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Safety For Kids Heading Into Chat Rooms

Khrista Cendana
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Man on ComputerAre chat rooms bad for kids? What are the benefits of entering a chat room? What can a parent do if a child uses a chatroom? Chat rooms can be a great place to go to if one is being homeschooled or trying to make friends. This article will give advice to parents and guardians of the children who wants to use chat rooms.

Advice for parents or guardians:

  1. Give rules – set a time limit for kids to be on the computer.
  2. Place the computer where you can see what they’re looking at.
  3. Look into what chat room the kids will be using.
  4. Browse the chat room ahead of time.

Parents and guardians should always look out for what their kids are doing on the computer. For children, there are also some safety tips:

  1. Carefully chose what nickname you want – nothing too near your rear name. For instance, if your name is Kathryn, use something like Bethany or Lisa. Just make up a name if you don’t want anyone in the chat room to know your identity.
  2. Don’t give out sensitive information – email, address, school, etc.
  3. If you don’t know much about computers, you can always ask a parent or guardian to help you with logging into the chat room.
  4. Don’t hurt others if you don’t want to be hurt back.

Here are some helpful websites where children can go before heading into the chat room:

  1. Children in the Chatroom
  2. Safety Tips
  3. Internet Safety

Websites for parents:

  1. How Chatrooms Work
  2. 4 Dangers of the Internet

Electronics are now becoming an everyday thing for kids of every age. Parents can’t stop kids on being on the computer or phone whenever they’re not in plain sight. All parents can do is give advice to kids to protect their safety. Try not to be too obvious  about snooping around; ideally, kids should always talk to an adult or guardian before heading into the chat room because you can’t ever  know who is on the other side. If the adult still has concerns about the chat rooms, he/she can go and check the chat rooms that the kids want to go to.

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