There are evil people on the Internet. Right now there is some child abusing scum just waiting to find an unaware child on the Internet. Guess what? There are those same people who want to abuse your children in your neighborhood, at the mall and in every corner of the world. The real truth is that the world is full of bad people and that includes online.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I need to slap a little reality into all the parents out there who are scared to death of their kids getting online.

I recently spoke at an elementary school about Internet Safety. It was a small group of parents, but I was excited about it because I wanted to really answer their questions. As the organizer of the event explained some of what the school was already up to (including the awesome idea of a secured Ning site for their students to interact with other students around the world) and two police officers briefed them on all the scary facts about online dangers, I began to get worried. I could see that some of the parents were genuinely scared when they found out their kids were talking to other kids and adults (school staff in this case) online. But, I also knew I had my kids in the room with me and I wanted to show them from one parent to another why all of this is a good thing and not something to run away from.

If you are a parent, you need to realize that your kids ARE going to be online. They are going to set up social networking accounts, talk to complete strangers on them, watch videos, chat, etc. They are going to do this no matter if you let them or not. They may not do it at home, but they will do it at school and when they are hanging out with friends. Just like experimenting with drinking, drugs and each other, it is part of growing up. We all went through it and turned out ok for the most part so it is up to us to help our kids get through it as well.

With all of these issues and especially the online piece the answer is you MUST be involved. You too must be checking out these sites and using them so that you understand what they are all about and can teach your kids how to use them. You are responsible to teach them the right and wrong way to use the Internet. Just like you are responsible for teaching them about safe driving, safe sex and say no to drugs. It is up to YOU to teach them..

Some practical advice I gave to the parents that night and that I want to share with you:

1. Get Yourself Online
   I don’t want to hear you whining about not having time or barely understanding e-mail. Your kids are growing up with a computer as an integrated part of their lives and will always be. If you have a computer in the house then they are going to start using services like Facebook, YouTube and others and you must understand them as well. These services are free and honestly the only way to understand them is to use them. Make sure to always check the privacy settings on each service as they are not all the same, but they are all important as they control who can see what about you. Still confused? Ask your kids to show you them or find someone at your children’s school who can answer your questions.
2. Put The Computer In a Family Space
   I won’t allow my kids to have computers in their rooms even though they keep asking me for it. When we got them a computer last Christmas, we put it in the living room. That way when they are on it we can always see what they are doing. We also have several laptops in the house and they know they can’t bring those up to their room either. Anything they should be doing online they should be comfortable doing with us around. Plus, this way I can see how long they’ve been online and kick them off it when appropriate.
3. Monitor Them
   I’m not talking about secret spying, but Emily and Dylan both know that we have parental controls turned on the computer. They know that I can go back and look at every site they’ve been to. This is not a secret and it is important that they know this. I don’t want to snoop around and I won’t ever go into their e-mail or track their IM conversations, but keeping a web history that they can’t delete is something I will do. The newest Mac OS and Windows 7 both have these sort of controls built in. There are other software options out there that can do even more then this, but the basics can be covered by what you have.
4. Talk to Your Kids
   I’ve made it very clear to the kids what is inappropriate. Just like I taught them not to talk to strangers or ever get in someone else’s car, I’m also teaching them what not to do online. First names only, never give a home address, being vague about where they go to school and the town they live in. User accounts are always a silly name rather than their own. They never give out a phone number. All things that hold true online and off and as they begin to get older and use it more, I will talk to them more about it. It is part of our every day conversation and it is not uncommon to hear “You’ve got to see this video on YouTube” come up at dinner. And just like “the talk”, this can not be a one time thing. You have to keep talking about it.
5. Don’t Fear Google
   If I hear one more time “your kids might see porn if they mistype something into Google” I am going to scream. Google has simple settings that you can set on your computer to hide that sort of content. It isn’t perfect, but it will filter out the majority of it on your home computers. Plus, guess what? Your kids are going to see naked people at some point in their lives. They might actually go and seek it out on the web out of curiosity or other reasons. Shocking I know.

   But, again it is up to you to teach them what is right and appropriate and what is not. Search engines are amazing tools. Just the other night i was showing my son how to filter for images for a project he was working on and I had no worries about porn coming up when we searched for “vikings” because I knew the settings I had set would keep it clean. But. school computers, or ones at friend’s house might not have these settings so that is why you must talk about this rather than trying to hide from it.

These are just five tips, but they are five important ones.

To all the parents who think that not allowing their children to get online and sheltering them from the Internet is the solution I have one thing to tell you. You are ignorant and stupid. Sorry to be so blunt, but I refuse’t sugar coat it for you.

Sheltering our children from everything that might be bad in the world is never the solution. No one can live in a bubble and turn out ok. Children need to learn what is good and what is bad and how they are suppose to operate online in order to be successful in their lives. Just because the computer might not be important or needed by you, they are never going to know a world without them.

You need to instill in them what is appropriate. Just like you are going to teach them how to respect others, how to drive a car and how to do good in school. How to act online is just a new part of the parenting puzzle and you are responsible for this whether you like it or not.

I live and breath in this space and I can tell you that the amount of good things that have happened far outweigh the few bad things. I’m more worried about my kids and what might happen to them out in the real world then I ever will be about what they might run into online.

Don’t be stupid. Get active and get involved with your kids online. That is the way a good parent should act.