Wellness,

Online Health Tips To Make Your Childs Online Experience Safe

Jul 28, 2021 | Wellness | 0 Comments | 118

Making sure that your child’s online experience is safe while also respecting their boundaries and privacy is a fine line to balance.

While there are endless learning resources and entertainment easily accessible online, they also come with the risk of online phishing, cyberbullying and fraud, exposure to inappropriate content, leaking of private information, among other things.

It’s of vital importance to educate your child aware of the various risks involved, and the potential problems with the internet. Whether it’s young kids or older ones approaching their teens, online safety is definitely a conversation you should keep having with them. Here are some cyber safety tips you can share with your kid to ensure that their online experience is incident-free

1. Personal Information:

There are several ways for personal information to get shared, and a lot of potential damage that can cause. Make sure that your child knows not to share any personal information – like their address, phone numbers, pictures of themselves, passwords, information about their life – with strangers.

2. Social Media:

The golden rule with social media is that you should only post something if you’re okay with anyone and everyone seeing it. Once something is on the internet it stays there forever. Kids should know this, and not post anything that can be damaging to themselves or to anyone else. It’s a good idea to monitor your child’s social media as a parent, at least up till a certain age. Of course, you should respect their privacy, and the fact that there are some things they would prefer not to share with you, but being clued into their general activity ensures that they don’t get into any trouble.

3. Don’t talk to strangers:

Stranger Danger is definitely a concept you should drill into your kids, and that applies to online strangers, too. Because you can’t – and shouldn’t – monitor their online activity constantly, it might work to have a blanket rule of not talking to strangers, especially in chat rooms and computer games with in-built chat.

4. Install Anti-virus software:

A wrong link clicked can download malware, spyware, adware among other things. Basic online safety for kids calls for an anti-virus software – which will prevent malicious software from getting installed in your computer, and blocking pop-ups.   A great cyber safety tip is to spend on a good anti-virus software like Norton’s that offers parental controls (for younger kids), time supervision, and content filtering, and keep your kids and the devices safe.

5. Time Limit:

Having a time limit for screen time makes sense especially right now when kids are spending most of their day in online virtual classrooms. But besides attending school, online time should have a cap. Encourage the kids to engage in offline indoor activities, or catch up on their reading, because prolonged time on the internet can have adverse effects in the developing years, both mentally and physically.

6. Online Shopping:

To avoid getting a sudden shock when you see your bank statement,  be certain to have taken certain measures to prevent accidental purchases!  Disallow in-app purchases and set up payments in such a way that they require your authorisation, instead of one-step payments.

7. Privacy Settings:

Young users of the internet should be aware of their privacy settings on social media, adn should add only people they personally know. As a parent, you could review these settings, along with your child, from time to time.

8. Make Kids Self-Sufficient:

Spend time with the kids educating them on how to take action against cyber crimes, making them proactive internet users. They should know basics like the reporting and blocking functions. It’s very important to be open in conversations with your kids about their online activity, so that they know that they can come to you if something goes wrong. Being exposed to the internet from an early age, they perhaps would have insights about security, too, especially older children.  Listen to them, and include them in the rule-making.

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