As we know, most of the people and children spend a lot of time on the internet or social networks these days. It provides a convenient way for them to explore and share information with connected people and can be a great way to have fun over the internet. Like organizations or people, children are also facing various risks when they are online.
The most common risks they are facing are cyberbully identity and privacy leaks or seeing inappropriate contents. As parents or guardian, you should understand what children are doing online and what types of risks they are facing will help you keep your children safe online.
Children usually go online to connect them with their friends, make new friends, browse the internet for information, chat with friends, share personal information and play online games. Your children can do especially following things when they are online or surfing the internet and social networking:
They are more curious about searching for information or content over the Internet via search engines like Google and Bing to get help with homework.
- They may upload or download or watch videos via YouTube or any inappropriate websites or via mobile apps like Instagram, and Pinterest.
- They may use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to share their images, personal information, and their current status and location.
- They may play games alone or with others via websites and apps.
- They may chat with people through online games, webcams, Whatsapp, Messenger, etc.
Being online, children can learn and explore new things, explore themselves and easily connect with friends and family. This is a big advantage for children when being online. But, there are also risks associated with these activities. You should understand that risks and talk with them to protect your children from online predators. The risks and dangers that your children can face online are as follows:
- Seeing inappropriate or pornographic contents
- Do not care about the age restrictions on sites
- Share personal information and status
- Communicate and chat with unknown people
- Online Gambling
- Grooming and sexual abuse
So, how to keep your children safe when they are online is challenging tasks for the parents. In this article, you’ll get some ways to keep your child safe online, and you’ll understand the way to protect your children from online predators. The most important tips that I have ever known to keep children safe online are as follows:
- The best way to keep them safe is to talk with your children about the risks of being online when they start surfing the internet.
- You should explore online together for various activities over the internet, which allow you to monitor or supervise your child’s activities.
- You should educate your children to have good computer habits and good online security tips.
- You should place your computer in an open area, which allows you to know what your child is doing online.
- You should provide the proper guidelines to your children about what activities to do, what programs to use, what site to visit, which software to install. You should also provide them with a list of tasks that are not allowed to do over the internet.
- You should try to monitor and review every activity your child has done online.
- You should create a limited account on the computer for your child to access.
- You should adequately configure web browser setting and computer setting to avoid security risks.
- You should set some parental controls within your browser, or you can use the browser that is specific to a child only.
There are other many more things that you need to do to keep your children safe when they are on the internet and social media. If you found this article useful, don’t forget to share it via Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter to have better online security tips for your children.