Get the Best Family Activities
By Christine Cristiano
Online chatting gives children the opportunity to interact and communicate with other kids from all parts of the world. However, like any activity that combines kids and the Internet, there are dangers associated with online chatting. Predators are drawn to online communities like chat rooms because it gives them instant access to thousands of victims and their email addresses. There are many factors to consider when allowing your child to participate in or join an online chat room community:
Choosing a Reputable Online Chat Room Your first step should be to ensure that your child is aware of the basic Internet safety rules and that there's always the potential for encountering a cyber predator. Explain to your child that they're never to give out any personal information about themselves including their name, address, phone number, email address or school they attend. They should never respond if asked their nsl — name, sex and location. This is a common question asked in many unmonitored chat rooms. A reputable kids' chat room should be designated solely for kids and only contain chat services. It should contain limited advertising and the advertising should be in the form of sponsorship. Avoid sites if the advertising takes the user off-site, where a child's safety could be jeopardized. Chat sites that include enhanced services, such as bulletin boards, private messaging and forums, should also be avoided because predators looking to connect with minors frequent these types of sites. A safe chat room for your child should be monitored by screened adults or a channel operator and use visible and invisible monitors. The monitor's job is to oversee the activity in the chat room and ensure that all chatters are adhering to the appropriate behavior. A visible or ‘foreground’ monitor is identifiable by a specific user name and is easily recognized by fellow chatters. The visible monitor is able to see what's going on in the room, interact with the kids by answering their questions, and help keep the chat room buzzing with activity. Invisible or 'background’ monitors are an effective security tool because they can observe the chat room activity unnoticed and detect undesirable behavior or safety problems. A chat room that uses both visible and invisible monitors is most effective at ensuring your child's safety.
Set Behavioral Codes of Conduct Choose a chat room that has a set behavioral code of conduct for all visitors, and enforces it. It should have a clearly defined policy of what's acceptable and what's not. There should also be clear, detailed consequences for violating the behavior policy. The chat room should have policies in place for dealing with habitual troublemakers, and those who try to evade the word filters and use offensive language. An effective policy is one in which the parent is notified of the behavior or language in question, and the user's visiting privileges are revoked. A chat site programmed with word filters is an excellent tool for filtering out undesirable language that may originate from other chatters. When an offensive word is used, it's blocked before it's displayed to other chatters.
Association Endorsement Any chat room or website your child visits should adhere to FTC guidelines for compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), rules for website operators to ensure your child's privacy is protected. The site's privacy policy must be available through a link on the website's home page and any area where personal information is collected from children. Furthermore, the privacy policy should state that any information collected will not be sold, rented or passed onto a third party. Look for an endorsement from watchdog organizations such as safekids.com or cyberangels.com.
