Every month around 750,000 people venture into Second Life, a three-dimensional online world that is the best representation yet of a virtual alternative reality.

It is a virtual world without parallel, offering many attractions that the real world can't match. Second Life 'residents' can engage in games and other recreational activities, or create virtual objects such as houses, furniture and clothes for fun or profit, while mingling with people from around the globe.

For some parents this will ring alarm bells, in terms of the potential for children to be exposed to adult-only content or cyber-stalking by paedophiles.

Thankfully, many of our fears are largely unwarranted. Contrary to expectations, average Second Life inhabitants are not anti social teenagers or undesirable adults.

Residents of Second Life are most often in their mid 30s, equally likely to be male or female, well-educated and reasonably affluent in terms of both time and money.

The online world is a very accurate reflection of the real world-what you find in our streets is what you will find online-with all the beauty, kindness, generosity and, yes, ugliness of our daily experience.

That is not to say that less desirable elements of the population do not exist, but they are tiny in number compared to the other 10 million residents.

Like other online communities, Second Life is taking every action possible to ensure the safety-both physical and psychological-of its community members. For example, Second Life requires every new 'resident' to provide their credit card details, which are validated when they join-not to bill them, but to ensure that the person signing up is a 'real' person and is old enough to be accessing the virtual world. Under 18s are unlikely to have a credit card, and so the risk of them gaining access to the adult-only areas within Second Life is small.

There is a also a special version of Second Life created specifically for teenagers under 18 years of age, called Teen Second Life. This is a well monitored area where any suspicion of adult content is pounced upon by the owners of the world, Linden Lab. Those guilty of misconduct are immediately banned for life from accessing any of the Second Life worlds.

In addition, there are very strict join-up checks that act as deterrents. Adults must apply to Linden Lab if they wish to gain entrance to Teen Second Life, and so far only academics and teachers who have the full approval of their academic institution have been granted access.

But lastly, and most importantly, the teenagers in Teen Second Life are themselves the best police. According to many academics and teachers who openly work with them, the teen 'residents' run contests amongst themselves and take great pride in 'sniffing out' adults who are pretending to be teenagers. Once 'sniffed', the reporting mechanism works incredibly quickly.

Teen Second Life and Second Life are two fantastic 3D worlds, where 'residents' have the opportunity to create, buy and sell objects, to meet others, to try new personalities and where teens can 'play' at being adults before they enter the real world. Teen Second Life also happens to be one of the safest areas on the Internet for your teenage children.

Why not join Second Life yourself and see what the fun is all about?