When you think about parental monitoring, what are some of the first words that come to mind? I recently read a Canadian study that noted the general change in the way parents have come to view the Internet:

• 2000: parents were enthusiastic about the opportunities the Internet would bring to their children.

• 2004: the Internet had become a source of frustration for parents, who felt that their kids were wasting time online when they should be doing schoolwork; they reported spending too much time fighting about, limiting, and managing their kids' Internet consumption.

Cyberbullying is using the Internet to harm, threaten, harass, or humiliate others. It can be over social networks, email, texting, or elsewhere online. Cyberbullying is a significant part of many of our kids' lives and has a seriously detrimental impact on their emotional and mental health.

Founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter has become an increasingly popular social networking site.  It is used in almost every country and is currently available in 20 languages.  If used properly, it is a great networking tool that can be quite helpful.  Twitter allows celebrities and “regular” people to interact with one another, businesses to make announcements to the public, and friends to chat with one another. I would like to emphasize the word “properly” because many people don’t.  Sadly, it has become another conduit for teens to bully each other. 

Due to the emotional and impulsive nature of teenagers today, many fail to understand that when they publish something on twitter it’s out there and can’t be taken back. I know you might be thinking how much damage can 140 characters really do? The answer is a lot of damage! Teen suicide is becoming a major issue because of cyberbullying.

I love and use Google Images about as much as any parent can. Just this week I've used it to find clip art images for household chore charts, answer my daughter's question about what the flag of Bolivia looks like, and make car-themed bingo cards for my son's birthday party. And it only took me a few seconds.

But all my love for Google Images notwithstanding, I do caution parents whenever their children are using it. Keep your kids safe by monitoring what they search - and what they find.

No matter what the keyword, it's pretty much inevitable that some suggestive, inappropriate, or downright pornographic images are going to appear somewhere in the search results. Luckily, most of the words your kids are going to be searching for will not have these images on the first page.

Bullying someone in person is soooo 20th century. Cyberbullying is the new way for tweens and teens to bully, and it differs from traditional schoolyard bullying in significant ways.

Most of us know about schoolyard bullying, and have probably seen it for ourselves at some point during our journey through adolescence. Someone might have spread a dirty rumor about a classmate in the hallways at school or scrawled “For a good time call Kathy” on the inside of a bathroom stall with a Sharpie.

But cyberbullying is very different from the kind of bullying we know, for three reasons: 

1. 24/7 access. The Internet never sleeps. Cyberbullied kids live in a plugged-in world where they feel trapped and desperate because they can't escape from harassing emails, text messages, or Wall posts. They are always aware of them.

Social networking is on the rise, and so is parental monitoring. The good news is that most parents actively enforce rules regarding Internet safety and engage in various types of monitoring to ensure their child's safety on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

The bad news is that many kids try to get around parental monitoring by creating a “dummy” profile, and many parents are none the wiser about it.

Many tweens and teens love FourSquare, a free application available for GPS-enabled smartphones.

Here are 4 vital things you need to know about FourSquare to keep your kids safe when they're using the location-based social networking app.

1. It's not just a game:

On FourSquare, your child earns points for “checking in” at certain locations and earns badges (checkins at 20 different pizza places, for example.) If she frequently checks in at the same place, she could become “mayor” of that location.

But even though it sort of feels like a game, FourSquare is actually a social network where people can

Popular with teens and tweens, Tumblr is a microblogging site that provides a platform for blogging that is super simple and user-friendly. An important kids safety question: does your teen have a Tumbleblog? If so, there are 6 important things about the site you should know. 

1. Tumbleblogs are public blogs, and there is no way to change the setting. But there is a loophole: your child can set up a second Tumbleblog that can be password-protected, and neglect the the primary one which is public by default.

2. The “block” feature has limitations. If your child is being harassed or just doesn't like a certain Tumblr user, they can block that person from communicating with them via Tumblr – but they can't block them from seeing their blog. Keep that in mind.

It used to be, when our kids couldn’t fall asleep at night, there was something horrible and scary keeping them awake.  The boogie monster was in their closet or under their bed.  They just knew it!  The remedy for parents was pretty simple: turn on the lights, show the child there is nothing there, and then it’s “sweet dreams” and back to sleep.  So how do parents intervene when it’s not something scary that’s keeping their kids awake – it’s something they love.

Most teenagers use social-media sites and parents are wise to it, "friending" their kids and monitoring which sites they visit at an increased rate, according to a study presented at an educators conference today.

Seventy-six percent of teens are on social-media sites, with most -- 93 percent -- of them on Facebook, according to the Pew Internet study that examined the behavior of teens online.

And the usage increases with age -- a sign that parents are sticking tight to a rule that only teens 13-years-old and up can go on social-media sites, something such sites have been dinged for failing to police in the past.

Online reputation is everything to teens, especially when their social lives exist almost entirely online. Much of what teens do and say online is guided by their need for acceptance among their classmates and other peers.  But with the ever-changing nature of the Internet, what happens when a teen’s reputation gets away from them and seems to take on a life of its’ own?

Without proper management, just a few simple mistakes posted online could follow your teen years down the road, and even affect potential employment opportunities.  While there are many things you and your teen can do to keep their online name in good standing, here are the top three things we think are important:

Do you think you have a pretty good idea of what your child is doing online? You may even have parental controls or parental monitoring software. Despite all the effort you go through to monitor your teen's Internet activity, your kids may still be pulling the wool over your eyes in more ways than one, a new study reveals.

The 2012 Teen Internet Behavior Study from McAfee took a closer look at the ways kids 13-17 hide their Internet activity from their parents. Teens reported that their top 10 methods included:

1. Clearing the browser history (53%)

2. Closing/minimizing browser windows when parent walked in (46%)

3. Hiding or deleting IMs or videos (34%)

As Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state of New York join the ranks of the few states that have passed cyberbullying laws, it’s important to understand that simply passing a law is not going to ensure your kids’ online safety. It takes an individual effort on the part of parents and kids to end online harassment, and it starts with honest, open communication.

I'm at a little bit of a loss for words when it comes to the teen sexting phenomenon, and the statistics I see don't seem to give me a clear understanding of the issue.

Is sexting a socially accepted activity among kids, or is there a social stigma to it? Do 1 in 5 kids really do it? And is this more of a middle school or a high school issue?

After stumbling across the transcript of a 2009 teen focus group on sexting, I was even more convinced that even among kids there's not really a consensus.

It's really hard to be a parent and try to relate to what childhood is like for my kids. I know what it was like to be a tween and teen back in the 20th century, not what it's like today. 

A deadly summertime car wreck is a parent's worst nightmare.

It’s the perfect time of year to apply a little overdose of parental monitoring – and keeps those kids safe during those sizzling summer months!

We're smack in the middle of the 100 deadliest driving days for teens aged 15 to 19, which fall between Memorial Day and Labor Day, according to AAA. Car wrecks are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, and more teens are killed on the road during summer than any other time of year.

Your heart skipped a beat when you first found out that your child has been cyberbullying others.

Maybe you received a phone call from the principal or another parent, or maybe you stumbled across some bullying messages stored on your child's phone or computer. However you found out, the news probably came as quite a shock.

If your child has being harassed by a cyberbully, would you know what to do? Responding to cyberbullying can be more complicated than you think, and the right way to react depends on exactly what's going on.

Finding that someone is bullying your child makes you want to act immediately, but keep your cool and ask questions first. Most victims of cyberbullying don't tell their parents because they think doing so will only make it worse. So before you start making phone calls to the bully's parents, the principal, or the police, find out: