Parents Say They Know Kids’ Internet Space

By Marilyn Elias

Most parents don’t believe in blind trust when it comes to making sure their children are using the Internet safely, a large national survey on media use suggested Tuesday.

About three out of four check what websites their children have visited, and even more look at how children are profiled on MySpace and who’s on their instant-message “buddy” lists, the Kaiser Family Foundation survey shows. The poll of 1,008 parents with children ages 2 to 17 has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

“Whether parents really know as much as they think they know is an open question,” says Vicky Rideout, vice president at Kaiser. “But when it comes to what happens inside their own homes, they feel they’re getting a handle on it.”

Two-thirds say they’re “very” concerned that children see too much inappropriate material in the media overall. But the number of parents who believe their children are exposed to too much violence and sex in the media has dropped in the past eight years from about two-thirds to about half.

Many parents find TV ratings confusing, the survey shows. About half use TV and video game ratings or music advisories. And three out of four say they consult movie ratings.

The findings challenge “an image of parents as befuddled and behind the curve on media,” Rideout says.

“It’s very encouraging,” says Michael Angus, executive vice president and general counsel of Fox Interactive Media, which owns a number of websites, such as MySpace. Social networking sites “have many positive aspects for kids that are not getting the attention they deserve. … I don’t think parents are unconcerned, but they understand what their kids are doing.”

Others say that’s wishful thinking.

“They’re living in denial,” says Tim Winter of the Parents Television Council, which seeks to protect kids from graphic violence and sex in entertainment.

Though two-thirds in the survey say they “closely” monitor media use, Winter points to a 2005 Kaiser poll in which 53% of children said there were no rules about watching TV in their homes. “I believe parents are exaggerating how much they’re monitoring.”

Concerns about Internet safety are confirmed by surveys by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Two-thirds of parents with teens say they “check up” on kids who go online, and about half use software that monitors computer use or blocks material.

“The message about Internet safety is getting out to parents,” says David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family in Minneapolis. Requests for his group to do parent workshops on Internet safety have increased “dramatically” in the past two years, he says.

Still, some surveys show that more than half of children say they have been approached suggestively online, “and three out of four don’t tell their parents,” Walsh says. “And we’ve heard from kids that there are multiple MySpace pages: ‘One for my parents, and one for me.’” (c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.