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Kid's Chat Rooms
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Protect Your Child in Chat Rooms
Kid's love to chat! Chatting can be dangerous. However, the kids can have a lot of fun if they are aware of the dangers and know how to protect themselves.
Safety must be discussed before allowing your kids to go to a chat room! If they are already chatting, daily safety reminders are in order. Here are a few points to consider.
- They must not give their real name and location, under any circumstances in order to stay safe in chat rooms!
Instruct them to use a nickname. Other chatters will ask where they are located. Tell them to say the state name. Often, someone else will be from that state and they will ask them what city. Talk about this ahead of time. They could say, "I am from the northeast part of the state." If someone persists with asking the exact location, tell them it is all right to say, "My mom does not want to me to tell."
- Make it clear they are not to meet anyone they talk to online.
For safety sake, kids should not meet anyone they talk to in chat unless you arrange it and you are there. Often predators will try to meet the child.
- Not everyone your child will be meeting in chat is actually who they say they are.
Remind your child that anyone can say they are 12 and from Hawaii! Unfortunately, children are gullible and will believe just about anything. Remind them constantly that their 12-year-old friend may actually be a 40-year-old person with very bad intentions.
- Will private chat will be allowed?
Often in a busy room, other chatters will ask your child if they want to private chat. This can be dangerous, but mainly it is innocent. The dangers are if the person is a predator, they can gain your child's confidence in private chat.
- Should you allow your child to give out their email address to their chat buddies?
If you do allow this consider getting them their own free email address at HotMail or Gmail just to name a few. Only allow them to give out their email address in private chat. Do not allow them to post it publicly. Monitor their mail! It is for their own protection. If you start to become suspicion of someone, change the child's email address to another.
- Will you only allow them to enter monitored kid's chat rooms?
This will not assure their safety, but it does afford some protection. A monitor has no way of knowing if the person that says he is 12, actually is. In some monitored chat rooms, the monitor cannot monitor private chat. The best monitor is you, sitting with your child at the computer and watching everything that they are saying! At the minimum, it is a good idea to check on the conversation often.
- Remind them to use their manners!
Just as they would use manners in a classroom, they should use their manners in a chat room. Offenders can lose their ISP privileges if a major offense occurs.
Be sure to learn about chatting before you try it! Good resources are available that will fill you in on the lingo of chat.
Common Courtesies
Chat Room and Instant Messaging Acroynms and Abbreviations Smilies and Emoticons
Chatting can be a fun experience for anyone, including children. Just be sure that you and your children are aware of the dangers. If you feel your kids are ready to have some fun, you can visit this monitored kid's chat rooms.
Kid's Turn Central Monitored Chat This kid's chat room is only open when an adult is available to monitor the chat room. The kid's chat room schedule is posted each week in advance so you can plan for some safe kid's chatting.
Have fun! Just remember, Stay safe in cyberspace!
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