Parent Newsletter

In just a few short years, the Internet has gone from a school luxury to a social necessity for kids. There are 24 million kids, ages 12 to 17 in the U.S. and 87% of them use the Internet regularly – with 44% of them going online every day. While you don't have to be completely computer savvy to Internet protect your kids, you should do some basic homework providing you with the tools to keep your kids from experiencing the dark side of today's technology.

Internet porn is so widespread and so easily accessible (often unintentionally) that it presents a significant challenge to avoid completely. Because of its insidious nature, Internet porn has ensnared many people – usually men – and particularly adolescents – in its tangled web. This article is offered in hopes to inform parents about the nature and dangers of Internet porn.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past year or so, you’ve likely already heard about social networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook, and others. There have been a lot of media reports recently about such websites, specifically regarding the safety of those who use them. There have been any number of reports regarding users who have had been stalked and assaulted by predators who seek out their victims by using these sites.

Suppose your ten-year-old daughter is doing a report on famous First Ladies and wants to find a comprehensive list of every President’s wife who ever lived in the White House. Being the savvy Internet surfer she is, she forgoes the search engine and simply types “whitehouse.com” in the browser’s address bar. The moment she hits “enter,” she’ll be redirected to a pornographic site instead—yet another victim of an online pornographer’s trick.

Last month, we asked our readers to comment on how they handled the news of TV’s “Zoey,” Jamie Lyn Spears’ pregnancy with their kids. Here are some of the responses we received from you, our subscribers.

Ten years ago, who would have predicted that digital photography would be the standard for taking pictures today? Yet, this is exactly what has happened. Most of us have ditched our “old fashioned” film-cameras by now. Digital cameras are used everywhere. In recent years, they have been incorporated into cellphones, which have made them even more widespread. But, as with the Internet comes both opportunity and danger, so it is with digital photography. But, the dangers of digital photography have often gone overlooked. Parents can no longer afford to do so.