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How can you and your family enjoy a safe, clean and secure computer environment?
Here are some suggestions:
Protecting Your Household
- Use an ISP (Internet Service Provider) that provides filtered internet
service to screen out offensive words or pictures.
- Consider the position of your computer:
- Restrict the computer to public areas in the home such as the family
room, living room, etc.
- The computer monitor should be facing into the public areas and not
facing a wall.
- Avoid allowing children to have their own computers in their bedrooms.
- Consider access to your computer:
- Parents should restrict usage of the computer to times when parents
are home.
- Parents should periodically monitor the computer. Periodically check
cookies, temporary internet files, cache and history.
- Consider using an internet accountability service such as covenanteyes.com or netaccountability.com.
Accountability services provide an email list of every website visited
during a given period of time to accountability partner(s) you specify.
- Make online purchases only on secure, well-established sites.
- Do not send credit card or other confidential information through e-mail.
- For more information on keeping your online environment safe, visit "Safe
Families."
Protecting Your Children
- Get involved with your child’s online experience.
- Teach your children what to do and not to do online.
- Encourage them to not give out personal information such as address,
phone, picture, etc.
- Set limits to their time online.
- Let your children know that they should not respond when they receive
offensive or dangerous emails or other communications.
- Get involved in what interests your children in the online environment.
- Confirm that your children's schools have policies that restrict internet
access.
For a great overview of various family-friendly Internet services provided
by the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, see
this filter review webpage (www.filterreview.com). For more information, contact:
Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family provides additional
information on providing a safe computer environment for your family.
This ministry has also created an excellent website as a practical resource
for individuals who want to overcome the grip of online pornography and affairs.
It provides beneficial tools and resources to help inform and guide those
who struggle in various areas of sexuality. Go to www.pureintimacy.org for
more information.
What's Hot on the Internet
and how to Keep Your Children from Getting Burned
Many parents have expressed concern over some popular websites like "MySpace" and "You
Tube." They’ve wondered what they can do to control what their
children view online. That’s a great question! Protecting children
as they use the Internet is a critical part of parenting today. Download
this article about some of the sites that are currently popular with
young people (pdf).
For your reference and convenience, the NHC website
contains many links to external websites and files whose content may or may
not necessarily reflect the beliefs or opinions of New Hope Church. Our effort
is to include only content that helps lead individuals to God’s truth.
To report links which may be inappropriate, thank you for notifying our site
support.
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