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CHICAGO, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- School is out for the Christmas season, meaning kids have more free time, which, experts say, they are spending increasingly online.

"With the holidays, libraries are inundated with kids with lots of free time," Cynthia Keller-Richey, president of the Association of Library Service to Children in Pittsburgh, told United Press International. "A lot of them are on the Internet."

Though many sites featuring pop stars, like Britney Spears or Madonna, can be mighty alluring to young minds with idle time, experts say parents can direct their children to wholesome activities on the Net, such as games they can play with their friends or worlds that engage their imaginations.

"Parents need to set limits," Marianne Neifert, author of "Dr. Mom's Prescription for Pre-Schoolers," and a contributor to Parent Magazine and Baby Talk Magazine, told UPI. "They need to track what the kids are doing and open channels of dialog with them."

Involved parents can find many kid-healthy sites that already have been vetted by educators, like the American Library Association's "Great Web Sites for Kids," at ala.org/parents, Keller-Richey said. Another great site with information about good and bad content for kids is called getnetwise.org. Local libraries throughout the country also vet sites and post them on their own Web sites for their clientele, she added.

No educator refers to a site as completely child-safe, however, she said. "Nothing is completely safe for kids, but some sites are very child-friendly."

Among the positive sites for youngsters -- accessible during the holidays, but year-round as well -- are for Harry Potter, "The Lord of the Rings" and other creative fare.

"A lot of kids like to come to the library, because the computers are organized, next to each other and they go online and play games with each other or look at the same screen image at the same time and talk to each other about it," Keller-Richey said. "It's as if the library has become their family room."

Today's reality is many homes have two parents who work, which means there may be times when older children are home alone, unsupervised, or watched over by a part-time nanny, Neifert said.

For their own family rooms, though, parents can set guidelines as to what is acceptable -- and unacceptable -- Internet content. There are many technologies that allow moms and dads to do this, she said, including Internet service providers like AOL, which allow them to create separate accounts for kids with limited access to the Web. This is more effective than taking an adversarial approach with the children. sh added.

Parents can also review what sites their kids say they like and determine if they are indeed appropriate, Keller-Richey said, although surfing the Net takes some time. "Parents sometimes do not know the difference between a chat-room, e-mail and the Internet," she said. "They may be street smart, but they are not Internet smart."

By looking at a URL -- the Internet address -- a parent can tell if the content is not from a legitimate source, said Keller-Richey. "Then you should read the site yourself and see if the content seems authentic. If it is about history, confirm some of the facts presented there, independently. We recommend that parents sit with the kids and work with the kids, especially through elementary school, on the computer," she added.

Experts advise parents not to allow grade school children to have their own computers in their own rooms. Rather, children should be given access to the Net in an area of the house where the parents can observe their online conduct.

Internet predators represent another area of concern, Joe Hartmann, director of North American anti-virus research at TrendMicro Inc., in Cupertino, Calif., told UPI.

He advises parents to secure any financial information stored on a computer used by children. Credit card numbers, phone numbers, bank statements and social security numbers should be protected with anti-virus software or other security measures.

"Teenagers, especially, don't care about security, or know about security," Hartmann said. "These kids are clicking on attachments that come with an e-mail and, unwittingly, are uploading their parents' financial information to thieves."

He also noted some kids -- seeing news about hackers -- might think it would be cool to try.

"When we were kids, juvenile delinquents used to spray paint walls of garages," said Hartmann. "Now they deface Web sites. There's some allure to seeing others their age being chased by the FBI. There's some fascination there."

Children are also easy marks for online fraudsters and hoax purveyors, he said, but activities online that connect kids to parents can prevent this kind of thing from happening.

"We're running all kinds of focus groups," Bridgette Thomas, director of corporate communications at Shutterfly Inc. (NASDAQ:SFLY), in Redwood City, Calif., an Internet site, told UPI. "The majority of our customers are women, about 70 percent. A lot of these moms are working on shutterfly.com with their kids. Rather than develop all the pictures they've taken, they post them up on the Internet and choose they ones they want. It's a good way for kids to use computers."

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Gene J. Koprowski covers technology for UPI Science News. E-mail sciencemail@upi.com