JOIN US The traffic that started to clutter even the smallest of lanes was a real worry for them. In their eyes perhaps, today's kids are much more safer as most of them stay indoors surfing the internet.
While physical space was the problem of the past, it is now replaced by virtual space. As much as being a treasure-trove of information, internet can be a real danger for children who may stray into unhealthy contents or may fall prey to paedophiles or fraudsters who may do anything to get hold of sensitive personal information. This is certainly tricky for mothers since most of them haven't encountered anything remotely similar to the monster called world wide web when they were children. So, what can they do?
As they say, mothers can pluck out the solution right from the heart of the problem. Nowadays there are several technological tools available for them to keep a virtual eye on the child. Microsoft windows for instance has a windows safety programme that would let them do something they are used to doing offline — laying down the rules for children’s activities.
"We lay rules in the physical environment since there are things we consider unhealthy for children," reasons Rathin Lahiri, Director Online Business, Microsoft Consumer & Online, India. "Virtual space isn't any different. If unmonitored, kids can get into all sorts of dangers which may be troublesome for the whole family."
The first thing they may do with is to decide when and how long internet can be thrown open to the kid. If, for instance, they set two hours in weekends, the computer allows them to access the net and shuts down when the time is over. And they need not be present to see if this happens, since this would happen automatically. If they have children in different age groups, mothers can also set separate filters for each of them based on their age and the kind of content they can view. "Moms can approve and reject the requests they may get. This would certainly stop strangers from contacting the child through e-mails, blogs or instant messengers," Rathin says.
"In fact, you can actually restrict access to the kind of applications your child can access and so stopping them from straying too much," he adds. "There are statistics to suggest that kids are more advanced when it comes to online activities," Rathin asserts. "Mothers have to catch a lot of ground, which they can do by making use of our internet guidelines for children. We have prepared this since mothers, working and home makers alike, are not aware of the dangers of letting kids go on their own in the virtual space."
One of the suggestions in the guideline is to ensure PCs are placed in the common area rather than inside private spaces. This would ensure constant monitoring of children's surfing activities.