The Covid period saw record numbers of children and adolescents engaging in sexting or selling pornography on OnlyFans. According to the survey, 43% of children between the ages of 8 and 13 are talking to strangers online, with a third of them talking to strangers every day or at least once a week. This shows that children are being to new dangers on the internet, and that’s why protecting them online has become more urgent, crucial, and requires frequent attention than ever.
CyberPurify hopes that the 8 online safety tips for kids below will help parents keep kids safer online, especially during the COVID pandemic!
The most 8 practical online safety tips for kids during COVID-19!
Don’t become obsolete!
- Do you know that the number of sensitive photos/videos sent and shared from children and adolescents is especially high during COVID?
- Do you know what is the reason behind that risky behavior? Is it merely simple as you thought?
- Do you know that once your child sends and shares these sensitive pictures/videos, they will exist forever and spreads faster on the Internet?
To keep children safe online, especially during the current complicated COVID pandemic, you need to regularly teach and remind your children about potential risks and dangers in terms of content, contact, and conduct on the Internet.
To do that, there is no other way but to constantly update your knowledge and information about online dangers, how trends in the online behavior of children and adolescents change when frequently staying home, etc.
Don’t just set a screen time limit, understand what’s happening on it
Almost every computer and smartphone have a tool that measures your child’s screen time and blocks access to an app if the time has expired. Many parents make the mistake of setting these features on their child’s device to be enough, that the shortened and guaranteed usage time is the most important thing, but in reality, what’s happening on the screen is much more important.
Parents who only care about screen time are often parents who do not understand much about technology. The content displayed comes in two forms: Content your children are exposed to passively (accidentally find it) and content that your children post.
Don’t be subjective
A common mistake parents make is that they are too optimistic, thereby becoming subjective and thinking that their child will never commit dangerous behaviors. You CANNOT ENSURE anything, especially when the child’s brain is not fully developed, he/she is very easily influenced by pressure from friends, people with influence on social networks, as well as from trends on TikTok or other unhealthy content online in general!
An example of a dangerous challenge on TikTok. Source: jasonderulo via TikTok
Another important benefit of constantly updating information and knowledge is that you can quickly spot things that you (and many other parents) often think are true but are in fact inaccurate and baseless. You can join parent groups and forums to meet other parents and learn how they talk about sensitive issues with their children as well as other parenting tips.
Build a relationship of trust
The conversation is both a foundation and a catalyst for building meaningful and intimate relationships between parents and children. Talking is considered one of the best ways for children to be self-aware and proactive to stay away from dangers on the Internet.
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Therefore, you need to regularly talk with your children about problems on the Internet such as sexting, online bullying, sharing too much on social networks, drug use, etc. so that they can understand and actively protect themselves from these troubles.
Use our online safety tips for kids as foundations for building a friendly conversation, not a lecture, because of those lessons your child has learned so many times at school. Besides, you also need to build an intimate and open communication environment where your child can trust you and share with you from the problems they encounter online to the most sensitive issues.
Empower your child – whenever possible, help them make informed decisions for themselves, instead of constantly telling them what to do.
Actively applying the suitable technological tools/software
One of the most useful Internet safety tips for parents!
You should take advantage of available tools to set up parental controls on your child’s device to filter out harmful content, limit the use of the device, or some other features for children such as no in-app purchases. You may need some online safety tips for kids below:
- How to set up parental controls on Macbook
- How to block porn sites on Google Chrome
- How to block porn sites on Safari
- Set up parental controls for Microsoft Edge
- Set up parental controls for Youtube
However, with the spread of harmful content (especially porn) calculated by the second, by the minute, the available features of the devices and platforms are absolutely not enough.
To ensure your child’s online environment is safe and healthier, you should consider using an additional online content filtering tool – considered by many parents as one of the best free parental control software to hide 15 types of harmful content on the Internet, including:
- Pornography
- Horrifying content like gore, accidents, ghosts, violence, murder, terrorism, etc
- Content about stimulants, addictive substances such as alcohol, beer, marijuana, drugs, etc
- Content with aggressive elements, hurting others like Hate speech
This free porn blocker extension can help to minimize your child’s access to harmful content, ensuring a healthy online environment for your child but at the same time, not invading their privacy rights.
Wise modern parents are always proactive in bringing the best for their children. To better protect your child from all porn sites, for all internet-connected devices your child use, you should pre-order Wifi Device, becoming the first parents to own the solution which 24/7 protects your kids from harmful websites. Best prices are always available for early birds!
Help your child develop soft skills in the digital age
Build good habits and help your child develop their digital intelligence on the Internet – the virtual world is just as important as the real world. Some digital skills your child must have when using the Internet:
- Digital Footprint: Trace of data your child creates while using the Internet. Once your child has any online activity, it will live forever online and out of your child’s control even if your child deletes it shortly afterward. This is extremely important in teaching children not to send or share any sensitive pictures/videos of themselves.
- Digital emotional intelligence: Your child’s ability to empathize with and build good relationships with others online.
- Digital communication: The skill to communicate and collaborate with others using digital media and technologies. Your child needs to know how to communicate and express his or her thoughts with the other person over the Internet as effectively as when he or she communicates face-to-face.
Join your kids in online activities
Knowing the apps, games, and websites your child is using will help you make sure they’re age-appropriate. You should also learn how to restrict location sharing functions in apps or games, as these could expose your child to bad guys or put your child at risk of accidentally reveal the location to the sexual attackers.
In addition, this will help you better understand what your child is doing and why he likes this app, game, or website, as well as providing a great opportunity to start conversations about online safety.
You should regularly check with your child the privacy settings on the games and apps they’re using, and make sure their account is turned on to the strictest privacy settings. We have articles about online safety tips for kids for each age here.
Do not over-control your child online
As the Internet has more and more risks, parents are starting to worry more about the harmful effects on their children, and since then, when there is demand, the supply appears with a series of tools to facilitate parents to keep track of their children’s every move on the Internet.
The line between protecting and invading children’s privacy is very blurred. To satisfy their fears, many parents have to pay dearly for over-controlling their kids. When you constantly look at your child’s laptop, phone, read his messages/calls, and monitor each child’s activities on social networks, you are:
- Not respecting your child’s privacy:
The goal of parenting is to create a mature, healthy, and autonomous person. According to Nancy Darling, a psychologist at the University of Oberlin, the process of developing healthy self-control begins as soon as your baby is born. Privacy is an important part of developing that autonomy. Privacy isn’t just important for teenagers. That is their duty.
To mature and grow up, minors will personalize themselves, to be free from parental control. One obvious way your child does is needing some privacy. When physical privacy space has been limited due to frequent stay at home, what will your child do if his or her online private space is also constantly controlled?
- Destroy the relationship with the child
Many parents do not believe it, but the truth is that most children are more tech-savvy than their parents. With just a few clicks of searching online or through friends, your child will easily discover the apps you use to track them, think about how will your child feel then? Angry and frustrated, some children even hate their parents.
- Make your child even more secretive
When your child feels he is constantly being watched, the more he will find a way to escape and, therefore, the more secretive he becomes. When your child doesn’t trust you and doesn’t share anything with you anymore, then your child is more likely to be affected by the harmful effects of the Internet than any other child.
According to research that surveyed children about whether their parents respect their privacy. As a result, one year later, children of highly supervised parents reported more secretive behavior and their parents reported knowing less about their activities, friends, and whereabouts. child compared to other parents.
This means that there is a direct ratio between the level of secrecy and the invasion of your child’s privacy.
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