Seven- and eight-year-old kids have a strong sense of family. They are just starting to develop a sense of their own moral and gender identity, and they are usually interested in the activities of the older kids in their lives. Kids who are 7-8 years old tend to be trusting, and they generally do not question authority.
Surfing for fun and playing interactive games are favorite online pastimes at this age. These kids are probably using e-mail and may also experiment with Web sites and chat rooms that parents have not given them permission to visit.
Here are some safety tips to consider when you go online with your 7 or 8 year old:
1. | It's a great idea to foster open and positive communication with children. Talk with them about computers and stay open to their questions and curiosity. |
2. | Create a list of Internet house rules with input from your kids. |
3. | Encourage your kids to visit only sites that you have approved. |
4. | Keep Internet-connected computers in an open area where you can easily supervise their use. |
5. | Investigate Internet-filtering tools (such as Windows Vista Parental Controls or Windows Live OneCare Family Safety ) as a complement to parental supervision. |
6. | Use kid-friendly search engines (such as MSN Kids Search) or search engines with parental controls. |
7. | Help protect your children from offensive pop-up windows by using the pop-up blocker that's built in to Internet Explorer. You can also help block pop-up windows that appear when you're not surfing the Internet with Windows Defender. |
8. | Establish a shared family e-mail account with your Internet Service Provider rather than letting your kids have their own accounts. |
9. | Teach your kids to always come to you before giving out information through e-mail, chat rooms, message boards, registration forms, and personal profiles. |
10. | Teach your kids not to download software, music, or files without your permission. |
11. | Use e-mail filters to block messages from particular people, or those that contain specific words or phrases. |
12. | Don't allow your children to use instant messaging (IM) at this age. |
13. | Allow your kids to use only monitored chat rooms and message boards on reputable kids' sites. |
14. | Talk to your kids about their online friends and activities just as you would about their other activities in the real world where they will start to meet new people. |
15. | Talk to your children about healthy sexuality, because kids can easily come across adult content or pornography online. |
16. | Teach your children about privacy. If a site encourages kids to submit their names to personalize the Web content, help your kids create an online nickname that gives away no personal information. |
17. | All family members should act as role models for children who use the Internet. |
