What can you do?

Immediate Steps

Some immediate steps that parents/guardians can take to safeguard their children include:

• Becoming familiar with the Internet forums and applications that your child/adolescent uses (IM, P2P, Blogs) (more)
• Explaining to your child/adolescent that his/her Internet activity will be monitored. S/he should have no expectation of privacy on the computer
• Being aware of when your child/adolescent is sending pictures. Carefully and constantly monitor the use of webcams, digital cameras and mobile phones
• Emphasizing the public nature of the Internet: that pictures sent to other users can't be taken back, distributing naked pictures is potentially illegal, and that such actions may be extremely damaging
• Using filtering options in search engines (e.g. Google SafeSearch).
• Installing filtering software to reduce the risk of exposure to sexually explicit content. This is one of many components to safeguard children/adolescent's online activities (more)
• Ensuring that your message regarding online safety is age-appropriate (more)
• Beginning the dialogue NOW so that your child/adolescent is best equipped to deal with potentially harmful situations.  As the parent/guardian, you know your child/adolescent better than anyone else; open lines of communication will reduce the risk of victimization. S/he will look to you to model appropriate behaviour
• Reinforcing boundaries. The importance of personal boundaries to your child/adolescent's awareness of potentially dangerous situations is paramount. Encouraging and reinforcing boundaries can reduce the risk of victimization (more)

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