A lot of kids are getting online these days —sharing data, talking about social issues, meetingadults as well as kids, and learning about other cultures. There seems to be everything on thenetwork. Just like any other form. of media, the quality of this massive collection of information isunequal, and there is good information as well as rubbish. Networks hold great promise: however,it’s also home to people who mean to hurt others or use their technical knowledge to steal fromthem . Although many Web pages can teach kids useful things, there are some other sites waitingto temp young people who are immature and easily affected. 

By now, you may shake your head, but wait, let ’s try to put the problem into p erspectiveGenerally.it ’s safe for kids to use the Internet. The number of sites considered harmful is between1% and 3%, which shows about 5 million other sites are interesting and educational. Besides, tostop children from using these services just because crimes are being committed online would belike telling them not to attend college because students may have accidents on campus. 

What can parents do to protect their children from those harmful sites? The simplestsolution is the use of programs which block offensive sites. Such programs are set to screen outcertain words likely to appear on “unhealthy ” sites. But many sites inappropriate to young peopleare clever at using words with double meanings that may appear harmless. What's more, notonly do the programs fail to do the job satisfactorily, they also take away the decisive role ofparents in children ’s education. A child who downloads bad information or pictures can only becorrected by positive family influence. No filtering program is necessary for a child who haslearned to say “no” to sites he knows are inappropriate for him. 

Today, when children are exposed to technology at a young age, parents often findthemselves lagging behind in computer skills. Surprisingly, this may be the key to yourinvolvement. What is better way to learn about the Internet than to do so alongside your children?They’ll most likely pick it up more quickly than you do, of course, but you ’ll have the chansee, and take pride in, your child at work. You may search for information that interests your childtogether with him and get to know the “friends ” he has online, just as you would get to know hisother friends. 

Thoughtful parents would combine supervision with communication, which is the best wavto take advantage of the Internet as a resource while protecting their children. Follow theirexamples and have fun with kids on the Net!