Appropriate Age for Kids to Go Online

Kids are beginning to go online at younger and younger ages—there are even sites for babies! The most important guidelines are: visit quality, age-appropriate sites, enforce age-appropriate time limits, and sit with younger children during their Internet sessions (and as they get older, you can gradually begin to take on a supervisor role).

As your kids get older, they will develop their own interests they can pursue online: games, dress-up sites, even social sites like Club Penguin. When your kids begin to go online, talk with them about staying on sites you've approved, teach them the difference between ads and real content, enforce time limits, and discuss the importance of following the websites' rules, as well as your own rules for responsible online behavior, and the issue of cyberbullying. And if they join a site like Club Penguin, for example, explain that they should never, ever share their password with friends!

Information provided by Caroline Knorr, Parenting Editor of Common Sense Media. For more tips about teaching your kids to be safe online, visit Common Sense Media.