3 Essential Ways To Keep Your Kids Safe Online

No matter how hard we try we are not going to be able to keep our kids offline completely. We are living in the digital age where even the schools are doing away with traditional text books and learners are now using tablets at school. While all this modern technology is amazing and makes our lives easier in a lot of ways, it does not come without risks – especially where our children are concerned.

The best thing we can to is to make sure we have measures in place to keep our kids educated and safe online.

Here are the 3 essential things you will need to do to protect your children from online dangers:

Parental Blocks

Parental blocks are absolutely essential, especially when you have young children that may accidentally stumble upon something that is dangerous or unsuitable for young minds.

Parental blocks can also give parents a log of all activities that your child has done online, as well as a list of blocked websites and apps. This can give you an idea of how your child has been using the internet and help you to teach your child about the dangers they face.

You can control the apps that your child uses and for how long, which will set limits on certain behaviours such as gaming or even being online.

Youtube is such a popular website for young and old alike, however it is so easy for a child to click away from safe Youtube videos to content that has nudity, sex, violence and/ or swearing. You will need to ensure that you have an app that filters Youtube videos to ensure your child is protected.

Protect Your Computer

Your child’s safety begins with you ensuring that your computer has been properly protected and ensuring that you practice good safety online.

Get a good anti-virus installed on your computer to protect your computer against viruses and malware. Keep your operating system and all software on your computer updated regularly.

Don’t download anything that may be untrustworthy or click on any links that you are unsure about.

Make sure that you have strong passwords and never use the same password for different sites, that is just looking for trouble! Consider using password management app like Lastpass that will generate secure passwords for you and store them. Apps like these will make you aware of passwords that need changing because they are weak.

You then only need to remember the one password for your password management app.

Don’t download anything that may be untrustworthy.

Educate Your Children About The Dangers Online

Make sure to constantly be teaching your children and reminding them of the dangers online. Keep it age appropriate and as your child gets older you can start allowing them a little more freedom online while teaching them what that newfound freedom means and the new risks it entails.

It is also essential that you know what skills your child has online so that you know how to prepare your child online. It may be a good idea to rather get your young child a kids tablet to start off with rather than let them use your tablet where there is more risk.

Your children should know never to give any information out online to anyone. They need to learn about scams, online predators, phishing and how to behave on social media.

It is essential to teach them about online privacy and what is appropriate online behaviour and what is not. It is just too easy to get into trouble online these days and what is on the internet stays there!

Encourage your children to be open with you and to talk about anything that happens online. If someone does approach your child online make sure to let your child know that it is not his fault and that you support him. If your child keeps you in the loop and informed you have a much better chance at keeping your child safe and being able to guide your child if anything does happen.