Internet Safety For Kids—Never Be A Headache For You

The wide access to the Internet has changed modern kids’ life out of recognition. The network can fulfill the vast majority of demands of kids including daily communication, educational resources, online classes and so on. However, the vastness of the network is not just open to positive opportunities for bright future, but also exists hidden hazards. This is why Internet safety is becoming a headache for you as a modern parent. Speaking of kids’ online activities, you need to make sure that they are browsing the proper websites, chatting with their friends rather than ill-purposed strangers. If you are being beset by the above problems, it is highly recommended that you should master some tips to better safeguard the Internet safety for you kids. The post will look through some common dangers and help you cultivate a healthy online environment for your kids.

Why can kids’ online safety be a big headache for you?

In this digital world, the ever-growing number of kids owning their cell phones are reminding us that cell phone has been an integral part of our kids’ life as well. We are expecting our kids can also enjoy the benefits of advanced technology, including the massive online educational resources, more social interaction to strengthen their social skills, more up-to-date news to broaden their horizon. However, the popularization of the Internet has raised concerns and problems—Kids might be exposed to greater danger in cyber world. How to protect kids in online world is becoming more and more acute. Some common dangers for kids to confront with online contain:

1. Have connection with some undesirable people including predators, scammers who might trick your kids via sexting, improper messages
2. Inappropriate content such as sexually explicit content with porn graphic photos, violent content with acts of assault, etc
3. Malwares that might infect your gadgets and carry a spyware for stealing your information

The risks might have great implication for kids’ further growth and development. Therefore, there’s a real concern over Internet safety for children for they might easily be the target of cybercriminals. It is understandable that kids’ online safety can be a big headache for you.

How can you safeguard your kids online?

This section will present some tips for you to get started for safeguarding your kids online:

Tip 1: Talk openly with your kids about online activities and safety

As soon as your kids get access to the Internet, you should first shoulder the responsibility to have a conversation with them, stressing the importance of having healthy Internet habits. You will be able to raise their security awareness by delivering them about the negative effects of online dangers on their personal growth. At the same, they are encouraged to share their usage of the Internet including the websites they visit frequently. This way can help you print a full picture of your kids’ online world, and it can help you check whether there might be some improper content on those websites. You should keep equal conversation with your kids at a regular basis, which does good to your family bonds as well.

Tip 2:  Utilize the parental control tools to monitor your kids’ online access

Nowadays, many devices have launched parental control feature to give a perfect solution to parents to safeguard kids online. For example, Google SafeSearch, Apple’s screen time feature can both help you safeguard your kids’ online safety via limiting the contents they can approach. The thriving technology can display a remote way for parents to monitor kids’ online access—Parental control apps, which is also known as spywares. The parental control feature allows you to control your kid’s online experience in a rounded way. Some common features can be highlighted here:

1. Alert for key words to prevent your kids from viewing some improper content and words on the web pages
2. A block for age-inappropriate App and websites to keep your kids away from hidden dangers
3. Screen time limit for your kids on digital device to prevent from your kids from online addiction and shortsightedness
4. Social media monitoring to help you detect the online activities and chats for your kids

A high-quality parental control tool can present your kids’ Internet experience stealthily and safely. You can conduct your monitoring activities without letting your kids know. The app can secure the personal information it collects. You are encouraged to choose a reliable parental control tool via referring to its ranking and reputation.

Tip 3: Raise the awareness of online privacy

As kids might be targeted by the criminals for their weak awareness of privacy protection. Kids are too young to fully understand consequences of revealing personal information online. For example, they might should share a post on social network with a location tag, which is nearby their home. This post is made public and others can know about the location easily. Therefore, you should teach them to be cautious and thoughtful about what they post and share. Before sharing the post, you should put the privacy security on the top priority. Another instance is that you should ask them not to expose their logging passwords to online strangers, which might cause catastrophic results.

Tip 4: Keep track of online time

An ever-increasing number of kids are spending increasing time on screen. Therefore, it’s important to monitor your child’s online time, particularly younger children, to ensure they do not develop bad habits. Apart from using the parental control feature, you can also get your children to agree on a period of time, say 30 minutes per session, and set a timer to go off – don’t forget to make this a non-negotiable finish time. Another way for you is that you can switch off the Wi-Fi at home so that you kids are disallowed to go surfing. You can also encourage everyone to pursue other more active and/or less technology-driven ways to entertain themselves.

Tip 5: Give more trust and respect to your kids

Although we have mentioned that we should monitor our kids’ online activities with parental control tool, kids will grow up and be interdepend one day. Therefore, kids must have more room and grow from their choices. Excessive control might run counter to what we expect.

Hence, using online security controls must go hand-in-hand with respecting your child. Child safety online starts with adaptable, powerful parental controls, and is backed by your trust and respect. The combination of powerful tool and mutual respect will be more beneficial to kids’ further growth and online habits development.

The bottom line:

The post has recommended you some useful tips to safeguard your kids online, making it no longer a headache for you. If you have any good idea to share with us, just leave your comments below!