Quick Tips to Keep Your Child Safe Online

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When I work with parents, I am often asked for some ‘quick tips’ for improving children’s safety online. Take a minute to share these suggestions with your children. You might feel like you have talked to them about these previously, but you can never have the discussion around online safety enough.

General Tips

  • Create unique and strong passwords that do not use first and/or last names.
  • Change a password after logging on to a device that is not your own.
  • Never give out personal information online.
  • Never share passwords with anyone other than your parents.
  • Make sure Location Services is ‘Off’ for the camera on all devices that are able to take pictures.

For more details and explanation of these tips, read this earlier blog on basic tips for online safety.

Social Media

  • Have your the username and password for all your child’s social media accounts.
  • Only allow your child to go on sites that have privacy settings.
  • All accounts should be set to ‘Private’.
  • Avoid social media sites that allow users to post anonymous questions or comments.
  • Most importantly, understand what social media sites your child is using. Understand what the age limits are and what risks are associated with the social network.

Online Gaming

  • Understand the games that your child is playing. What are the age limits? How much violence is there? Is there sexual content?
  • Avoid the use of head sets.
  • Keep gaming devices in common areas of the home.
  • Set gaming time limits.
  • Set a gaming curfew if your child is gaming online.
  • Use the parental controls on gaming consoles to control content, access to the Internet, and timers. Click here for more details on setting parental controls on Xbox 360.

 

 

Create Tech Free Time in Your Home

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A little over a year ago, my then 14 year old, son asked if he could have 7 friends over for a BBQ. Of course we said yes and didn’t give it much more thought from there. When the night came, we grilled some burgers and hotdogs and then left the kids alone on the patio. After 30 minutes or so, I looked out the door to see all 8 kids sitting around the patio table talking, laughing and generally having a great time with the exception of the constant texting, snapping, and instagramming of pictures. Quite honestly, it looked the same as most innocent teenagers hanging out. It was at that moment that I wished that I had taken all the phones when the kids arrived at the house. As I verbalized this thought to my 16 year old son, he replied ‘Mom, you’d never have the guts to do that.’ And that was all it took to propel me into action.

I went into the cabinet and found the cutest wicker basket I could, because every good phone roundup starts with a cute basket. To the shock of my older son, I headed for the patio. As I walked out, I wondered what the heck I was doing and was I committing social suicide for both myself and my son who has having the BBQ. But it was too late. I was committed. I walked up to the table, and with the nicest smile I could find, announced ‘Phone Roundup’ as I put the basket in the middle of the table. Shockingly, every single kid, without hesitation, put his or her phone in the basket. I said thanks and walked inside and smiled at my older son proving to him that I did have the guts.

What happened next, I never expected. I looked out the window 5 minutes later and saw all the kids playing Frisbee on the lawn. As darkness took over, they switched games to Ghost in the Graveyard. Games! Yes, they were playing games that I played at that age. After all his friends departed for the night, my son came in and thanked me for the BBQ and said ‘and thanks for taking the phones.’ There was still a part of me that wondered if he would be angry or embarrassed at my Phone Roundup. So I asked him why he was thanking me. His response was this:

Well, we were all hanging out together but after you took the phones, we were REALLY together. We stopped snapping and texting friends that weren’t here and we were just hanging out and talking, which was awesome. I forgot how fun Ghost in the Graveyard is!

Kids need tech free time. We all need tech free time. Just like having tech free space in the home, creating tech free time for your family can be part of your digital road map that you may have previously created. Tech free time for the family can be scheduled on a regular basis, like every Sunday evening from 7pm-9pm. Or it can also be less scheduled but on a regular basis, like once a month. Whatever works for your family. Similar to tech free space, the key to success is that EVERYONE in the family should go tech free during this time.

One thing to consider is how  TV fits into this plan. My daughter is quick to remind me that TV is technology and it should not be used during tech free time. So sometimes we will play some board games or play some game outside. Nobody is forced to play games. People can do what they want to do during this time. For us, the only requirement is that technology is put down for that window of time. What generally happens is that everyone ends up coming together at some point and interacting.

It sounds so simple. The reality is that the first few times we suggested tech free time in the house, it was met with resistance by my children. My daughter actually asked, with great dismay, ‘What will we do?’ as if there is nothing to do if technology is eliminated for a few hours. However, as all of us adjusted to putting phones down and not reacting to every buzz and beep of a snap or text, we all started to enjoy the freedom of being disconnected for a few hours.  My sons’ snaps and texts were still there 2 hours later and my daughter realized that there are many things to do that do not involve a screen!

Creating Tech Free Space in Your Home

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Sometimes I feel like no matter where I go in my house, someone, or everyone, is lock into a screen of some sort. One child is in his room on social media on his iPad.  Another is in the family room playing XBOX. My husband is in the office working on his laptop. It can be maddening at times. But the one place I know that I can go and not find any phones, iPads, laptops or televisions is my kitchen island.  In our house, the kitchen island is known as a ‘tech free zone’.

In an effort to incorporate healthy tech in the home, try creating tech free zones in the house. It is simple to do and can also be a component of your ‘digital road map‘ that you may have previously created. To do this, all you need to do is answer one question: In what part of the house, do we want to NEVER have technology? It can be bedrooms. It can be the TV room or family room. For us, it is the island in the kitchen. Certainly we are watchful about technology in the bedrooms, but for my family and for a variety of reasons, bedrooms are not official ‘tech free zones’.  The island is the place where we truly gather as a family. We eat most family meals here. The kids eat breakfast here. We play games at the island. We have the debrief of the day here as my kids eat a snack or dessert. It is where conversation happens. There are very few distractions and it has become a part of our family culture.

Here is the catch to making a tech free zone a success in your home: EVERYONE has to follow the rules! This means that my husband and myself are tech free at the island. When we gather for dinner, my phone gets left in another room. When I am hanging out with my son, hearing about his cross country practice as he eats ice cream, if my phone vibrates with a call or text, I resist the urge to pick it up or pull it out of my back pocket. If I do, I am quickly reprimanded, and rightly so, by whomever I am sitting with at the island. My kids buy into this program for two reasons. First, I think they enjoy this small amount of the day being unplugged. Second, I think they very much enjoy having my or my husband’s undivided attention. Really, they should have that all the time. Sadly, given the times we live in, it doesn’t always happen.

There are some great upsides to creating a tech free zone in the home in addition to the obvious of quality time together. One of the greatest of these upsides is that it significantly reduces conflict around phones, ipads, etc. For my family, the kids just do not bring tech to the island. It is not something that needs to be reminded or argued about. Because we all abide by this rule all the time, it has become a way of life. It is so nice not to begin dinner with comments like ‘please stop texting’ or ‘put your phone away’. It is so nice not to hear the beeping and pinging of the various alerts from my kids phones. It is so nice to have conversation where my kids not only participate but where I actually get to see their beautiful faces vs. the tops of their heads as they look down at a phone.

Another upside is that kids start to get conditioned to the idea of tech free zones and associate it with the activity that happens in that space. For my kids, they associate meals, in general, as a time for conversation, not tech and it starts to move beyond the home. When we are at family parties, I sometimes hear the comment that a cousin was texting all through dinner. It is expressed with a sense of disappointment at the lost opportunity to hang out.

In the interest of full disclosure, my children are very normal teenagers with their phones. There are many times I find myself looking at the tops of their heads or feeling like I am in battle for their intention and the little rectangular box they are holding in their hands is winning the war. However, for 30 minutes a day, there is a cease fire in the war because the kitchen island is a neutral, or tech free zone.