Teaching your Kids about Internet Safety

As a parent, it is your responsibility to teach your kids regarding safety and how to prevent them from falling into dangerous hands. 

The Dangers of Social Networking Sites

Online networks are truly revolutionary in the sense that we now have the ability to connect to almost anyone in the world. The “friends of our friends” concept is truly a great thing since we somehow gain friends or even learn things especially the culture of other people. But social networking websites have become the stage of online predator.

It is true that today’s social networking websites are doing everything that they can to prevent these type of people but anyone could cloak their true identity just to lure someone to their dangerous den. Social network websites are very popular to teens so as a parent you have to closely monitor who their friends are. Do not let them place any personal information online. Instead of a name, they just need to have an alias so that their friends should be able to identify them online. If they wanted to send or post photos online make sure they post photos that are not incriminating or anything that could cause a scandal. Just to be safe, let them use an avatar or a cartoon instead of their actual photos. 

Safety on Chat and Email

Another dangerous place for kids and teenagers online is through chat and email. This should be treated like the social networking sites with extra precautions. Kids, teens and even adults should never give out any personal information. Online predators will be very sweet and will use all the lies so that they could lure the kids to meet them.

Do not allow them to meet anyone online or at least be with them when they really wanted to. It is also important that kids should never answer to any email that they are not familiar about. It’s almost the same with chat but the exchange of information is slower. 

Adult Sites

Adult themed pictures and videos are very common and could be easily found online if you are not careful as a parent. Fortunately, there are tools online that prevents teens and kids from accessing this type of sites. The adult industry has also acknowledged this fact and has made changes so that their sites could be detected by online nannies and porn blockers. When they are online stay at their side or go visit them from time to time so that you could monitor their online activities.