Children are spending an enormous amount of time on the internet nowadays, which is increasing the chance that they are bound to run into websites inappropriate for their age. While the Internet can be an useful tool for young people, instant messaging, chat rooms, emails and social networking sites also bring trouble, some of which range from cyberbullying to more serious Internet dangers including exposure to sexual predators. Preventing exposure to inappropriate content on the Internet while still allowing your child to navigate over the Internet can be done through parental control software. Many monitoring applications function without the user’s knowledge. The applications offer different services that keep a responsible parent aware of what is going on in their child’s life. Much of this topic is is discussed in Harlan Coben’s persuasive nonfiction article, “The Undercover Parent.” He suggests that parents should install spyware on …show more content…
Being informed of the Internet could help children learn many skills that they would need to know in the real world as well as what not to do on the Internet. For example, if a child wanders into an inappropriate area, the parent could take control and state the reasons why the child is not allowed to proceed into the area. For teens, they could learn self control over their actions and learn lessons as to why they should not go into dangerous places or chat with an unknown person. Along with learning about what you can or cannot do on the Internet, parents could provide suggestions to their child to help them with the daily things they have to do. For instance, could look at what kind of music their child is listening to and in response to that, could suggest some genres of music to the child that they would like. This could work for homework and other projects as