Family and Child Online Safety Blog - SafetyClicks

As you have probably noticed, the SafetyClicks Blog now has a new home at http://blog.safetyclicks.com

Please update your bookmarks with our new Web site address. We will continue to provide parents, teens and kids with information and tools to help keep you and your family safer online.

Like many parents, my biggest fear is of something happening to my kids. It was heartening to me when I first heard that MapQuest and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC) recently announced the availability of a new widget on MapQuest Local that includes valuable missing child alerts and information from NCMEC.

The new widget features pictures and information about children who are missing from the geographic area for which the MapQuest Local page is set. Also included is the ability to search for missing children by name and link directly to NCMEC's homepage and other missing children resources from NCMEC. The new widget can be found at http://local.mapquest.com

Some of you may wonder what it means to be "digitally responsible," and if it is really much different from parental responsibility as we know it. Raising responsible and well-behaved children in the real world is often similar to raising responsible and well-behaved children in the digital world. However, the difference in the digital world is that the potential for anonymity makes matters worse for tweens and teens in the digital world, and many kids these days are probably more Internet savvy than a lot of moms and dads out there. We didn't grow up with this technology that seems so natural to them – experts often refer to this generation of kids and teens as "digital natives" and their parents as "digital immigrants". Is that something to worry about? Not really, as there are a plethora of resources that parents can dig into to get updated on the latest trends that our children are faced with - Social Networking, Cyberbullying, and Sexting to name a few. There are many places on the Web that provide great information for parents to stay plugged-in to the latest online trends. This blog, SafetyClicks.com, is a great source for parents looking to learn more about what's going on with kids on the Internet, and arm themselves with the knowledge they need to strike the right chord with their kids when discussing online behavior.

As parents, you probably are familiar with using social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook but have you heard about Twitter? Twitter is a relatively new free social network that allows family, friends, and co-workers stay connected via mobile texting, instant messages, or on the web.

Twitter offers an easy way to stay connected with the people in your life, by asking the simple question, "What are you doing?" People can respond with short messages or "tweets" that are under 140 characters to keep their friends and family updated on their latest interests or everyday happenings. By default, your Twitter profile is public and all your updates can be seen by anyone. However, you can control who sees your Twitter messages by selecting the "Protect my Updates" box in the Settings area.

Read more about sexting in the article, Today's Vocabulary Word: "Sexting"

The New Year is here and by now many of you have probably got a kick start on your resolutions or are still trying to find that right day to start working on them! Either way, this year, if you haven't already talked about online safety with your children, how about making a New Year resolution to do so? A good start would be to come to the SafetyClicks site on a regular basis to check Internet safety updates, specifically on hot topics like cyberbullying or social networking. You could also subscribe to RSS feeds from the SafetyClicks site to get the latest updates. On a more serious note, you could sign the NetSmartz Internet and Real World Safety Pledges, designed for different age groups, with your child and post them in your home, near their computer. These are signed contracts between you and your child that can help them understand the rules and learn how to protect themselves on the Internet and in the real world. Even if you have had the conversation with your children about how to be safe online, the Internet Safety Pledge is a good way to review (with your kids and teens) some of the key points to keep in mind when they go online. Happy New Year!

Have you ever wondered where your kids go on the Internet? Do you know who they are emailing or instant messaging? As you have likely come to realize, the virtual world is very different from life at school or on the bus, where your kids are interacting with friends you've met or at least know who they are.

As parents, we constantly struggle with the balance of watching out for our kids (when they go online or otherwise) versus spying on them. The good news is there are a variety of tools available -- both free and fee-based -to help you stay plugged in to what your kids are doing online. Some may be more "invasive" than others, so I recommend you review the options to learn which tools align best with you own parenting style and family mores. This post on Parental Controls Basics can help you decide which type of software would suit your family needs.

One of the leading free solutions is from my company, AOL, which has been a leader in online family safety since pioneering parental controls in the early '90s. AOL Parental Controls are now available to everyone as a free download. Using any e-mail address, you can sign up, download the software and start protecting your kid or teen online.

This holiday season, would you like to make informed and timely video game purchases for your family? Are you having trouble trying to figure out if a game may be right for your kids, nieces or nephews? To give parents the inside information they need to make smart choices about video games for their families, AOL just launched PlaySavvy.com, http://www.playsavvy.com, a new site that aims to help parents of children ages 5-17 decipher the world of games, both PC and console.

As a teen, you've probably looked at tons of blogs and may even have blogs of your own on the Internet. For those of you who are just starting off, a blog is your very own portion of the web where you can express your views, post pictures or video and gather feedback on a variety of topics. The SafetyClicks site that you are on is a blog where we talk about online family safety tips on a variety of topics. Whether you're an experienced blogger, or just starting out, here are some basic things to keep in mind:

Think Before You Post:
What can you post on a blog? Just about anything! But that doesn't mean you should post anything and everything. As with anything that you post on the Internet, always remember to think before you post. What you say online is out there forever, and you really don't want to post something that could come back and haunt you for many years to come. Even if you delete something you posted from your blog, someone else may have copied it and posted it elsewhere on the Internet. I would recommend you also read another blog on this site, "Who's Looking at You," to understand how your virtual world could impact your success (or not!) in the real world.

AOL's Consumer Advisor, Regina Lewis, discusses cyberbullying on FOX News.

Learn how to keep your kids from becoming a victim or participating in cyberbullying.