lots of inappropriate content viewed accidentally

What you can do...

Contact

• Get involved with your children online and encourage balanced use - set time limits
• Make sure they know who to talk to if they feel uncomfortable
• Talk about the consequences of giving out personal info or making information public
• Keep the computer in a family room
• Agree rules as a family - meeting up

SMART Rules

• SAFE - Keep safe by being careful not to give out personal information - including full name and email address - to people who you don't trust online.
• MEETING - Meeting up with someone you have only been in touch with online can be dangerous. Only do so with your parent's/carer's permission and even then only when they can be present.
• ACCEPTING - Accepting e-mails, IM messages or opening files from people you don't know can be dangerous - they may contain viruses or nasty messages!
• RELIABLE - Someone online may be lying about who they are, and information you find on the internet may not be true. Check information and advice on other websites, in books or ask someone who may know.
• TELL - Tell your parent/carer or teacher if someone or something makes you feel uncomfortable or worried, or you or someone you know is being cyberbullied.

More resources

• www.childnet.com
• www.kidsmart.org.uk
• www.digizen.org

Child Friendly Search Engines

• ALA great website for kids
• Fact Monster
• Yahoo Kids
• Kidsclick
• Surfing the net with Kids
• Ask Kids
• Think Quest Library

The internet can take you anywhere... do you know where your children are tonight?

You can find some more links to 'Internet Safety' on our links page.

If you have other suggestions for useful websites or programs please let us know. One thing we have not covered here is how to monitor your child's activity in a chat room, but again, there is software to do it. If you use any software, let us know what you think of it and we will feed that back to on this page.

Please take care when making any changes to your computer (eg. installing programs or working in Control Panel). This guide has been prepared in good faith, but not all the features/software have been used or tested by us; we cannot take responsibility for any problems encountered. Please let us know of any updates so we can improve this page for everyone else.