Social Networking Sites: Tips for Parents of Teens internet safetyThe internet opens up a world of possibilities; from finding good jobs to having the perfect venue to sell brand new and used items, to hooking-up with long lost friends; cyberspace offers all of these and more.
Finding long lost friends is often coursed through social networking sites – which have become more of a fad rather than an online tool. If you’re not in one of these social networking sites, you’re just not “cool.”
Teens especially want to be “in” and so they jump on the bandwagon and join these sites. To protect your children online, you have to know which social networking sites your children are a part of.
Tips on Using Social Networking Sites
If your teens happen to be a part of social networking sites, you may want to consider laying down a few rules about the way they use these sites. The following are tips on how to protect your children online, particularly in social networking sites.
Information Sharing
Let your teens know that whatever they put in their account profile, anyone who gets access to their pages will automatically get access to the information they have shared in their profile.
Keeping this in mind, teens should not put any personal data on the internet. This includes their real names, age, gender, school, parents’ names and even the family’s financial status.
After-School Activities and Routines
Also, in order to protect your children online, ask them not to post anything about their regular routines and after-school activities. Anyone who wants to track down your kids can easily use these bits of information to check out your children on the sly.
internet safety factsPhoto and Video Sharing
These are among the most dangerous items that teens could share online. Why so? For one thing, these give online predators a visual of what your kids look like.
While teens would naturally want to share a few of their favorite photos and videos to their online friends, it is important to remind them not to post anything provocative, objectionable and flirtatious.
To protect your children online, tell them to share only photos that are wholesome.
In like manner, videos should be just as wholesome as their photos. On the other hand, you may want to restrict sharing of videos of themselves altogether as this isn’t really necessary.
Furthermore, to protect your children online, ask them not to share any photos or videos of themselves without your consent. They should first show you the ones that they would like to share and get your approval prior to uploading these online.
Parents’ Access
Finally, to protect your children online, tell that they will get your permission for them to sign-up for these social networking sites only if they give you full access into their accounts.
This way, you can protect your children online by checking their friends’ profiles; what they talk about and what they share with one another.
You should have full control of your kids’ social networking sites otherwise; they will be restricted from using these sites.
internet safety tips