FW: Program Teaches Parents How to Keep Kids Safe On-line
Norman J. Jacknis (njacknis@ix.netcom.com)
Wed, 29 Apr 1998 22:46:20 -0400
> Program Teaches Parents How to Keep Kids Safe Online
> by Richard Mullins, Medill News Service
> April 28, 1998
>
> Parents who want to protect their children from online threats can learn
about Internet safety at a series of free workshops across the country this
summer.
>
> The Smart Surfing workshops, sponsored by MCI and the National Education
Association, offer parents individual training by MCI technicians on how to
block their children's access to objectionable sites and the online chat
rooms where, in some highly publicized cases, child stalkers met children
before kidnapping or assaulting them.
>
> The workshops will "show families who go online how to avoid the bad and
be enriched by the good," of the Internet, said Diane Strahan, who runs
MCI's community relations effort.
>
> At the inaugural seminar in Washington, some of the Internet's luminaries
answered parents' questions. "We want to help make the Internet safe and
want people to feel comfortable with their children using it as a tool to
learn," said MCI vice president Vint Cerf, who is widely considered the
father of the Internet for inventing the original TCP/IP Internet protocol.
>
> Goodie bags handed out at the seminar included mouse pads with helpful
online tips and free copies of The Internet Kids and Family Yellow Pages by
Jean Armour Polly, who reportedly coined the phrase "surfing the Net."
>
> MCI also unveiled its own Internet safety Web site, where parents can go
to find Internet handbooks and kids can link to "Homework Helpers" for, as
the site describes itself, "emergency info for kids who need quick facts
for homework assignments."
>
> "In a way, we are repeating what phone companies did 50 years ago," Cerf
said, referring to public relations campaigns to teach people how to dial a
phone.
>
> Many parents who attended the seminar in Washington clearly were
concerned about what their kids will find online. "I've been using AOL for
five years, and I am terrified to let my kids go online," said Sandra
McColloch, a mother of two children in elementary school.
>
> Some of the panelists suggested parents think of the Internet in the same
way as they would a public library: Kids should go to it to do research but
not without supervision, and they should be warned never to talk to
strangers or give out their names or addresses.
>
> The next seminars will be in Los Angeles (June 13), Chicago (July 18),
New York (August 1), and Atlanta (September 12).
>
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