The hardest part about kids on the internet is you want them to have experience and learn the computer but you also want to keep them protected.  That’s why it’s important to know about the search engines that are the best resources for children specifically.  This way you can let your kids freely spend their time exploring, learning and getting used to the computer. 

Some great search engine sites for kids are:

• GoGooligans.com
• Ask Kids.com  (This has access to the Children’s Digital Library.)
• Kids Click
• Quintura Kids 
• Kindernet 
• TekMom also has a comprehensive site with numerous search engines for students.

Some additional resources to check out with more ideas and more detailed information are Kid Safe Search Sites, Search Engine Watch, Ivy’s Search Engine Resources and this Safe Kids Search Engines blog post.

The Internet has come a long way from the days of Internet portals that help you find the information you need.  The latest frontiers of the Internet are explored through search engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask – that allow users to filter through the endless number of web pages. 

These sites use very complex algorithms to pull information they think is most pertinent to your keyword search.  These results are based on a number of factors, including reputation, history, and click through rate.

But our question: “How do they do in protecting you from the dangerous side of the Internet?” 

McAfee – one of the major companies in virus protection compared the safety of the leading search engines and came up with some interesting information.

Key Finding:

·         All major search engines returned risky sites in their search results for popular keywords

·         MSN had the lowest percentage of risky sites

·         Sponsored results (typically highlighted, paid ads) contained 2 to 4 times as many dangerous sites than organic results

For more information, check out McAfee Site Advisor for the rest of the study and plenty of other tips for staying safe on the Internet. 

Several of the search engines provide “safe” searches.  This allows users to pre-filter certain types of content, such as videos.  This type of strategy should be effective in regard to filtering adult material.  But you should still remain vigilante when clicking around the Internet.

Yahoo Safe Search – allows you to filter adult web, video and photos in varying degrees.

Google SafeSearch Filtering – default setting filters images, but not web results.  You need to place on Strict Filter to filter the web results.

SafeSearch on AOL – actually rated the best by McAfee, check out our previous post for details.

MSN Kids - MSN takes a direct approach with Kids through their MSN Kids Page. Also, rated the best at filtering dangerous sites without a filter in place.

Most of these sites have a way to report sites that get through the filters. This is a community activity, so if you want it to work the best, you need to contribute. 

Obviously, a very innocent search resulted in a not so innocent search result. 

That said we are looking at a couple topics this week

• Which search engines do the best to filter for dangerous sites?
• What do the search engines provide to make our searching safer?
• How can we make our searches safer?
• What can we do to keep our kids safe on the Internet?

For an abundance of free advice and more information about Bob Lancer, see his website at www.parentingfortheplanet.com  

Sharefam: In Parenting with Love, Without Anger or Stress, what do you teach that parents can implement into their dinnertime? 

Bob Lancer: Be sure to remain aware of your children at all times while dining. This way you will notice when they need you to make a shift to help them to remain calm and engaged in eating their meal.                          

When parents become too absorbed in conversation with one another, they actually exclude the child in a way that demonstrates poor table manners.                          

Also, make sure that you remain calm, to help your children remain calm.  Intense talking around children incites their aggressiveness, causing them to lose self-control and behave in a more chaotic fashion. 

Sharefam: A lot of your work is in corporate America.  How does the family dinner allow a parent to unwind and reconnect with his or her spouse and children?  And how does it affect daily work life? 

Bob Lancer: Family dinner gives the parent an opportunity to reconnect with her own deeper levels of heart nurturing, but she has to take the opportunity to benefit from it.  Dinnertime is not the time to discuss stressful matters of work.  You can talk about triumphs, but pay close attention to how emotionally involved you get in your workday while at home.                                                

Remember the priority of the occasion: to reconnect with your family in a way that nurtures every family member at a deep, emotional level.  By letting go of your work mentally, you not only make it possible to connect with your family, you also give yourself the break you need to return to work more refreshed.  Spending too much time focused on any one aspect of life causes burnout.  As important as work is, it is possible to make it so important that you end up lowering your actual performance.  As you create deep harmonious bonding at home, you come to work with more peace of mind and inspiration to do your best. 

In 2005 a study by National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University confirmed a link between family dinnertime and better grades for teens.  As parents fret about working in dinner time as their children get older, Sharefam thinks this study may prove that the time spent eating together may result in a better return on investment of time for college admission than all the extracurricular activities.

According to the study, teens are 40% more likely to get A’s and B’s (basically a prerequisite for college admission) when they sit down for dinner at least 5 times a week.  Our assertion that the return could be better than other extracurricular also weighs in the differences in alcohol and drug use.  Two key issues to both better grades and better behavior.

“At a time when kids are under a lot of stress for a lot of different reasons, having that regular mealtime that they can count on, that their parents are there for support — that can be very helpful,” said David Elkind, a professor of child development at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

For more information on the study, check out The 5 Benefits to Eating Together - Six Wise.com or Family Dinner Linked to Better Grades for Teens.

Whether you are starting a new tradition of having family dinner at the dinner table or your family has been doing that for a while now, you might be looking for ways to liven it up a little and initiate some new conversations.  We came across an interesting post on the blog Gomestic by Kristie Leong on fun family dinner games that would be great to create an enjoyable and relaxing atmosphere at the table.

To me, the most intriguing game was “Who would you invite to dinner?” because you pick people from history that you think would be interesting at your dinner table.  I would enjoy this game because I would learn about history at the same time as I was learning new fun tidbits about my family members.

In addition to the game ideas, Leong made some noteworthy remarks on the importance of connecting with your family.  One point being that eating together at the dinner table is one of the best times to have quality family time. It helps open the line of communication and create stronger bonds between one another. 

If you play any dinner time games, please share!

Spending quality time is important for communication and creating good relationships with your family.  It’s hard to find the time, so take advantage of your dinner time and make it a regular routine to eat together.

Family Guide mentions many benefits of regular family meals: 

• Keeps the doors of communication open
• More likely that meals will be healthier and more balanced
• Teens who do not have frequent family dinners are three-and-a-half times more likely to abuse drugs
• Girls who have five or more meals with the family are one-third less likely to develop unhealthy eating 

Family Guide also included topic ideas for discussions at the table. These included what the challenges of the day were or letting the kids plan the next family meal.  In my family, everyone used to talk about one thing they learned that day.

The next time you are planning your week, consider trying to find the best night for you and the rest of the family to sit down together for dinner. You could find that this ends up benefiting the whole family more than you think. 

To assist our families in connecting, we want to tell you about a wonderful product calledThe Chatterbox. 

“The Chatterbox helps families enjoy great conversations and play fun games all while learning important life skills that are not traditionally taught in school or at home in any planned or organized fashion.”

To checkout The Chatterbox, click here.

This week we will be exploring How Families Connect around the Dinner Table.  As many of you know, the Dinner Table is the focal point for Sharefam.com, because we want to promote the type of family interactions that happen around the dinner table.  As you will see this week, there are many reasons to have Family Dinner Time – improve communication, manage behavioral and emotional issues, and simply add stability to a child’s life.

What stories do you have to tell about Family Dinnertime?  Do you have any traditions that could help other readers build a great atmosphere around dinnertime?

Take a chance to share your personal story below by adding a comment.