Searching for the experience of real families with monitoring and protecting their kids, we glanced at the Baltimore Jewish Times.

Linda L. Esterson writes on precisely this: the author asked two families to share their own experience managing kids’ online activities. “Parents need to talk to their children about creating online identities,” the Zerwitzes observed. “We’ve drilled into her [our daughter’s] head that whatever goes into the Internet is on there forever, and that what is posted … could definitely come back to haunt her later,” said the Taule family.

Anyway, nowadays parents understand that cutting kids off kids games websites or the whole Internet isn’t practicable. Let your kids keep with the times – but safely!

While special measures are taken to protect young players on kids games websites, in the harsher online world of adults, kids are left on their own. Maybe now things will change for the better, at least by a little bit.

“Facebook is teaming up with the National PTA to teach children, parents and teachers about responsible Internet use,” reads the announcement at the PTA’s national convention in Memphis as reported on Newsfactor.com. As the president of the National PTA (Parent-Teacher Association, www.pta.org) believes, the partnership will “provide parents … with the knowledge, tools and resources … to keep their children safe.”

Driving Kids parents, a small question to you: how would you explain online safety rules for social networks to your kid? What would you tell them about online behavior, potential risks and hidden traps? What are the strict do’s and don’ts?

Or if you’re not sure of the answers, or seek advice on cell phone safety, for example – check out the PTA’s advice on online kids safety. Let’s make the digital world safer for our kids!

“UC Davis public health researchers have found that children … are the targets of a new medium used to sell high-fat, high-sugar foods: advergames,” we find out from Science Centric.

Diana Cassady and Jennifer Culp from the University of Davis (California, U.S.) analyzed websites for kids which were promoted in grocery advertisements on children’s  TV channels. “84 percent of the websites assessed included online games,” the study concluded.

The researchers noticed that many kids’ games websites and advertising games hardly promote healthy nutrition. “Advergames are clearly a means of casting food with few health benefits in a positive way,” Jennifer Culp summed up.

As we have written here, parents shouldn’t be too quick to spring for colorful packs with cereals. As we have noticed elsewhere, you can teach kids to recognize advertisers’ intentions even by using educational online games for kids.

Let us assure you that the Driving Kids online game doesn’t contain any advertisements for dubious food. No hidden catches, just fun educational games for kids!

Kids Internet Digest in pictures. Driving kids in the safe smile chat

The best time to create a profile in social network is when children are 16-18 years old, 36% of parents suppose. Although if your teenager is a little bit younger, 13 or older, it also might be OK (30% of parents think so).

Childhood is a magic time when kids play games and learn new skills. Kids don’t need to “escape” the real world like some adults do using social media. For kids Internet should be rather a place for learning and smart playing than for wasting time!

Driving Kids joins parents who prefer children websites with kids’ online games to social media. Pre-school and early school kids should be provided with special playful and children-friendly services like websites with educational kids’ games where it’s easy and safe to play and to meet new friends.

That’s why children who play our online kids’ game are invited to play free educational games and to communicate online in safe kids’ chat. Boys and girls who can play online games but not yet familiar with typing are welcomed to exchange small icons with smiles and useful signs.

Playing in Driving Kids, children don’t have to upload their real photos or enter certain personal data like full address, phone number. Kids have many interesting things to do instead of sharing private info or talking about something what touches the adults only!

And we would like parents don’t leave kids online alone. Even the best free online games for kids and the best websites with kids’ games will never take place of caring parents and teachers: all we agree with this, but do we always remember about it?

The author brings up vital issue: “what is the right balance of freedom and guidance?”

While in some families kids are banned from social networking and other types of online communication, other families try to teach youngsters to follow certain type of online behavior which allows to feel comfortable in the Internet.

Dear parents, could you please share with other parents how you manage with your kids’ usage of the Internet? Do you monitor the content of online games which your kids play? Do you talk to your kids about their virtual friends? Would you like Driving Kids to embed some monitoring functions for parent in the educational game? We are looking forward to your opinions.

Rules of using of the Internet by kids occur in many families, and the Obama’s is not an exception. Barack and Michelle Obama “have certain rules for their daughters when it comes to using the Internet,” we read in The Times of India.

The first parents “limit the use of computer” and “talk to their daughters about the dangers of social networking sites.”

You may remember that once we wondered whether Malika and Sasha might be allowed to play our online game. Now we know that there’re no online educational games in the risks’ list of Mrs Obama! It looks like Driving Kids really has some opportunities to arouse girls’ interest to free educational games… If it hasn’t happened yet

One more piece of experience from the First Lady: she and her husband “ask a lot of questions” to their kids about their virtual activities. Indeed, that’s what parents seem to forget sometimes… But not you, do you?

As The Korean Herald informed the world, in the second part of 2010 “pair of policies … will attempt to block underaged access to online computer games” in South Korea. These two measures are “shutdown” and “slowdown.”

First will establish online games’ curfew for children and underaged players. Kids will be offered to choose the 6-hours night time period when popular online games will be unavailable for them. The second one will slow down the speed of connection for those youngsters who sit in magnetic virtual universe too long. Thus, kids won’t be able to play cool games online — but they’ll meet a nice possibility to have a good sleep offline!

This week, it’s is one of the most discussed news related to online games and kids’ usage of the Internet. During 4 days, about 40 articles in newspapers and news websites  — not to speak of posts in blogs! — were devoted to this South Korea’ online games innovation. Please join this world-wide online discussion answering the simple question: how do you meet this initiative?

As The Herald News informs us, the event “Keeping Our Kids Safe” is aimed at making parents “better informed of the risks that accompany Internet and cell phone use and focus on keeping kids safe in the online world.”

Lawrence Fillipelli, one of the most knowledgeable experts in the field of Internet safety in the USA, will headline the event.

Even if you’re not able to participate in the seminar, try to find out whether similar activities are held in your city. Or, what about speaking about kids’ online safety with friends and exchanging your experience protecting them with each other?

… All of us read about kids’ online safety a lot. But how much do we actually discuss it? Remember that Internet safety for children isn’t an abstract theory, it’s an everyday practice! And

The contest offers teenagers over 13 and adults who “have learned a thing or two about how to be online and be safe and responsible” to make a short video and upload it to the competition page by April 30th. To be accepted, the video should be devoted to one of four Internet safety topics described. To win a prize, participants should be a resident of the USA or Canada excluding Quebec, but people from all countries may enrich the video gallery of online safety tips with their own video stories.

If you haven’t yet explained to your kids the do’s and don’ts for online behavior, please do it as soon as possible. We hope the video stories published on the contest’s site help you to do this the right way!

“38 percent of respondents ages 12 to 14 said they had an online profile,” Dr. Bob Wilmott, chief of pediatrics at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center (St. Louis, Missouri, USA), noted in his article “Parents should monitor kids’ time online,” published in St. Louis Today.

However, for creating one on Facebook or MySpace, “users are required to be at least 13 years old.”

That’s why Dr. Wilmott recommends that parents monitor kids’ online activities (for example, placing the PC desk in a heavily-trafficked location at home) and establish time limits for staying online.

And we are glad to find in Dr. Wilmott a person that shares our ideas, just as we recently did with Naomi Alderman and Linda Salzman. “The Internet is a great tool full of fun and information; so please be sure to help your children enjoy it safely,” Dr. Wilmott sums up.