Tips for Parents to Help Keep Their Children Safe Online

The Cyber Safety and Ethics Initiative is a partnership between Rochester Institute of Technology, more than 20 Rochester area school districts, Time Warner Cable, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Information Systems Security Association and InfraGard Member Alliance of Rochester, a program of the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

The Cyber Safety and Ethics Initiative offers the following tips for parents to help keep their children safe online:

• Keep your computer in a common area of your home, such as the family room
• Monitor your child’s Internet habits and ask them to show you Web sites they visit
• Talk to your child about cyber ethics. Remind them that bullying, cheating and illegally downloading music, movies and software is wrong. Stress Internet ‘stranger danger’
• Develop an ‘Internet usage contract’ for your child and sign it
• Review your child’s instant messenger profiles and away messages, in addition to their social networking profiles on sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Periodically take a look at the profiles of their friends as well
• Set time limits on Internet usage
• Know your child’s friends—both offline, and online
• Do a ‘Google’ search for your child’s name to ensure that their personal information and photo is not easily searchable on the Internet

For more Internet safety tips for children, parents, educators and businesses, visit The Cyber Safety and Ethics Initiative Web site at www.rrcsei.org.