Julian Sher

Investigative journalist, author and trainer

Web Resources for Safer Surfing      

The internet is like any other community: some neighbourhoods are safe for children, others are not. Most people are friendly, but some are dangerous.
You can't keep your child locked up in the house and off the streets forever and you can't keep your child off the web. All you can do is arm them with the skills and tools they will need to protect themselves. "You just have to give them the knowledge that they need to make their surfing experience safe," says the FBI's Emily Vacher who spends a lot of time meeting students and parents in schools. "No one piece of technology or trick or tool is going to do it. It has to be about communication between parents and the kids."

Communication that is frighteningly lacking. A survey by I-SAFE, a non-profit foundation in America, found a frightening discrepancy in how parents and children perceive their web activity. Sixty nine percent of parents said they knew a lot about what their kids do online, but 41 percent of children insisted they don't tell their parents about their web habits. A confident 87 percent of parents proudly said they had set firm rules for their children's online life - but 36 percent of children insisted they had no rules about web use. Indeed, 29 percent of children admitted their parents would not approve of their internet activities -- if they knew.

The following resources are not exhaustive but offer a good place to start to make sure your child's internet experience can be as rewarding, exciting and fun as it should be.

• Report Online Abuse

• Report Child Sex Trafficking

• Safety Rules for Parents and Children

• Web Resources

• Read my articles
  

TO REPORT ABUSE:

UNITED STATES:

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

CANADA:
Cybertip.ca

U.K.:
Child Exploitation and Online Protection (personal abuse)
Internet Watch Foundation - IWF (Abusive content)