KNOW What Your Children Are Doing

Get to know the social networking sites your kids use so you know how best to understand their activities. If you're concerned that your child is engaging in risky online behavior, you may want to search the social sites they use to see what information they're posting. Are they pretending to be someone else?

Try searching by their name, nickname, school, hobbies, grade, or community. Encourage your kids to trust their gut if they have suspicions. Encourage them to tell you if they feel threatened by someone or uncomfortable because of something online. You can then help them report concerns to the police and to the social networking site. Most of these sites have links for users to report abusive, suspicious, or inappropriate behavior.

Tell your kids not to impersonate someone else. Let your kids know that it's wrong to create sites, pages, or posts that seem to come from someone else, like a teacher, a classmate, or someone they made up. Create a safe screen name. Encourage your kids to think about the impression that screen names can make. A good screen name won't reveal much about how old they are, where they live, or their gender. For privacy purposes, your kids' IM names should not be the same as their email addresses.

Help your kids understand what information should stay private. Tell them why it's important to keep some thingsΓÇöabout themselves, family members, and friendsΓÇö to themselves. Information like their Social Security number, street address, phone number, and family financial informationΓÇösay, bank account or credit card numbersΓÇöis private and should stay that way.