oh right...WEB abstinence..DOH! I'm sure all the teenage boys will jump on this idea
Report: Teach Children to Rise Above Internet Porn
Thu May 2, 7:13 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of the best ways to protect children from pornography on the Internet may be to teach them to protect themselves, experts said Thursday.
Filters, monitoring systems and watching children closely can also work, but none are foolproof, the report, issued by the National Research Council (news - web sites), found.
In general, common sense should prevail, the report says, and parents should be aware of what their children are doing by talking with them.
The report was commissioned by Congress in 1998, and written after the Council's team of experts held meetings across the country and invited reports and studies on the issue of children and Internet porn.
It reviews the various methods of controlling porn, from taking legal action to filters that lock out access to sites that contain certain key words. The report comes to no single conclusion but advises educating children of all ages.
"Swimming pools can be dangerous for children. To protect them, one can install locks, put up fences, and deploy pool alarms," the report reads. "All of these measures are helpful, but by far the most important thing that one can do for one's children is to teach them to swim."
Internet porn poses a special challenge, the report said.
"The fact that children can sometimes see -- and even sometimes seek out -- images of naked people is not new. However, compared to other media, the Internet has characteristics that make it harder for adults to exercise responsible supervision over children's use of it," the report reads.
"A particularly worrisome aspect of the Internet is that inappropriate sexually explicit material can find its way onto children's computer screens without being actively sought. Further, it is easy to find on today's Internet not only images of naked people, but also graphically depicted acts of heterosexual and homosexual intercourse," it adds.
The Internet also offers two-way communication via e-mail, which lets strangers make contact with kids.
WAYS TO RESTRICT ACCESS TO PORN
No scientific study has said conclusively whether porn actually hurts children, the report said, but it acknowledged that parents will not want their children exposed to it.
The Council, one of the National Academies of Science, reviews some ways to restrict access to porn, which include:
-- Restricting a minor to material deemed appropriate
-- Blocking inappropriate material
-- Warning a minor of impending exposure to inappropriate material, leaving him or her to choose whether to look at it
-- Monitoring what children and adolescents look at and punishing them if they look at inappropriate material
-- Educating a minor about reasons not to access inappropriate material, creating a sense of personal responsibility and to build skills that make his or her Internet searches less likely to turn up inappropriate material inadvertently.
-- Reducing the appeal of deliberate contact with inappropriate material by making access to the material (and only such material) more difficult, cumbersome, and inconvenient
-- Helping a minor to cope with the exposure to inappropriate material that will most likely occur at least occasionally with extended Internet use. |
