Staying offline (as well as keeping your kids away from the Web) in the 21st century is next to impossible, as you might know. Even some desperate parents’ efforts to limit their children’s use of mobile and Web technology are most likely to fail because no child exists in a vacuum and has many kinds of Web content exposure outside the home. Also, limiting Internet use is unwise at present, especially looking at how much education is now provided with the use of online tools and resources.
Hence, let's face the harsh truth - the Web is here to stay. And will not. In such conditions, it is instrumental, not to figure out new restrictions, thus risking losing your kid's trust and acquire a reputation of a home tyrant, but to enforce proper controls over the child's use of online resources, which is possible in many ways. One of such methods is parental control apps. Click here to find more information about this application. Also, look at the short guide to your child's safety. 3G and Wi-Fi These are two options for your kid to get access to the Web that you would not like to happen. When you handle a phone to your child, first establish parental control settings and create a restricted profile for the child to use. However, you should also keep in mind that settings working with 3G are disabled when the phone switches to publicly available Wi-Fi. Hence, to guarantee that parental control functions work flawlessly with both types of connection, install some paid parental control software and indicate restrictions for all situations. Social Media Social networks are attractive for people of all ages, and they are also the easiest way to get into accidental contact with a bully, criminal, or predator. Luckily, the majority of social media have enforced separate child protection measures that keep children’s profiles under greater privacy control and monitor contacts. You can activate those settings in your child’s account for increased protection:
- In Facebook, it is easily done by selecting “Privacy Settings” as ‘Custom’ and indicating who can connect with the child, whom the child can contact, how tags works, and what apps and websites are accessible. Moreover, you can activate “Secure Browsing” in the account to guarantee to browse with a secure protocol https.
- In Google+, you may tailor all security settings in the section “Profile and Privacy.” Here, you may edit the settings of your child’s profile visibility to reduce the likelihood of some occasional or hazardous contacts. Other available options here include network visibility settings, options with photo settings, and incoming messages’ settings.
- Twitter also provides an opportunity for safe posting; activation of those settings is possible in the “Settings” section by unchecking the “location” and “media” boxes, and activating the “Tweet Privacy” and “https” boxes.
Chats Guaranteeing the child’s security during the use of chatrooms is a fundamental precondition for your unstressed living and your kid’s well-being. This is so because chatrooms are immensely popular among young Internet users nowadays, and they are a primary source of online live communication among children and teens. However, their popularity contributes to their vulnerability to predators and bullies, so chats are also a very frequent space for kids’ exposure to bullying and hate messages. Here are some tips for making your child’s use of chatrooms safer. Instruct the child not to:
- Use his/her real name or personally identifying information in a chat
- Add photos or videos of personal nature, especially when there are strangers in the chatroom or it is a public chat
- Agree to meet with strangers from chatrooms in real life
- Respond to people acting aggressively and sending abusive messages
- Ignore the fact of being contacted by a stranger or being bullied, reporting those cases to the chatroom’s moderator and parents.
What about GPS? The presence of GPS functions in every modern smartphone has both benefits (finding the child or the phone) and disadvantages (unwanted communication of the child’s location to a wide circle of people, some of which are predators). To protect your child’s location from the public, turn off the location-based services and disable the use of wireless networks and GPS satellites. Obviously, all these measures are a step forward to increasing your child’s safety, but having a proper parental control app on the kid’s phone may also help solve many potential troubles much quicker. Select the app that has all needed features to make it a secure and confident package for your comfort and full security of your child. Choosing a package tool for parental control, you will avoid hours of settings for each separate resource, and will be able to guarantee full security with only a couple of clicks. This site tells you more information about parental control apps. Image source: cogdog