PARENTAL CONTROL

In our continuous efforts to make your experiences on our website safe and happy we would also like to offer you this document to help you protect your children from adult online material.

Parental Control programs

The first step on protecting your family is by installing a Parental Control program on your computer. Some of the well-known and well-respected software programs are CyberPatrol, Net Nanny and Safety surf. Also note that some Internet Service Providers offer special options to filter adult content.

What do these programs do?

Parental control software blocks specific sites and content. In most cases you’ll find that these software programs already enhance a certain amount of sites considered inappropriate for minors. Most software is updated via its producers website or it updates itself.

How do these programs work?

Parental control software checks websites on keywords as for instance ‘sex’. You can also set the software to your own needs and filter sites containing subjects like alcohol, racism, drugs or violence.

When using one family computer in your home, you have the possibility to set the filters on a timer. Thus blocking certain sites and content during a set period during the day, for instance during office hours will be installed. Additionally you can use a password, to make sure your children cannot surf the web without your control.

Certain software may block personal data being send to your computer. This could protect your children from getting in touch with potentially harmful material.

The software allows you to set different levels of filtering, giving you a choice of maximum blocking when your children are logging into the computer and minimum or no blocking when you are using the computer.

Please note that installing a filter can also block news sites or informative sites.
We recommend experimenting with various keywords in order to achieve the filter setting you desire.

Keep an eye out

Installing parental control software does not guarantee that your children will not view inappropriate content. New sites go online every day. Check your software regularly and keep it up to date.
Examine your Internet Browser software in order to check the history listings. This way you can keep track of the sites that have been visited that day.

Talk to your children

Please talk to your children explaining them the possible dangers and the reasons why you are monitoring their web-surfing behavior.

Here are a few subjects to discuss:

Tell them never to give personal information about themselves or their family members to anyone online.
Explain to them how easy it is for people online to impersonate someone else.
Instruct your children that they should never place their picture on a site or provide it to a stranger, and if they ever receive a picture with sexual content or anything else that concerns or frightens them, they notify you immediately.
Let your children know that they won't be blamed and you won’t be angry when they come to you with their concerns or actions.

Sites on parental control

ICRAplus (free) http://www.icra.org/icraplus/

CyberPatrol http://www.cyberpatrol.com/

Safety Surf http://www.safetysurf.com/

GetNetWise.org http://kids.getnetwise.org/

RestrictedToAdults.org http://www.rtalabel.org