Net Family News: Online-Safe Resources for Kids and Families

Online-Safety Resources for Home & School

A 10-year-old pundit on Internet use (October 12, '01 issue)

Every now and then we profile a Net-literate family in this newsletter because the online-safety expertise of parents and kids hammering out family Internet rules together is often the best there is. Besides, one great kid's perspective is just the breath of fresh air we can all use these days!
This week we talked with Nick, a very bright 10-year-old, and his mom, Leonor, in Utah, one of the westernmost Rocky Mountain states. Nick is the middle of three kids at their house - two Internet users and a three-year-old. He and his 12-year-old sister share one of the family's two connected computers, the one that shares a line with the family fax machine. There's also the regular phone line and a cable-modem-connected computer "strictly for business" in Leonor's office.
We asked Leonor if the family has Internet-use rules, and she said, "We have lots of rules," adding that she never was crazy about the Internet "because of some of the things I've seen on it." So she worked these out before the children got their own connection last spring:

Site approval: The kids are "not allowed to go to any Web site without asking me first - or from one site to another - unless they're doing a search for homework, and then they have to tell me what they're searching for first."
Reporting to parents: "They're also supposed to tell me if they run across something they're not searching for. And they're pretty good about telling me so far."
On e-communications: No online chat at all, and no emailing or exchanging of instant messages with anyone they don't know personally. "We had one bad experience with that when I found them chatting supposedly with a woman who had children their age. I asked them, 'Do you know her? No? Then she's a stranger. You don't even know if this is a woman or mother.' So after that they stopped talking to anyone they don't know." (This must have been memorable, because Nick later volunteered his version of this incident.)
Downloads: "They're not allowed to download anything without asking me first - that's for virus protection."
Time limits: "They've been allowed only a half hour a day online until recently, but they've just talked me into one hour [each]. But that's it for all computer use except homework." Is there a curfew? we asked. "No, there's no curfew. They pretty much know that by 9 they have to start thinking about getting to bed."

Leonor described these rules as "just common sense." In a way, they are, but - as Larry Magid suggests in Family Tech above - we continue to be surprised at how little age-old common sense, and basic ethics, get transferred into cyberspace!
Anyway, then Nick picked up the phone, and we asked him, "Do you think rules are good?" "Yes, because if there weren't rules, one, we [he and his sister] would be fighting about [who gets the computer] all day and, two, we'd stay on[line] all night. I think rules are good because then we don't stay online all day - because we only get an hour a day and then you have to either play with the baby or go outside or something." We asked him why it's not good to be online all day, and he said, "Then you don't get out much and you don't get exercise and it rots your brain, and ... if we stayed online all day, then we would never see our baby brother who's always playing around and breaking things."
We asked Nick what he does most online. "I probably do IM-ing [instant-messaging] most, because I just like to talk with my friends. It's really weird, I don't know why, but we can talk for hours online, but only, like, a minute on the phone." (About this pastime, which Leonor told us she doesn't fully understand, she said, "They actually ask me, 'Can I call my friend and tell her to get on the Internet so I can talk to her?' ")
Some of Nick's friends use America Online for instant-messaging and some the Microsoft Network, so he uses both services and has two accounts and screennames. There's very little chance of Nick or his sister communicating with strangers, since they have only friends and family members on their "buddy lists," and they don't go into chatrooms (where strangers can find and use their screennames). Nick said the only time there was an encounter with a stranger was when a stranger said she mistakenly added one of Nick's family's screennames to "her daughter's buddy list." Nick said a message popped up on the screen saying someone had added his sister's name to their buddy list, so, the service asked, "would you like to accept an IM from this person?" His sister clicked yes, so "they automatically come onto your buddy list," Nick explained, as the only way a stranger can arrive on someone's IM list. His sister asked the person who "she" was, the "mistake" was explained, and that's when Nick's mother stepped in and suggested they delete the name from the buddy list.
We asked Nick what he and his friends "talk" about when IM-ing. "See, I usually talk to my friends at my old school. I just ask them what they did that day and stuff.... Sometimes my friends tell me to go to a cool site - like, a friend told me about floys, these little living, digital organisms that fight each other, and you can breed them. They just live online - there's a little screen they bounce around on, and you can adjust how fast they move and how aggressive they are." (He later gave us the site where floys can be found: "Artificial Life on the Web". It's a step up in sophistication from another favorite site he mentioned: Neopets.com.)
BTW, for those who have not yet peered over the shoulder of an avid IM-er, here's a brief exchange that Nick kindly pasted into an email to us (screennames have been changed to protect the innocent):
Friend1: I like you too. ;-)
Friend2: u r my best friend
Friend1: Yes! I am your friend, Friend2!
Friend2: how was your day
Friend1: It was good, thx!
Last, we asked Nick what his rules for acceptable Internet use would be. They'll look a bit familiar, but they're in his own words and he has good reasons for following them:
Nick's Internet rules

"No going to sites that you don't have permission to go to - or have a parent check it out first."
We asked him why this is a good rule: "Because if I just typed in a Web site and didn't know where I was going, it might take me somewhere where there's inappropriate stuff for my age. My mom said she was searching for underwear on the Net and she came to something very different." We asked, "And you don't want to go to Web sites like that?" "Uh uh," he said. It might say something really bad and scare me or something."

"No chat rooms."
"Why not?" we asked. "Because if you go to chat rooms, you don't know what people might say or if they'd say something inappropriate or swear or threaten you.

In IM or email: "No swearing. Don't tell anybody anything about you unless you know the person."
He added, "Let's say I'm talking to one of my friends and wanted them to come over. Mom would be ok with my telling them my address as long as I knew who they were."

"Only stay on for a limited amount of time. That's all."

Editor's note: Leonor asked us about software that can be used to protect online kids, saying she hadn't had time to research the question. We pulled some thoughts and resources together for her, and next week we'll run it in the newsletter for your consideration. Meanwhile, send your own family's rules, policy, and favorite software tools for kids' online safety. We'd love to publish your expertise as well!