It ha never been more critical than right now to protect children from the online perils of pornography. According to USA Today there are over 1000 new pornographic websites each day. Over 30% of all the websites online have some form of inappropriate content. It has been estimated that approximately 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys will be sexually molested before the age of 18. The relationship of pornography to child sexual abuse is compelling. 77% of those who molested boys and 87% of those who molested girls said they were regular users of hard-core pornography.

For most families, being on the Internet is as commonplace as being on the telephone. While most parents feel that it is not necessary to monitor their children online, this is a very big mistake. Some, but not all, of the problems for families associated with online pornography are as follows:

· Children innocently typing in incorrect URL's and accessing porn sites by mistake possibly causing trauma to the child.

· Cookies being placed in browsers by porn sites thereby allowing them to track your children and send them pornographic emails.

· Curious children seeking porn sites (and they will) potentially opening themselves up to developing an addiction to online pornography.

· Porn seeking children using their parent's credit cards to accumulate, in many known cases, hundreds of dollars of charges for viewing online pornography.

· Marriages and families are being destroyed due to husbands and wives becoming addicted to online pornography.

Online pornographers are targeting your children. Over half of the children using the Internet receive an invitation from pornographers to visit a pornographic web site right on the computer in your home.

Face it; the Internet can be a particularly dangerous place for children if they should surf it unmonitored. Who has the time to monitor your kids 24 hours a day? If you are looking to create a safe web environment for your children, you may want to consider investing some money in an Internet filter. An Internet filter is basically a simple to install software application designed to prevent access to websites that you do not want your children to visit.

A few years ago there were a lot of dial up Internet service providers that offered filtered Internet access. Many of these companies are still around. With the prices and availability of broadband Internet, most of us have moved away from dialup. The problems of unfiltered Internet access remain the same, but the availabilities of Internet filtering are worse.

There are a handful of good stand-alone Internet content filters that are available for high speed Internet access. Most of these filters are customizable to your families needs and are very affordable. As you have moved into the high speed Internet world, have for forgotten to protect your kids?