Resources: Know how - Ensure children are using the internet safely

1. Fears of the internet are made worse by ignorance. It is good to know which dangers are real and which are exaggerated. You cannot, for example, be traced to your home simply because you visited a web site. There are many surf-safe guidelines around (see, for example, the Net Smart rules from NCH at www.nch.org.uk). Recognise that the more you know about the forms of the internet that are popular with children - including chatrooms and messenger services - the better able you will be to make sense of the rules. Ask a child to show you.

2. Many children know the theory that no one is who they seem in chatrooms. Yet it is easy for vigilance to slip in practice. One project felt that its young net users were over-confident. It invited police officers to demonstrate the dangers. Although the young people were warned in advance and their suspicions were heightened, they ended the online session entirely convinced that they had been chatting to a young woman from a neighbouring village. "I know her," said one. In fact, it was a police officer all along.