Taking an interest

Parents Guide:

Introduction

OpenGuide

Possible pitfalls

Taking an interest

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The Internet is truly a medium which adults and children can share to the great advantage of both. It is already being widely used in our schools and across the educational system. More and more young people are using it not just to do their homework, but also for all kinds of fun and games and to communicate with their friends. Young people by and large seem to have had no difficulty adapting to the Internet.

Children and young people all need a certain amount of privacy but they also need parental involvement in their daily lives. You need to become engaged with how your child uses the Internet. Familiarise yourself with how your child uses the Internet. Regularly ask them to show you the places they go on the Web and ask them how else they use the Internet. You should know who they are sending emails to and who they are receiving them from. You should know if they frequent Chat Rooms or subscribe to Newsgroups and you should understand what they do when they go to these places.

And who knows? If you too become OpenGuide you might even start finding that you get a lot more out of the Internet for yourself, never mind that satisfying feeling that, for once at least, you know as much as your children do!

The best laid plans

If you use parental control software, you might think you have taken adequate steps to protect your child but please be aware that:

	a determined child might nonetheless be able to circumvent any protective software or security measures. By taking care not to disclose relevant passwords or PIN numbers this can be made nearly impossible;
	there may be occasions when the protective software is not working: check that it hasn't been switched off;
	there may be occasions when your children use computers elsewhere, e.g. at friends' houses or in Internet Cafes;
	friends might come to visit and bring discs with them containing material which would otherwise have been picked up and blocked or diverted, or your children might swap discs at school or elsewhere;
	in the UK it is very easy to obtain CDs which will automatically and immediately establish a new, subscription-free Internet account that may not work with software previously installed on the machine;
	some of the more undesirable elements on the Internet might find ways to evade the security systems that you or your ISP have installed.

However if the children in your care know and observe the OpenGuide rules, even if the parental control software is turned off they should come to no harm on the Internet. And they will have a lot of fun!

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