Welcome to the 30 Days of Summer – Go-To Guide for Moms!
Day Nineteen
During summer vacation, kids often stay up late, sleep in late and play outside a lot. That is part of enjoying summer! In addition, today’s kids also spend more time online during the summer, playing video games, surfing the Internet, and meeting friends in chat rooms and social networking sites, like Facebook. Although these online activities can provide hours of entertainment and learning, they can also expose kids to inappropriate content or people who might want to take advantage of them.
Parents don’t have to unplug the computer or be watching over them every second to help protect their children online. I believe there are ways to create some independence for kids at appropriate ages to use the computer if they have been set up with appropriate boundaries and expectations. If your child is using the computer and you’ve not done your homework, you could be setting yourself and your child up for some real grief in the future.
Set clear rules for Internet usage
Prepare children for the online world just as you would for the real world. Establish guidelines and know who they are communicating with and what they are seeing online. Using the computer is a privilege, not a right and knowing your child and their maturity level will determine what and how much internet freedom they can have.
Keep personal information private
Don’t share personal information about yourself online -such as your name, address, age or gender–with people you don’t know in the real world. Emphasizing this will help curb future issues. Allowing them to understand the violation this can invite is key to keeping them safe.
Consider PC proximity
It might make sense to place the family’s computer in a common room, especially for PCs that don’t have family safety software installed. Parents are able to provide supervision and guidelines more easily this way. With all the new portable Internet devices, this can be challenging. Instead, have the expectation that all Internet activity will be done in the common family area, where privacy is non-existent. Until your child has presented the ability to have good sound decision making skills as well as a track record of being trusted, this is your best defense against trouble.
Keep communication open
When kids see something on the Internet that makes them feel uncomfortable, assure them they can talk to a parent or other trusted adult about it without fear of getting their computer privileges taken away. Nothing is off limits to discuss. With the common cyber bullying present, it is important that you keep this on the forefront as well, allowing your child to discuss with you any threats or fears they may experience.
Online Protection Tools
Online tools are available that will let you control your kids’ access to adult material and help protect them from Internet predators. No option is going to guarantee that they’ll be kept away from 100% of the risks on the Internet. Many Internet providers make available parent-control options to block certain material from coming into a computer. You can also get software that helps block access to certain sites based on a “bad site” list that your provider creates. There are also filtering programs and other various programs that can monitor and track online activity.
We’ve used Norton Internet Security for our kids and it has worked great. I am sure there are other products that do similar things.
Allowing kids to have an online presence can be scary, but unfortunately is a reality of our day and age. Whether they experience the benefits on Internet freedom inside your four walls our outside, they will. Helping them navigate it all while under your influence and care is in my opinion, they best way.
What are other software have you found helpful?
This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase we receive a portion of your purchase at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting The Confident Mom.
