How to keep your child safe while on the Internet

 

How to keep your child safe while on the Internet

Children are going online at younger and younger ages and as a parent, you need to be concerned about safety issues when your kids are online. You don’t want your children to be contacted by strangers or get exposed to things that they are too young to handle. Too much screen time isn’t that great for your kids either.

 

While most kids are just watching videos or playing games, other kids are going to end up being exposed to something dangerous online and you don’t want that kid to be yours. Teaching your kids to be safe online is something you need to do so they will know how to handle any type of situation they find themselves in online.

Read on for some tips that will help keep your kids safe when they go online.

Educate your kids about cyber-security and online threats

 

You want your kids to spend time on the Internet and take advantage of the learning opportunities, but you also want them to be safe. To do that, you need to explain in simple and kid language about online threats and how to identify them.

 

When it comes to cyber-security, education plays a vital role during the learning process, and parents need to talk to their children about safe browsing on the Internet, malicious sites they can access, explain about different forms of cyber-bullying, and other necessary topics that help them have a bigger picture of what’s going on.

The more you speak openly about online threats with your kids about their activity on the Internet, the easier is for them to understand what they see or hear online.

The following questions could prove useful for you and your kids and family. You’ll also find helpful information on key topics that will help you enhance your online safety:

• How much do we know about safe browsing?

• Do we know how to secure an online email account?

• How do we stay safe on Facebook and other social media accounts?

• What Internet security blogs should we read to improve our learning?

• How do we stay safe from online scams?

• How do I know my computer is infected?

• How do we maximise our financial data protection?

Teach them to protect their privacy

While they won’t fully understand the consequences of revealing personal information online, you should still make sure your children know:

• never to give their name, phone number, e-mail address, password, postal address, school, or picture without your permission

• not to open e-mail from people they don’t know

• not to respond to hurtful or disturbing messages

• not to get together with anyone they “meet” online

Set some Ground Rules

Having a set of rules when your child is using the Internet is important. Keep the computer out of the bedroom and place it in a common room like the living room or kitchen. This will help you keep an eye on your child. You must also set firm time limits on the computer. You might want to restrict access to the computer until your child has finished homework. You could also limit Internet access to an hour a day. Come up with a plan that is going to work for your family.

Be their go-to Person

Instruct your child to come straight to you when they see anything that makes them uncomfortable and assures them that you won’t overreact, blame them, or immediately rescind their online privileges.

Set usage limits and time spend on the Internet for your kids

The Internet might be a fascinating world for kids, but most parents become really concerned about the time spent there. If you notice your kid is developing an addiction to staying up all night to be on the Internet, it could be a sign to set usage limits and time spend on the Internet. Make sure you clearly tell them about the time they can spend on their computer or laptop.

Parents should also clarify what their kids can and can’t do when they navigate online.

Use parental control software to monitor your child’s online activities

Given the increasing number of devices kids use to connect on the Internet, it’s difficult for parents to supervise every time they’re online. Parental control apps can help. They are a great way to track your children online behavior and control what they are doing on their smartphones or other devices.

These software solutions act as an online guardian and help parents better monitor kids’ Internet usage, keep track of visited sites, control the Internet connection time, or block malicious websites and report any unusual online activity.

Make your browser work double-time

Most browsers and search engines allow parents to enable child safety features. These features help to prevent your child from getting access to sites that they shouldn’t see. These features can be very helpful when you are trying to prevent your child from coming into contact with materials that are inappropriate.

Online habits have real-life consequences

As challenging as might be for children to understand the risks of being online, cyber-security awareness is vital these days. We should teach them to avoid talking to strangers online, how to distinguish between fake and real news, and explain about the most frequent security risks out there.

Various choices and decisions should be made to increase our family’s security strategy, but we need to establish what is it that we are afraid of. The limits we set may increase our online security strategy, but at the same time, we could risk blocking the natural development of our children being surrounded by tech gadgets.

Children need to acknowledge that online actions lead to real-life consequences and have cyber hygiene on how to use the Internet safely.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Children mirror what you do, so if you are online all night, your kids are going to want to do the same. Cutting down on your own screen time will set a positive example for your kids. Make going online a family activity to reduce any potential problems.

Dolphins Group of Schools sincerely believes that online security is very much important in the present times. We take every measure to teach children about cyber threats that put in danger their online safety.

When it comes to cyber-security for the growing and curious minds of the kids, we are the Best High School in Jaipur that provides online protection from malware threats and phishing attempts that usually target unaware or uneducated minds.