When children and teenagers are not in school, they’re likely to spend more time playing online games like Roblox to connect with their friends. And summer isn’t always the easiest time to enforce the device rules that are in place during the school year. Between heat advisories keeping us indoors and the cost of doing pretty much anything, it’s inevitable that some days will just be spent in an air-conditioned room gaming online with friends. But it’s also a good reminder for us as parents to not forget about online safety for kids.
Last year, 36.2 million cases of suspected online exploitation were reported, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It’s no surprise that so many initiatives have been created to raise awareness about this issue and help our children safely enjoy their time online. Here are some resources to keep your children safe:
The basics
Back in April, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched the Know2Protect campaign. Their website offers lots of great resources for both parents and children, including these top 10 tips:
- Start an open, two-way conversation with your child.
- Password-protect or control access to your child’s app store and gaming downloads.
- Set time and area limits for use of devices and set device check-in times.
- Set all apps, games and devices to private.
- Turn off location data services on social media and nonessential apps.
- Talk about data permanency. Online data can last a lifetime.
- Create a contract with your child regarding online behavior.
- Know your child’s friend lists. Remove strangers.
- Warn your child that they should never leave a game to chat with someone they don’t know on a different platform.
- Do not delete messages, images or videos from predators and do not forward any sexually explicit images or videos. Save usernames, screenshots and images or videos as evidence for law enforcement to collect directly from the device.
Even the FBI recently tweeted about how summer means more screen time for kids, and shared a link to their FBI-SOS Cyber Surf Island, a website created for kids to learn about online safety and digital citizenship. An interactive game on the site teaches third through eighth graders using animal characters and coins they can collect as they answer questions. There is even a competition teachers can sign up for where the winning school can receive a visit from a local FBI agent.
While online strangers are especially of concern, we can’t forget about bullying and the overall impact of what is shared online. The FBI also shares these tips for children:
- Keep your accounts private.
- Do not accept requests from strangers. Block or ignore messages from strangers.
- Remember that once something is posted or sent, it can never be taken back. Even when something is deleted from social media, there is still a record somewhere in the cloud.
- Be selective about the information and pictures you share online. Know and assume that any content you create online – texts, photos and videos – can and will be made public, permanently. Nothing “disappears” online. Once you send something, you have no control over where it goes.
- Understand that people can pretend to be anything/anyone online and that images can be altered or stolen.
- Be suspicious and stop communicating if you meet someone on one app, and they ask you to move to a different platform.
- If you feel overwhelmed or victimized, do not hesitate to ask for help, including that of law enforcement. Do not feel ashamed to report crimes.
Google also has a program to teach kids online safety called Be Internet Awesome. It includes a game called Interland, which focuses on digital safety, as well as a curriculum that teachers can use, and a pledge that parents can print out and sign as a family. They also have what they call the Internet code of Awesome:
- Share with care
- Don’t fall for fake
- Secure your secrets
- It’s cool to be kind
- When in doubt, talk it out
Read about each fundamental here.
Be in the Know
Tip: Create an account and play with your kids, or drop in sometimes to see what they are doing.
At the end of the day, it’s important we as parents know what our kids are up to while they are connected to the outside world on that little device. Just because a game might be geared towards their age, doesn’t mean inappropriate things aren’t happening. There are guides for parents to help them understand what it is their children are playing- for example this handy guide to Roblox by Popular Science. Minecraft has its own guide for parents to learn about parental controls and other FAQS.
