Archive for January 10th, 2012
Kids’ On-line Security: Be an Energetic Player
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 | Kids | No Comments
When you think about protecting your children, you’d think along the lines of keeping them away from people who can potentially harm them, keeping them off sharp objects, teaching them how to cross the street as well as teaching them what emergency numbers to dial and people to call in emergency cases.
Parents make it a point to recognize their kids’s friends, sometimes including the friends’ parents; and the places their kids frequent. Parents regularly play an active role in their kids’s lives by becoming included in stuff that the kids are included in.
Actual World vs. Virtual World
These days, kids have two different worlds: their actual world where their friends and families are actually present, and the online world where their online friends and family are only present in cyberspace.
Just as you are actively included in the childrens’ actual world, now there is even a need for parents to be active in their childrens’ online world. Protecting the kids right now even implies playing an active role in the childrens’ online activities.
While it is true that the actual world and the online world are poles apart, protecting the kids on the internet virtually observes the same principles as protecting them in their actual, physical world.
Never Talk to Strangers
Reminders like never talk to strangers work in both worlds. You may be startled as to how many online strangers have actually attempted or are seeking to speak to the kids.
Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Road
Look both ways before crossing the street even works on the internet. Protecting your kids in cyberspace paralleled to crossing the street might be asking the kids to look in all directions before getting in a website.
This way, they’ll not be hit by every content that is improper for them.
Never Pick a Fight
Parents continually remind their childrens to never pick fights. In like manner, kids shouldn’t pick fights with their online friends even if they are on opposite ends of their online worlds.
Picking fights is really even more dangerous on the internet because with a click of a button, the aggrieved party may deliver unpleasant e-mails or post incriminating pictures of the kids for all the online world to view.
Turn Away from Bullies
Cyber bullying is not unusual these days. Protecting your kids from cyber bullies usually implies informing them to ignore the bullies no matter how uncomfortable or pestering their comments are because the more your kids give them the time of day, the more intrusive they’ll turn into.
Meet Your Childrens’ Online Friends
Just as you know your childrens’ classmates and best friends, so should you even know the online friends they hangout with– those who aren’t their classmates or best mates.
Better still, you may also wish to ask the kids if you and the parents of their online friends may meet as well.
This way, you may not only be protecting the kids but you and the other parents will even be actively participating in kids internet safety included in the group.