Kids Online .us

Virtual Worlds For Kids

Virtual Worlds are proving to be great, safe web places for kids to have fun and interact with others. The attractive safety features that virtual worlds are providing are popular amongst parents looking for web security for their children. But these safety features are not the only reasons that virtual world memberships continue to grow and new kids virtual websites continue to pop-up.

Virtual worlds really appeal to children with their 3d animation, colorful worlds to be explored, and the ability for kids to create their very own avatars.   Unlike watching television, in a virtual world a child can fully interact.

Not only are virtual worlds a fun place for kids, but parents can feel comfortable that the sites are generally made to be educational allowing children to learn and grow whilst still enjoying themselves.  They develop keyboard skills, practice reading, mathematics, commerce, and participate in creative role playing. The cooperative nature of virtual worlds helps children develop important social skills while gaining a deeper understanding of their role as members of a community.

Virtual kids worlds offer various safety features.  Parents are asked to stay involved and in many cases are asked to give their permission at different stages of a child’s involvement in the virtual world.  Permission is normally granted to a child’s action by a parent confirming an email request from the virtual world.  Kids love to network with their friends and with the virtual worlds allowing text chatting between avatars, the virtual worlds for the most provide message filtering to help prevent the use of inappropriate words and phrases, and they block attempts to communicate phone numbers, email addresses or other personally identifiable information.

It’s important for the virtual worlds to provide a safe environment for children, to encourage increased membership numbers.  But even so parents should encourage the following behavior:-

• Never give out your personal information online. Personal information includes things like your real name, address, phone number, e-mail or school.
• If someone says or does something that makes you feel uncomfortable, or if they ask for your personal information, tell your parents right away.
• Never give out your password to anybody, even if they say they work for the virtual world.

More guidelines about how to protect your kids online can be found at these locations:-

U.S. Federal Trade Commission, at www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu

FTC’s kids safety site, at www.netsmartz.org

Think U Know in the UK, at www.thinkuknow.co.uk

Cybersmart in Australia, at www.cybersmart.gov.au

For parents who are concerned about their children spending too much time in a Virtual World, some sites have timer’s to help parents keep track of their child’s usage.

Each virtual world is unique and some kids will be more attracted to one rather than the other based on their own personality, age and interests.  Security features in virtual worlds can also differ.  We encourage you to look through the different virtual worlds and explore their features before your child jumps in. A great place to start is at Cool for Kids who provide a list of virtual worlds for kids.

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