Keeping our kids safe seems to be getting more and more complicated. We are still learning how to protect ourselves online as adults and as parents we need to learn to protect and educate our children also. It is imperative that parents stay up to date on technology to understand what is available and not just bury our heads in the sand and pretend our kids would never search out questionable things online or be foolish enough to meet a stranger in real life. As the mom of a teenager this is a big part of my job as parent – helping T understand how to be safe online and keeping a check on things.

NetSmartz, a leading online resource of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, has developed NSTeens to help educate, engage, and empower our teens and tweens as internet users. Their website includes some great tools including bios, comics, and videos covering things like social networking, cyberbullying, and offline consequences.

If you have a teen or tween please take some time to visit NSTeens together and watch the videos (they are cartoon at first, but then real life teens responding), read the comics, and see the other resources available. Talk about it, share your feelings, look together at the pages they may have set up on MySpace, Face Book, or other places and make sure they are trying to be safe. It really is very important!

This is also a great resource to pass along to your friends and family who also have kids of their own. Even if you are aware, what about the parents of your teens friends? What kind of access do they have when they are at someone else’s house? Share and help all of us!