How do you keep your child safe from bad websites and bad people on the internet? This question is foremost in the mind of every parent who's child wants to participate in this new universe.

How tricky is it?

If you were a child and wanted to know about the whitehouse, you would look for www.whitehouse.com. When your child got there, they wouldn't see information about the most important house in our nations capital, they would see an adult website with explicit graphic content right on the first page. To find out about the whitehouse, you have to go to www.whitehouse.gov. But, what child would know that? For that matter, how many parents would?

What can you do?

The most important thing you can do is participate with your children as they explore this new world. If your child is just starting, you may have to be right there just to teach them the basics of how to find their way around and the do's and don'ts. No matter what age, you need to make clear the following ground rules:

1. Never type in your name, your address, your phone number, or any other information about yourself to any site no matter what. Even good sites sometimes ask for this but you should not allow your child to have to decide. Just say no! to entering personal information.
2. Never have a "conversation" with anyone on the web. If your child should stumble into a chat room, they should never participate no matter what. Just like children are taught not to talk to strangers in the real world, they should be taught the same thing on the internet.
3. Never let a child use a search site, like Yahoo or MSN unattended. A parent should be there to supervise that words are entered and what links are clicked on. Sometimes entering a simple word will produce search results that are un-desirable.
4. Make sure your child understands that there are both "bad" and "good" things on the internet and that it is important to stay away from the "bad" things.
5. If you are not right there with them, make sure that they understand that if they get "lost" on a website, or go to another website by accident, that they should come and get you instead of trying to get back to where they were themselves.