Child and Teenager Safety Links

This page is out of date and no longer maintained!

These sites are all useful, either for children using the Internet, or for parents whose children use the Internet. It is important that adults and children are informed about the benefits and hazards of the Internet, and about how to use the Internet in the most effective way.

Child and teenager friendly directories

Open Directory - Kids and Teens
From the Open Directory Kids and Teens description page: "Kids and Teens is an Internet directory created especially for children and teenagers. It includes both sites designed specifically for children and/or teens as well as sites designed for general audiences. It does not include sites that are designed primarily to sell merchandise, sites that use profanity or obscenity, or sites that contain sexually explicit content."
Yahooligans!
From the Yahooligans! description page: "Yahooligans! is a browsable, searchable directory of Internet sites for kids. Each site has been carefully checked by an experienced educator to ensure the content and links are appropriate for kids aged 7-12."

Safety advice for children and teenagers

Open Directory - Kids and Teens - Internet Safety
A wide variety of resources aimed at children and keeping themselves safe on the Internet.
Chat Danger
The dangers of Internet chat rooms, and how to avoid them.
Safe Teens
Explains how to protect your privacy and stay generally safe online.

Advice for parents, teachers and schools

Parents Information Network
An independent "information and advice for parents with children from pre-school age through to eighteen."
Safe Kids
This site, aimed at helping parents educate their children about Internet safety, has a particular focus on chatrooms. There is also an educational quiz for children.
Internet Watch Foundation
Aims to hinder the use of the Internet for distributing illegal material, and to encourage the classification of legal material. Has a safe surfing guide written to help parents and carers protect their children.
ICRA - Internet Content Rating Association
ICRA's aim is to protect children from potentially harmful material while protecting the free speech rights of content providers by using special rating tags which webmasters can add to their pages. Users (such as parents) can configure their browsers to block access to pages with extreme content.
Child Net International
A non-profit organisation working to make the Internet child friendly. Has a page of online safety advice.
Web Awareness: Knowing the Issues
Developed by the Media Awareness Network to highlight the new challenges and issues that arise as children and young people go on the Internet. Canadian site, French and English versions.

Monitoring Software

I have found two programmes that enable parents to keep a log of all their children's Internet activity. These can be abused, but they may be useful for some situations.

IamBigBrother
Records all text typed on- and off-line. Monitors instant messages, chats, and web activity. Lets you set up a list of keywords that can be used to block web-site access.
ChildSafe
Similar to IamBigBrother.

Filtering Software

There are several programmes that allow parents to filter the websites their children view. I cannot recommend any of these. Most of them can be bypassed very easily, and even if they were secure they rely on the subjective moral judgement of a third party who will almost certainly not share your values.

A final word

Andrew McFarland | Contact me

Updated 22 March 2006