I use ICQ......... admittedly for private chats with friends.. not the chat rooms.... and have stayed invisible for a long time... I'm usually there but you can't see me unless I allow you to.......this + the usual privacy features spares you from most of the "do you wanna cyber" crap...........
occasionally you will get sent a porno URL... but its easy.. if you don't want to look.. then don't open the link..... just delete it
I would be very careful about letting kids have unsupervised access to either ICQ or Paltalk (or all the similar chat type things)... there are a lot of weirdos out there...........
slainte
alison