The Matthews family's Net rules

The rules for Net users in the household of commentator and single mom Laura Matthews are at the bottom of her piece in the Christian Science Monitor, and they're good and geared to age and responsibility levels. "The Internet is a virtual reference library, a 24/7 guidance counselor, and the most portable locker, backpack, and notebook imaginable," Laura writes, and all this outweighs the Net's risks, as far as she's concerned. Like any smart parent, she's big on teaching her children about taking responsibility for their actions, online or off, and has found this much more effective in keeping them and family privacy safe than scaring them. "I taught them that I'm using the computer for family record-keeping. When my kids realized they could harm the family with naive downloading or unguarded instant messaging, they more readily accepted that it's my responsibility to determine how the computer is used. This argument had more impact on them than cautioning about predators did." There's also some rare positive commentary on the impact of blogging on teenagers - don't miss it.