Local Parents Learn About Internet Safety

Parents and their children gathered at First Presbyterian Church this week to learn about Internet safety.  Dalton Police officer Sam Eaton spoke to the group about safe Internet usage and some of the hidden dangers children can face while on line.

It is important for parents to take an active role in protecting children from Internet predators.  Here are a few tips that can help:

• Become computer literate and learn how to block objectionable material
• Keep the computer in a common area, not in individual bedrooms, where you can watch and monitor your child
• Share an email account with your child so you can monitor messages
• Bookmark your child's favorite web sites for easy access
• Spend time together on line to teach your child appropriate on line behavior
• Forbid your child from entering private chat rooms; block them with safety features provided by your Internet service provider or with special filtering software
• Take your child seriously if he or she reports an uncomfortable on line exchange
• Forward copies of obscene or threatening messages your child receives to your Internet service provider

Officer Sam Eaton speaks to parents and children about Internet safety

Comments

[Luke Gilkerson]

Have you heard of Covenant Eyes monitoring and filtering programs? It is a unique program on the market because it gives the user flexibility to filter or simply monitor the Internet or both. A good filtering program is very helpful for children and families, but a good monitoring program is great for adults and children alike who want to be accountable to others about where they go online.

Covenant Eyes monitoring program simply tracks (without blocking) everywhere someone goes online. Then each part of each Web page is rated and scored for its content (scores are based on obscene material). Users choose 2 or 3 people that they want to receive a detailed "accountability report" of all their online activity (emails to them or available to see online 24/7). What this does is it allows complete freedom to the person using the Internet, but it takes away the anonymity of online activity; people are more likely to exorcise self-control when they know that others will be reviewing their whereabouts online.

The monitoring program also works great for places of business. Statistics show great numbers of hours of lost work time searching for unrelated material online, and most adults who pornography online do so during working hours.

I've found the program very helpful.

Covenant Eyes also has a promotional code you can use to get a free month to try out their accountability service. Go to www.covenanteyes.com and enter promocode 'onefree' to receive a free 30 day trial of the program.