The challenges of keeping kids safe online is that the threats, and therefore the safeguards, keep changing. In a briefing by Yahoo! Inc.’s Director of Child Safety, Catherine Teitelbaum, to the contributors of the Yahoo! Mother Board, we were reminded that when the Internet first came into our homes, we were worried about inappropriate material on the screen, later came the fear of pedophiles contacting them via chatrooms, now cyberbullying is a huge issue. Additionally, how the threats come into our home have changed, you can no longer just position the family computer in a highly-trafficked part of the house and feel like you are in charge — kids have web access on their phones, their handheld gaming devices, on practically everything these days.
It’s no wonder that as parents we can feel a bit overwhelmed! My children are just starting to get online and as tech-savvy as I consider myself, there are times when I get anxious about my ability to keep up with protecting them in the future. However, just as in the rest of life, the key is to take reasonable precautions, educate them about the dangers, and as is age-appropriate, arm them with the ability to navigate the hazards on their own because you won’t always be there when they crop up.
Determine Your Privacy vs. Parenting Threshold
As my children are very small, I am a big proponent of keeping technology and surfing quite public. My children use a computer on a desk in the hallway. They can log on to a profile that is set up for them and is set up as a child’s log in and therefore the browser knows to allow them to go to only certain web sites. Should they try to go to anything off the “whitelist” a window pops up telling them they must ask for a parent’s permission. No chat or email is enabled.
They do not have phones and they do not have other devices that allow them to access the web (our Wii can access the web, but they need the parental code), but Teitelbaum recommends that kids with cell phones be required to turn in their phones at night so they aren’t texting during the hours when they are sleeping. She also recommends periodically reviewing their texts and their pictures. She said you should “Especially look at the pictures the girls are sending and the boys are receiving,” due to the trend for especially graphic, “sexting.”
At the BitDefender brunch I recently attended, this was a topic of huge debate — the idea of reviewing teens’ texts and emails — as some mothers felt this was an unfair invasion of privacy while others felt it was a necessary part of parenting these days. It is a call you will have to make for your own family. I’m glad I don’t have to go there yet!
Own Your Family’s Digital Reputation
The best defense against any kind of digital trouble, including cyberbullying, is to know and own your digital reputation. How often do you conduct a “vanity search” of plugging in each family member’s name into a search engine? Yahoo!’s study found fathers tended to do it more often than mothers with 53% of them doing it at least 2-3 times a year compared to 38% of moms. Teitelbaum suggests doing it more often, even once a month, in order to keep tabs on activities of what family members are putting out there.
Make sure family members (that includes us, moms!) only post information and photos that we would be willing for anyone — classmates, teachers, neighbors, potential employers, etc. to know about ourselves, our spouses, and our kids. Even if we take the information down, it can live on forever on an archive, on someone’s hard drive, etc. Every day we are adding to our digital footprint, make sure it’s really the footprint you want to leave behind!
Remember, information means both text and photos. What’s “cute” now may be “embarassing” later.
Get Engaged
Don’t become one of those parents who “doesn’t know what all that social media stuff is about.” If you buy your kid a fancy cell phone, learn how to use it. If you hear your kid talk about “chat roulette” have them show you how it works (you may quickly pull the plug on that!) If they are on Facebook, you may want to be on Facebook. You don’t have to stalk your child, but you should at least become familiar enough with the “cyber neighborhoods” they are hanging out in to know what’s going on. Think of the digital world as another neighborhood — would you just dump your kid off in another city without checking it out and having a plan?
Talk about the boundaries, the rules, and the behavior you expect of them as well as what you consider acceptable and unacceptable behavior from their friends. It may sound simple, but let them know that you expect them to be nice. In our family, we remind our kids that they are carrying the family name and we say, “The JavaFamily acts this way” or “The JavaFamily does not act that way.”
Let them know it’s okay to unplug, as well. Let them use you as the fall guy if they need to, as in, “Yeah, my parents won’t let me…”
Don’t have just one conversation and think your work is done. Talk to them frequently. Update your digital safeguard software frequently. Run those vanity searches several times a year, if not monthly. They may be a good way to head off trouble early.
Keeping families safe online is only partially technological, a lot of it comes down to vigilant parenting. Instilling in our kids a sense of boundaries, knowing when they are in a safe space or not, who are good people to “hang out with” or not. How much information to share or not. How to behave. And when to walk away. As advanced as software has become, it still hasn’t replaced old-fashioned parenting skills.
I like the idea of having them turn in their cell phones at bedtime!
I LOVE your closing line. It’s so true…technology may change, but the need for good parenting never does. Knowing about online safety is just another way to help guide your kids into a world full of exciting potential. Thank you for this wonderful post highlighting the great information that Catherine shared with us!
I sent you an email!!