How to Keep Your Children Safe Online

How to Keep Your Children Safe Online:

The internet is a wonderful place and can make learning with our children a rewarding experience. Our children can learn about people, places and whatever topic they want with a few clicks of a button.

With that said there are many dangers when it comes to the internet for our children and over 40% of children have spoken to a stranger online (source FirewallTechnical.com).

That statistic alone should make you feel cautious but even more worryingly out of the 40% of children who spoke to strangers online, up to 5% of these children gave away their home addresses.

But it’s not just older children we have to worry about either.  Ofcom did a study where they revealed that 86% of children aged 3-4 year olds have access to a tablet device that can access the internet.

Parents should be concerned about online safety. In this post, we will take a look at some of the best tips you can implement to keep your child safe while browsing the internet.

Supervise online usage.

Firstly the internet can be a dangerous place if you don’t know how to handle it. Children should be protected against people who want to do them harm at all times so keeping an eye on them and using the internet together is a great way of keeping your little ones safe.

Online usage accompanied by you should be the only way your children can access the internet. Unsupervised usage can be dangerous especially when your children don’t know the dangers that are out there.

Know of the dangers.

When you think of keeping your children safe online, many parents will think of keeping them safe from strangers and not letting them talk to them. However, there are other ways people can get access to your details without having to talk to your children.

One way is installing ransomware/malware on your computer system so that they can take over it, lock you out of your computer or even steal your data.

Before expecting your children to use the internet safely you should know the risks and the dangers out there too so you can then pass on this knowledge to your children.

Talk to your children early.

Educating your children as soon as you possibly can is going to help with keeping your children safe online. Some dangers they may not be aware of so explaining to them why they shouldn’t click on adverts, download any software or talk to strangers is only going to help keep them safe when browsing the internet.

You should reiterate this too and maybe you could set up some rules that your children can view before using the computer. This is a great way of keeping them aware of the dangers when online and what they should do to keep themselves safe.

Use parental tools and software.

As a parent, I know you can’t be everywhere all of the time so any help when it comes to keeping your children safe is going to be welcomed by most parents. Companies such as Qustodio and Net Nanny offer software that can block out unsuitable sites, protect social media usage and even alert you to when devices have left and entered your network.

These services are paid services but for a small fee, you can protect multiple devices in your home and keep your children safe.

Report any activity that isn’t suitable.

Lastly, the internet can be a dark place and some malicious people can slip through and perform unsuitable actions. If you notice this please take the time to report it to the relevant authorities in your country. Doing so could save someone’s life.

Conclusion.

Protecting your children online is vital as a parent. And most parent’s don’t understand how dangerous it can be, however, if you take the time to learn the dangers yourself and then teach your children about them you can keep your children safe and your property too.