Interesting.Places.to/Browse	for Parents
	Welcome!

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*    M O V E D      *	to Interesting.Places.to/Browse/forParents/index.html
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         *
         *	The official location of the ``Interesting Places''
         *	series of link pages is Interesting.Places.to/Browse/ .
         *	The official location of ``the Starport in Cyberspace''
         *	is now theStarport.com/
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These pages have moved once again; the domain name starport.com has been sold. Please visit the new owners (sometime in mid-August 1999), and wish them well. Their generous offer has made it possible for me to continue providing these pages free of advertising of any kind.

(New links added frequently. Additional pointers welcome.)
This is an Award-winning site. The icons and descriptions were moved to awards.html to make this page load faster.

Contents

• Introduction
• Educational Resources
• Software for Kids
• Articles
• Other Resources
• Stuff to Buy
• Net Safety and Censorship
• Getting your Kids onto the Net and the Web
• Getting your kids off the Net
• Copyright Notice
• Site Policies.

Introduction

Note:

Parents differ in the degree to which they try to protect their kids from various aspects of reality, including strong language, violence, beliefs and opinions contrary to their own, and so on. I am not particularly protective. Thus, since I maintain Interesting Places for Kids primarily for the benefit of my daughter Katy (age 12), parents should keep in mind that the pointers it contains are used by a child who asks her mother to cook rabbit stew on Easter, and whose idea of fun video fare includes both Power Rangers and Hamlet. (Which is more violent is left as an exercise for the viewer.)

In general, parents should be aware that there are effectively no state or national boundaries on the Internet. Depending on where you are, it may or may not be legal for you to import chewing gum, export cryptography software, smoke cigarettes in public, or make comments opposing the policies of your local government.

Once you give your children access to the World Wide Web, there is no way to prevent them from seeing things that may upset or confuse them, offend you, be forbidden by your local government, or contradict their or your cherished beliefs. Even looking over their shoulders may not work. Don't say I didn't warn you. (Some filtering services are becoming available, so this is changing.)

In general, kids are mostly inclined to be sensible. If they see something uninteresting, they'll say ``Yuck!'' and click the back button. In any case they are unlikely to run into anything on the Web that's nearly as disturbing as what they can see on TV network news.

Stephen C. Steel says it best:

The only long term answer is to educate your children about pornography, hate-literature, etc. so that when they come across it, they'll know how to react. The only software you can be sure they'll be running is the stuff you install between their ears.

I do provide a page of Notes, Advice and Warnings, with links where I think they are appropriate. Several other sites have started making links to it, and I welcome comments and suggestions on the subject. Additional pointers to net safety- and censorship- related sites is here. Fairly soon I intend to make paper copies available.