Kids Pull Cyber Wool Over Parents' Eyes

If you've installed parental controls on your home computer and are currently congratulating yourself on being cyber-savvy, you may have to think again. A new survey has found that almost half of all 11-year-olds can find their way around parental controls on the computer.

The survey, by children's charity NCH, found a huge gap between what parents and their children know about getting around the internet. A third of the children surveyed use either blogs or networking sites such as mykindofplace.com. That puts parents at a disadvantage; the research showed that almost two thirds of parents had no idea what a blog was.

Of the 1000 children surveyed, 43% of the 11-year-olds were more than confident that they could bypass any controls their parents put on to the computer. ' Parents do not necessarily have to understand the technology,' explained Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. 'What they can do is empower their child by explaining the dangers in the same way as if the child is in a public place.'

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