Online safety is a top "family" issue these days. It's all over the news, blogs, and everybody concerned with kids wants to call themselves an expert and regurgitate the same tips. Well, it may seem like the message is finally sinking in and parents are listening: monitoring Internet activity of children is essential. Why then, pray tell, are so few putting it into physical practice. Why is it that as the ability to communicate and participate within the world escalated to new heights, parental governance of children decreased? How does that make sense?

Answer: thanks to an irrational and wrongly associated bad stigma placed on the idea of parents playing big brother.

For some reason, parents have stopped being parents. The moms and dads of the Net generation literally have a fear of invading their child's "privacy." First of all, that term "privacy" is wrong, but aside from that - WHAT?! Seriously, folks, parent job numero uno is to protect your child. How can you do that if you don't know what they are doing, where they are going or who they associate with on a regular basis?

Let's first look at the "privacy" issue. Many critics and foolish naysayers liken the use of monitoring software to reading a personal diary, listening to a phone conversation, or even reading mail.

Checking and monitoring the online activity of your kids couldn't be more different than any of those three activities of previous parental generations.

1. The diary of generations past was a secret document, always kept under lock-and-key, that usually no one but the author read. (Unless someone died and either a family member reads - or in the case of someone famous, everyone reads). There is nothing - absolutely nothing - with that level of privacy on the Internet. Everything is public - especially a social networking page and chat rooms.

2. The elongated phone calls made by teens of the 1980s and '90s - remember those? I did it. (My little sister was a pro.) Anyone who thinks that checking emails or reading IM chats of kids is like eavesdropping on phone conversations or reading mail, think again. My parents always knew who was on the other end of the phone and where the letters came from. More importantly, so did I. I don't remember ever picking up the phone and calling a random stranger multiple times and forming a relationship with them. Nor did a stranger call me… Not to mention that basically everyone in the house could hear one end of the conversation. Do you know for sure who is on the other end of an IM chat with your kids? Can you hear what is being said at all?

So forget "privacy." It's not an issue of that… it's simply the same parenting, just at a 2.0 level.

Internet predators are no doubt the most highly-publicized threats to kids. From lurking on MySpace/ Facebook to trolling chatrooms and online games, they are out there and they WILL try to solicit, lure, groom and befriend your child. Make no mistake about it. But in all reality, it's cyberbullying that is a much bigger, more prevalent threat to your child.

You can do a search for stats, but the most commonly used one seems to be that 1 in 7 kids has been approached online by a would-be predator. That is a basic number that doesn't take into account multiple attempts, successes or failures (for the pred). That's about 14 (double) have been cyber bullied in some way; about 1 in 8 admitted to acting as a bully.

This means that in a standard class of 24 students, 3 of them are actively bullying about 7 of the kids in the classroom.

Past those two external threats, young Internet users aren't fully aware of the consequences of illegal file sharing or posting too much personal and private information online. Their own eagerness to participate and average youthful naiveté can cause them to do things they shouldn't be doing. But how would you know? Simple: by monitoring computer and internet activity.

You need monitoring software. You need a tool that will record everything your child does so you can go through and review, and parent accordingly. A title I recommend is PC Pandora 5.0, which works like a DVR for your computer. The program takes sequential snapshots of what is on the computer screen, providing parents with an accurate foolproof visual record of everything their children did on the computer. It also keeps detailed logs of websites visited, emails sent and received, instant messenger chats, keystrokes logged, peer-2-peer files traded, programs accessed and more. It will even email a busy parent at work with updates on activity.

A lot of skeptics are quick to assume that the wealth of knowledge obtained from monitoring software like PC Pandora (http://www.pcpandora.com) is a power that can quickly and easily be misused by parents. Some fear that innocent checking and monitoring will quickly turn to snooping and spying.

Well, hey, guess what - parenting is a tough job. There are many lines to walk; this is one of them. Parents are supposed to be the responsible ones in the house. This includes setting rules for the kids and adhering to personal ones at the same time. You don't need to know who has a crush on who in class, or other random sordid teenage details. But you do need to know if your child is being bullied or talking to someone online with a suspicious screen name. You should also be able to monitoring Internet activity just enough to be able to prevent teenagers from indulging in illegal activity (like drugs, alcohol, etc.), while at the same time letting your kids be kids and explore, learn and grow.

So while some may feel monitoring computer activity of kids is "too much" and just like "spying," I like to think of it more as "wholly appropriate" and "absolutely necessary" 21st century parenting. Do some research and invest in monitoring software so you can know what your child is doing in the online world. Information is power. Don't be a weak parent.

A 2-hour trial of PC Pandora is available at the website: www.pcpandora.com.