Best of the Web: Just for Kids

Article Outline

• The Wild, Wild Web
• Taming the Web for Kids
• Roping a Great Web Site
  • Domain Name
  • Seals of Approval
  • Government Portals
  • Developmental and Educational Interests of Children
• The New Frontier of Health Care
• Take Home Points
• References
• Biography
• Copyright

Key Words: Child, health, website

There is no shortage of websites for children. In May 2009, approximately 16 million children aged 2 to 11 years (9.5% of all online users) were reported to spend an average of 11 hours online (Nielsen Online, July 6, 2009). These data represent a 63% increase in time spent online in young children since 2004. The purposes of this On the Web article are to provide a brief overview of online safety for children, review quality criteria relevant to children's sites, and provide examples of high-quality health sites just for kids. And if you have Internet search experience and are between the ages of 55 to 76 years, then you in particular should keep reading! The findings of a recent study suggest that Internet searching can improve brain function, especially the abilities of a middle-aged or older adult to make decisions and process new information (Small, Moody, Siddarth, & Bookheimer, 2009).

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The Wild, Wild Web 

We are living in the “Attention Age” in which individuals can create and access health information and share it with anyone in the world (Sarasohn-Kahn, 2008). Child health professionals have a major challenge in corralling the immense amount of health information accessible to children and their families and steering them toward meaningful information that will help them make good health decisions.

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Taming the Web for Kids 

Online safety is the first challenge when taming the web for kids. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (Federal Trade Commission [FTC], n.d.) has been in effect since April 2000. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act requires websites to explain their privacy policies and obtain parental consent if collecting or using the personal information of children younger than 13 years. These privacy protection initiatives currently are under review by the FTC because of the new challenges posed by mobile technology relating to web access, parental consent, and the definition of personal information. The FTC website (http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/privacyinitiatives/childrens_educ.html) includes up-to-date information for parents, teachers, and children about safeguarding kids' privacy in such areas as social networking and virtual worlds, and it provides safety tips to protect children online.

The link to a website's “Privacy Policy” should be clearly identified on a website. This link generally is found along the header or footer of each web page on a site. Take a few minutes to click through the websites below. Locate the “Privacy Policy” link and skim through the privacy protection rules for parents and children on the following sites: BAM: Body and Mind (http://www.bam.gov) and Kidshealth (http://kidshealth.org).

Many training sites are available on the web to educate children and teens about Internet safety. Surf over to some of the online safety sites listed in Table 1. These sites are designed specifically for children and/or teens. Parents also can help protect young children on the Internet by installing web browsers just for kids. Some kid-friendly browsers offer their basic services free while offering expanded services for a subscription fee. Two popular web browsers for kids include KidZui (http://www.kidzui.com) and My Kids Browser (http://mykidsbrowser.com) (both offer a free trial period and then require membership fees). These browsers are simple to use and include a variety of monitoring services and lists of pre-approved sites (white lists) for children to view. They also allow parents to add their own list of approved websites to guide their children. Some Internet service providers also allow parents to limit what their children can access on the web. In this age of mobile technologies, children can access the Internet anywhere and anytime without the supervision of a responsible adult. Technology to safeguard the web-browsing experience of kids on the mobile web exists, as well. However, none of these technologies replace parent-child communication about Internet safety and privacy issues.

Table 1. Examples of Internet safety sites for children and teens

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Roping a Great Web Site 

Just what would a great health website for children look like? The only way to answer this question is to surf the web and examine what can be found. Several quality criteria provide parents or professionals with a quick way to screen worthwhile websites for children.

Domain Name 

The domain name is the web address or Internet identity of a site. It can provide important information about how worthwhile a health-related website might be. The suffixes on a web address describe the type of organization or other category it may represent. The suffixes that are generally included in the domain name of trustworthy health information sites include .org (non-profit organization), .gov (federal governments), and .edu (college and university institutions). The .com extension is one of the most popular across the web. It is important to note that the .com suffix no longer means that a site has only a commercial intent.

Seals of Approval 

A seal of approval or logo representing an organization that has approved a website is generally found on the footer of a website's home page or under the “About Us” section of the site. The most common seal on the web is the HONcode seal. This seal does not guarantee the accuracy of health information, but it does provide reassurance that certain ethical standards are being upheld by a website. The URAC seal provides the user assurance that the health information on the site has also been reviewed for accuracy. Many high-quality children's websites may not contain the HONcode or URAC seals of approval, but they often include the logos or seals of other organizations that have given them awards. The American Library Association offers a seal that can be placed on sites included in their collection of “Great Websites for Kids” (http://www.ala.org/greatsites). To locate this collection of websites, go to the ALA Great Sites Web site (http://www.ala.org/greatsites) and click on Sciences > Biology. Several of the sites that are listed under the biology subject heading are geared toward providing health-related information to children.

Government Portals 

Medline Plus (http://medlineplus.gov) is a service of the National Library of Medicine. It provides a “goldmine of good health information” from diverse sources on the Web for both professionals and consumers (Lindberg, 2009). Topics and health information relevant to children can be accessed by clicking on Health Topics > (Demographic Group) Children and Teenagers. A directory of health topics related to children and adolescent health will appear. Pick a topic and then scroll down the page until a table with colored tabs appears. Locate the “For You” box and click on the age group you are interested in. Links and educational information are provided for the age group selected. Medline Plus also includes “Interactive Health Tutorials” (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/tutorial.html) developed by the Patient Education Institute (http://www.patient-education.com).

Kids.gov (http://www.kids.gov) is the U.S. Government health portal for children and teens and covers a wide range of educational information, including the subject of health. This site is directed toward children in grades K-5, grades 6-8, and educators. HHS (Health and Human Services) for Kids (http://www.hhs.gov/kids) is another good starting point for exploring websites that provide health education on topics in these categories: All Kids, Youth, Girls, Parents, And Educators/Teachers, and Health & Science.

Developmental and Educational Interests of Children 

The most important aspect of finding a great website for children is to pay careful attention to the content and how it contributes to advancing their understanding of health topics in terms of their developmental level and age. Interactivity is a key strategy for enriching the experiences of children while online and tapping their imagination and creativity. Judging the developmental and educational appropriateness of a health-related website for children is a challenging task. There are several excellent examples of websites that tailor content to the developmental and educational interests of children and teens. Two of the best examples of educational sites geared toward children are Kidshealth.com (http://kidshealth.org; free access) and BrainPOP (http://www.brainpop.com; free previews available). Table 2 includes a list of selected general sites that focus on children's health. Take a few minutes to visit some of these sites and decide whether they might prove helpful in supplementing the health education provided to children in your practice setting.

Table 2. Examples of health-related websites for children and teens

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The New Frontier of Health Care 

The new frontier of health care is not just engaging children in health information but also designing research to evaluate how the delivery of information on the Internet may improve health outcomes (Bessière, Pressman, Kiesler, & Kraut, 2010). The Internet and mobile technologies like smart phones are helping patients to be more informed about their health choices, monitor their health conditions, increase compliance, and join communities of individuals who share similar health concerns.

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Take Home Points 

More important, encourage parents to surf the web with their children so they can show their parents some of their favorite health-related sites. These strategies provide pediatric nurse practitioners, parents, and children with the opportunity to talk about how to interpret the health information they find on the web and make safe decisions.

Finally, pediatric nurse practitioners should provide children and families with lists of high-quality health-related websites focused on child health. What health-related websites do you recommend to children and teens? E-mail the addresses of sites you find helpful and meaningful when working with children to jdauria@email.unc.edu. Consider writing a column that would focus on educational and informational Internet resources related to the population(s) you serve. Future columns will focus on informational and educational resources for children with chronic conditions, social networking, and much more.

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References 

1. Bessière, K., Pressman, S., Kiesler, S., & Kraut, R. (2010). Effects of internet use on health and depression: A longitudinal study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 12(1): e6. Retrieved from http://www.jmir.org/2010/1/e6/HTML
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2. Federal Trade Commission. (n.d.). The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Retrieved from http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/privacyinitiatives/childrens.html
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3. Lindberg, D. (2009). A message from the Director. Retrieved from http://www.nlm.nih.gov /medlineplus/aboutmedlineplus.html
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4. Nielson Online. (2009, July 6). Growing up, and growing fast: Kids 2-11 spending more time online. Retrieved from http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/growing-up-and-growing-fast-kids-2-11-spending-more-time-online/
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5. Sarasohn-Kahn, J. (2008). The wisdom of patients: Health care meets online social media (California HealthCare Foundation, Oakland, CA). Retrieved from http://www.chcf.org /topics/chronicdisease/index.cfm?itemID=133631
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6. Small GW, Moody TD, Siddarth P, Bookheimer SY. Your brain on Google: Patterns of cerebral activation during internet searching. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. 2009;17:166-126
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