One of the tasks of parents is to keep their children safe and well. As a responsible parent, you should teach your kid to cross the road carefully, wear a helmet when cycling, use sunscreen when sunbathing, and more.
Another important thing is to protect children from online threats in the form of hackers and inappropriate content. Thus, let’s consider what parents should be aware of to ensure reliable internet surfing for their kids.
Establish Limits
Setting limits is one of the first steps you should do to guarantee child internet safety. You may inform your kid what amount of time is allowed to spend online and what websites can be visited freely. After that, you should control your set limits to be met by your child. Once the time limit finishes, you may take all devices from your kid’s room. This is a guarantee your child won’t go online and violate your set limits.
Install VPN for Apps
Since your kid may probably make use of different tools and instruments for communication, games, watching movies, and listening to music, your task is to install VPN for apps on your child’s devices. As a parent, you are able to click here to find out more about what benefits one may take advantage of using a VPN. How does a VPN for Sweden and other countries residents work? Once your kid connects to one of the servers, it will become possible to stream his/her favorite content without restrictions and apprehensions.
Come Up With Strong Passwords
Children may have accounts that include important information on various platforms. Once cyber criminals own these accounts, all sensitive data can be stolen and used not for good purposes. To avoid cyber threats for kids, you should help them to create strong passwords for their accounts. Explain to your children the significance of having such passwords that are hard to guess and hack.
Put a Computer in Central Area
If your child has a computer, it is advisable to put it in the communal area instead of the kid’s bedroom. This will assist you to control your child’s online activities when you are at home. Of course, there are many other devices such as laptops and smartphones by which kids may access the internet. Still, you may set a rule forbidding the usage of devices in the child’s bedroom, if it is required for ensuring the data privacy of your kid.
Explain to your Kid What Digital Footprint Means
As a parent, you should inform your kid that every action has consequences. If inappropriate content is published by your child, it can be discovered by teachers, other parents, etc. This will surely lead to unpleasant aftermath. Your task is to teach your child to think long-term before posting content online. Published content online will never entirely go away. Provide your kid with an explanation of digital footprint. Tell your kid that even messages and pictures shared privately can be copied and sent further.
Dangers of Downloads
Free-of-charge videos and games seem tempting not only for kids but even for adult users. However, there is a need to keep in mind that not all downloads are safe. Some of them have spyware and viruses. Aside from using services of a virtual private network that guarantees reliable browsing, for example, VeePN provider, your task is to warn your child to not open emails from unknown users.
Keep Confidential Information to Yourself
Whether your kid utilizes the internet for the first time or he/she is a confident user, you should regularly remind him/her what kind of information can be shared and what should be kept reliably. To ensure child internet safety, tell it is forbidden to share phone numbers, addresses, birth dates, credit card information, etc. If your kid is active on social networks, you should check if privacy settings are used to restrict what is publicly visible.
Teach your Kid to Be Suspicious
Although there is a lot of useful information on the internet, there is a need to keep in mind that your kid can come across false information as well. Explain to your child that not all posted content he/she will see is true. Teach your kid to avoid fake news, advertisements that offer rewards, and unknown downÂloads. Otherwise, the data privacy of your child and the entire family may be at risk.
Do Not Talk to Strangers
Nowadays, there are a lot of cyber threats for kids. One of them is hackers and cyber criminals who may try to steal sensitive data with the help of your gullible child. To keep your kid safe from these users, you should tell your kid not to talk to strangers online. If your child wants to make new friends on social media, you may simply warn him/her not to share private information with unknown users.
Be Open to Conversations
Every day so much content is posted so it is hard to follow. Unfortunately, not all content may be appropriate. If you discover your kid is upset, be open to talks and ask what the problem is. It is likely your child came across scary or disturbing content.
Conclusion
Today children may use the internet for both studies and rest. Although webpages, apps, and posted content can be useful for your kid, they can likewise hide some dangers.
There are many easy ways to keep your child safe online such as installing VeePN on all devices, limiting time on browsing content, explaining the hazards of the online world, etc. With these and other above-discussed effective tips, you will surely protect your kid from hackers and ensure reliable usage of the Internet.
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