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Got a teen who ignores curfew? Who's underachieving at school? Who's crabby 24/7? If you have a question about parenting teens, clinical psychologist and parenting author Anthony E. Wolf would like to help. Send your questions to awolf@globeandmail.com to get Dr. Wolf's expert advice. Your question may be featured in his advice column, which appears every two weeks in the print edition of Globe Life. (Your name will not be published.)

"You read about all these sexual predators out there going online to prey on unwary teens. You hear about the cyberbullying, and all the bad stuff that kids are into. What's the world coming to?"

My previous column looked at the huge amount of time that teens spend plugged into the Internet. That in itself, I argued, is not necessarily a bad thing.

But obviously it's not just the quantity of time that concerns parents.

There is no question that the Internet creates a lot more opportunity for kids to be exposed to - and engage in - a wide range of problem activities. Sex, drugs, drinking. Plain day-to-day meanness. Are they posting risqué pictures of themselves? Are they fending off malicious gossip that instantly spreads to all their peers? These worries may be overblown, and these dangers, of course, existed before. But it's true that the Internet has introduced a new avenue for risky behaviour.

"Come on, I don't do anything wrong. It's no big deal. I talk to friends. Yeah, we swear a lot, talk about sex and drugs, and gossip. But that's what teenagers do. I've never done anything really bad."

Maybe he has and maybe he hasn't.

One problem - which won't go away - is that the amount of risk parents will tolerate for their children is none, while the amount of risk teens will tolerate is some. And their judgment is not always great. To make it worse, they often sneak and lie.

So what's a parent to do to keep their child safe?

You have the right to periodically check on what your child is doing online. Some parents require that their child's Internet activity take place in a public part of the home, but that's hard to enforce if your child has a laptop.

You can also subscribe to services that block access to undesirable websites. But these too can be flawed. And motivated teens, who probably know their way around the computer better than you do, find ways to access that content.

If you learn that they are participating in undesirable Internet activity, you can temporarily suspend access. And if their problem behaviour is too serious and continues - if they regularly bully other children, or connect with inappropriate partners or regularly engage in illegal activities - you should take away access altogether.

But no controls are going to be perfect. You cannot completely protect them.

And there is a problem with surveillance: The line between a child's right to privacy and a parent's need to know that their child is safe isn't clear. Your teen will say: "I have a right to some privacy in my life" (which is what you would have said as a teen).

You have to decide for yourself what degree of surveillance - or lack thereof - you are comfortable with. Just be aware that with each degree of surveillance there is a consequence: Your teen learns less about taking responsibility and dealing with the real world on their own. Where is it protection and where is it suffocation? You have to decide that for yourself.

However you feel about the issue of parental control and surveillance, when it comes to your teen's Internet activity, here are three recommendations:

Discuss with your teen how what they are saying and posting on the Internet is not as private as they may think - that they are more exposed than they realize.

Make explicit what is not acceptable in regard to Internet use. For example, receiving or sending sexual images. Communicating with people who are not their age unless you're aware of it. Any form of harassment, whether it's happening to them or others. Any trafficking of illegal substances. If someone is talking of harming themselves, they must not keep it a secret. Your teen may not obey all the rules, but stating them does establish boundaries for their online activities.

Finally, as you should be doing all along, you need to talk with your child about all potentially risky behaviour - what you think and what you worry about. If you don't, all they're left with is what information they already have from friends and the media - much of it through the Internet. And you can't compete with the Internet if you keep your mouth shut.

Got a teen who ignores curfew? Who's underachieving at school? Who's crabby 24/7? If you have a question about parenting teens, clinical psychologist and parenting author Anthony E. Wolf would like to help. Send your questions to awolf@globeandmail.com to get Dr. Wolf's expert advice. Your question may be featured in his advice column, which appears every two weeks in the print edition of Globe Life. (Your name will not be published.)