There's no one-size-fits-all answer - not in an era when teenagers face life-threatening risks and even some kindergartners go online. Nor is it time to stick your head in the sand - not when Facebook has an estimated 7.5 million preteen users, even though they are supposedly ineligible for the popular social-networking service.
There are technological approaches aplenty for parental control and monitoring. Last fall, PC Magazine scoured the field and found dozens, naming nine as "Editor's Choices," including Net Nanny, Bsecure Online, and Web Watcher - a full-scale spyware program for the most anxious of parents or bosses.
On Thursday, a Philadelphia-area company, Blue Bell's PredictivEdge Technologies L.L.C., plans to introduce a new contender that aims to protect children without venturing into parental espionage: the Proactive Parenting Network.
I recently had the chance to poke around a beta version of PPN, as the company calls it, and to speak with chief executive officer William M. Thompson and Keith Harry, senior vice president for product development. They say their aim is to help parents cope openly and honestly in an era when, as Thompson puts it, "kids are the IT professionals in the house," and might well be able to dodge a more heavy-handed approach.
One key to PPN's value is its natural language processing software, which they say is able to go beyond simple keyword analysis and generate alerts for real risks or dangers with fewer false alarms.
For instance, "I hate the Mets" won't cause concern. But "I hate you" will - as a potential red flag for cyberbullying, or at least for a subject that a parent might want to bring up.
