Sites

• Choose a well-known, established site. They will be more likely to have strong safety settings and be reliable enough to answer any questions or talk about concerns you have about allowing your child to play online. Clubpenguin.com emphasizes parental involvement and even has a "watch program" designed to help people look out for the safety of the site. Neopets.com and Poptropica.com offer a wide variety of games and keeps their sites kid-friendly. Funbrain.com offers fun and educational games and child-friendly content.
  
  

Safety Rules

• No matter what your safety settings do, nothing can replace knowing a basic set of safety rules. Make sure your children understand these rules.
  
  1. Don't give out personal information. Giving you first name is okay, but don't share your last name, your address or anything personal with strangers.
  
  2. Don't click on any links if you don't know where they lead. Kids should have a basic list of sites they are knowledgeable about and allowed to visit. They should know to ignore emails with links inside that may be ads or even viruses.
  
  3. Don't share your password. If you're a parent of a young child you may choose to know his password so you can monitor his activity. Either way, choose something you will remember, but not something easily guessed. Don't use your middle or last name, or your birthday or the name of your pet. Choosing a more complicated password gives your account less chance of being hacked.
  
  

Protected Games

• Particularly with young children, you might want to opt for playing games on sites with built-in protection instead of relying on any settings you have on your browser that are supposed to keep kids safe. Both neopets.com and clubpenguin.com are fun choices that offer protected settings that limit chatting to pre-determined phrases (like hi, how are you, nice to meet you, go team, etc...).
  
  

Dangers

• Anyone who doesn't use the Internet with caution is at risk, but kids are especially vulnerable. In person, we can simply tell kids not to talk to strangers, but sometimes things aren't as clear online. Kids should be aware that people are not always who they say they are. Predators can easily prey on kids who haven't been explicitly warned about the dangers of the Internet. Kids who do not understand this concept yet should be limited to games without chat capabilities.
  
  

Communicate

• Keep communication open with your kids about their experiences with online games. Younger kids should be monitored, but older kids deserve to have privacy and even the ability to search and play without everything blocked for safer content. Some game sites include chatting capabilities that older kids might enjoy, so arm kids with safety tips instead of excluding them from these experiences. After all, you can't keep the safety blocks on the computer when they go off to college.