Protecting Kids Online

Remember when your parents talked to you about the birds and the bees?

It was a pretty awkward and embarrassing conversation wasn’t it? (well, for me it was!). Nowadays of course, there is another sit-down chat that parents need to have with their kids sometime in the future, or maybe even today, if they’re already at an age where they use it. Understandably, this is also a conversation that a lot of parents dread almost as much as the conversation about the birds and bees.

Sooner or later, we all need to talk to our kids about using social media, and having kids myself who are getting the hang of computing, I can totally appreciate parents feeling some sort of despair. Considering the fast rate at which technology and social media develops, by the time my kids are at an age where they’ve begun to use Facebook and Twitter and all that jazz, I can’t say that I would quite know where to start or even how to.I already know the wide sentiment children have towards their parents meddling in their private life – a private life they shouldn’t really have until they’re 18 if you ask me…but a lot of teens will just see it as another form of disrespect, which I feel like most parents will agree that it is definitely NOT. We just want to know that they are being safe in whatever they do and in that instance that they are being safe online.

Facebook is among the most widely used social media platforms and according to an article on Forbes, 34% of kids between the ages of 9 and 11 already have a Facebook profile. Personally I feel that is very young to start but I also know that it will be hard to stop them when all of their friends are online. I *think* I’ll be ok with my kids socialising online with their classmates and other kids their own age. However, what would really worry me is the potential of them befriending people not known from school or any of their regular social circles or worse yet, befriending a predator.

 We all love our children dearly, but we live in an age where people can pretend to be anyone they want online; all they’ve got to do is come up with a name that’s not already registered, make up some phony profile, ET VOILA – you’re ready to interact with a somewhat naïve youth.

At the moment, I know a lot of parents who limit their child’s internet usage to a set amount of hours each day or week. Some even set personal limit to the time they spend online themselves, just to set a good example. Beyond that, it’s definitely worthwhile to do some research into different types of parental filters that can be implemented on your home computers and/or smartphones.

I read that the Norton Family filter comes highly recommended according to this article in the Daily Mail and it’s actually rated it as the best comprehensive family filter as it block most of the explicit and questionable content and sites thrown at it. There’s also a premium version available with more detailed monthly reports, where you can not only see what search terms your kids are typing into Google, but also see snippets of all the videos they’ve watched and text messages they’ve sent…a bit intrusive for some, I know, but it totally depends on the teen if you ask me.

 I’d be silly if I didn’t notice how fast children are growing up these days, some of them are far smarter than they were a decade ago – they just know far more at an early age to be honest. In the blink of an eye Burton has now started school, and he is already having IT classes, and before long he will need regular computer time required to complete his homework. With all this access he will have, comes all the negative aspects of the internet and social media – so, I doubt I’ll escape this issue myself.  I feel I have bright kids who are still very innocent (long may it last!) and yes…you got it, very trusting. But, I can’t ignore the dark side of the internet and social media, which we all hope our children will never experience.

Disclaimer:  This guest post was written on behalf of Symantec Norton’s Learning Centre.