How to Ensure Your Child Doesn’t Stray into Inappropriate Parts of the Internet | Safety Factors

As an adult, you are aware of inappropriate content and other internet dangers. Unfortunately, your child isn’t familiar with these risks. They want to go online to play games, chat with friends, and watch cartoons. So, how to ensure your kid doesn’t stray into the inappropriate part of the web? Check out the following tips to protect your children from explicit online content!

Explain Age-Appropriate Content to Your Kids

From the moment your kid starts talking about the use of the internet, you should begin discussing how the virtual world works. That includes mentioning the positives but also discussing the negatives of heading online.

As a parent, act as their guide and recommend the websites to visit first. Experts recommend discussing age-appropriate content and that those restrictions exist for a reason. For example, Facebook and Instagram require children to be at least 13 years old to use this platform.

Set Ground Rules

Parents should understand the internet is a whole new world for children. As with every new experience, it’s a high risk of making accidental mistakes. That’s why setting ground rules is important. That could include:

• Visiting only websites and playing only games that you said are okay for their age.

• Ensuring all posts on social media remain private.

• Ignore messages from strangers and not accept them as friends on social networks or gaming sites.

Be Calm and Ready to Answer All Their Questions

Do you know how they say there isn’t such thing as a stupid question? That’s how you should approach children’s questions about the internet. You should be patient and calm and answer as many times as necessary. Don’t forget to encourage critical thinking. You don’t want your kid to believe everything they see online. Instead, they should analyze the situation they are in, friend requests they get, etc. That way, they can learn how to distinguish between real and fake on the internet.

Encourage Them to Look for Advice

Let’s say that your kid received a friend request. It’s from a person that seems like their peer, but the profile is suspicious. If this type of situation arises, they should reach out to you immediately. Likewise, if they notice anything weird or upsetting on the web, they shouldn’t hesitate to ask for advice. 

For example, an insulting message on a gaming site might cause emotional discomfort. It could develop into cyberbullying, so your kid shouldn’t hesitate to seek your help. And even if they did something wrong, explain that patiently and provide another chance.

Manage Access to Inappropriate Content

Trusting your child that they’ll behave well on the internet is important. However, it’s a wise parent move to implement some limitations. Here’s how to use technology to your advantage and limit access to inappropriate content!

Check Privacy Settings on Social Media

Social networks are a huge risk to children. Apart from teaching them to ignore friend requests from strangers and report weird messages, ensure their profile is set to private. You don’t want any sensitive info to become public. For example, explain they shouldn’t post any sensitive updates related to their or the family’s whereabouts or finances on social media.

Activate SafeSearch on Search Engines

Each search engine has safety settings to adjust to your preferences. Google and Bing have SafeSearch features that ensure only child-friendly results are displayed when searching the web. Platforms like YouTube and iTunes also have safety modes available. If you think that’s not enough, you can use Swiggle or other kid-friendly search engines.

Use Phone Monitoring Apps

Kids use their smartphones for hours daily. It’s impossible to be around always, and it would be a privacy violation. However, installing a phone monitoring app on the child’s device could help keep them safe online.

It only takes a few minutes to set up an Android or iPhone parental control app and get everything ready. You can monitor and restrict the websites your child visits, control the apps they use, etc. The tool will provide detailed reports from messaging apps. And if a suspicious word appears, the app will alert you immediately.

Final Thoughts

The internet has never been this popular and accessible. Unfortunately, while it’s an excellent educational tool and it offers loads of entertainment, it’s also full of inappropriate content. Ensuring your children don’t stray into inappropriate internet parts is an ongoing battle. The good news is that tools like parental control apps and safety settings will help your goal, so don’t hesitate to use them.