The safety of our children is anything but a trivial matter. We work every day for our children, and our every waking thought has them fairly close to the forefront. So when anything has even the most remote potential of causing them any sort of harm, our natural instinct is to keep it as far as is humanly possible away from our babies (even if they are far from being babies anymore). Simply put, the protection of our children from danger can actually be a more powerful motivation than helping them to achieve success. This can hinder some potentially helpful and useful pursuits that they may endeavor toward having, such as being on the internet. While internet use has all kinds of different ways that it can be useful to a child, it can also potentially harbor all sorts of known and unknown molesters and murderers, who might prey on our children in ways that haunt our worst nightmares.

So it makes sense that a lot of parents keep their children from using the Web, sometimes to an extent that seems a little strict. While the child may see absolutely nothing wrong with talking to whomever happens to be online, or going to any given site, parents have a tendency to assume there is danger unless they are absolutely certain that there isn’t. Since this instinct is so common in our species, it is pretty likely that parents in the ancient past who felt the same way saw more of their children survive into adulthood. Strict isn’t always a bad thing.

But what about the actual dangers online? Are children really only a few clicks away from having their minds warped, or from being spirited away by some kind of predator? The truth is, most likely not. Children have a natural sense of curiosity, and they are always going to seek out whatever catches their interest. This happened long before the Web, and it would keep happening if the Web disappeared tomorrow. What you can do is limit their internet time, so that they can remember there’s a real world.

You might have seen the title of this article and suspected that this might simply tell you to leave your kids in a box on the side of the road. After all, the Internet is a dangerous pit full of predators, and your child is precisely the kind of fresh, tasty meat they have been drooling for, right? This is absolutely true. But you also need to keep in mind that these people can not find your child unless he or she gives them identifying information, such as their last name or address. But what do you think would be a more effective way to teach your children how to act around strangers: to keep them off of the Internet because of the off possibility that they might eventually tell someone something that could result in their harm, or to simply instruct them not to do stupid things like that in the first place?

If you think that your children are stupid and incapable of ever developing any sort of survival skills, you are going to have a very hard time when you get old and they get to an age at which people are expected to be contributing members of society. Sooner or later, your children are going to be all on their own. And while this does not mean you should start leaving them at home by themselves at a year old, it does mean that when they start to be able to understand human motivations (around age 7 or 8), you need to start teaching them some ground rules for how to relate to other people when you are not around.

Protecting your children when they are online may seem like a good idea. But over time, this idea can actually hinder their ability to develop the sort of skills they are going to need, in order for them to function properly in society. The skills which will let them protect themselves from sexual predators will help them keep away from doing stupid things in the real world. And isn’t that what you ultimately want, any way?