Kids Online Are Your Kids Behaving

Writen by Richard French

Today most teens use the Internet and most use it the way it should be used. Things like chatting with friends, finding information for homework, playing games etc. However, as we all know many teens, and adults, explore a little deeper into the Internets dark side. Teens that are doing this will exhibit fairly common behaviors while viewing inappropriate material online. Some signs to watch for are;

1.) They seem to panic when you approach them while their online?

2.) When you see the computer screen, while they are online, the internet is closed, even though you heard typing minutes before.

3.) They startle very easy while online.

4.) They have something between them and you, i.e. a chair to slow down an inquisitive parent or sibling. This buys them time to close any windows they don't want you to see.

5.) The Internet history is always clean, i.e. they delete it.

Now, what can you do to verify if something is wrong or not?

While they are online at a time when you suspect something is wrong you need to walk up on them and have them stop what they are doing. Depending on how you want to handle this you can say you need the computer now or tell them what you are doing. Whichever you choose to do you need immediate access to the computer, do not allow them to close windows. Once your on the computer open any windows that have been minimized. Then review the history logs. See TheParentsEdge Monitoring 101 for a step by step guide on how to review your history logs.

This isn't foolproof but should work fairly well. The only fool proof way to know what's going on with your computer is to monitor it with software. All parents should have monitoring software installed on their computer. We simply cannot let our kids go online without some restrictions and some form of control. Ther are just to many bad people out their looking to take advantage of our kids.

Richard French is a father of 5 and his site TheParentsEdge is dedicated to help parents keeps their kids safe while online. With how to's, step by step guides,news,safe surfing rules and more TheParentsEdge is designed to give parents the "edge" in todays tech savvy teen world. Free step by step guide How to block websites with IE