The internet touches every aspect of your childrens lives. Where you might look up an unknown word in a dictionary, your kids are more likely to use dictionary.com. Where you use the telephone, they use instant messenger. An even greater difference can be found in how they play games. Where the games of their parents generation may have involved a board, cards, or at their most sophisticated a console system, the games your children play on the net can be far more complex. They mine gold, spread empires, fight dragons and aliens alone or with tens, hundreds, even thousands of their fellow gamers. All of this makes for a confusing mish mash of names, places, jargon and lingo that can leave you with no idea what your kids are actually doing and a vague feeling of uneasiness that some part of it might not be good for them.
Whats appropriate for your kids is a decision only you can make. How much violence they are exposed to, how much time they spend in front of a screen and how much contact they have with the faceless strangers so common to the net are all questions you must grapple with and, in the end, decide for your family. While we cant help you make these rough...