Safeguards for Children Bloggers

These tips can help protect children from the dangers of online blogging.

If you decide to let your child have a blog, take the following safeguards:

• Review the different blogging services available. Many blogs advertise an assortment of businesses, and some are more family-friendly than others in this regard.
• Once you've found a blogging service that features only safe advertising, learn how to use the tools available on their site. Many allow you to keep a blog private, only permitting people to access it who have been given permission by the parent or the child who updates the site.
• Talk with your child about what is and what is not safe information to make available online. Kids should never give out their home address, e-mail address, phone number, or personal facts (like where they go to school) to strangers.
• Establish clear boundaries for Internet use that will keep your child safe and review them frequently until she knows them well.
• Keep household computers in a common area to increase Internet accountability.