Internet Safety Tips From Boys and Girls Club of America ~
“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Boys & Girls Clubs of America. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.”
June is National Internet Safety Month. But how much do you really know about what your children are doing online? Boys and Girls Club of America wants to help you open a dialogue with your children about their online habits. They also want to share with you and your family some internet safety tips through cool videos and quizzes that you can share with your children.
How Much Do You Know About Internet Safety?
Did you know it’s against the law for kids under the age of 13 to be on Facebook? Make sure your child is cyber safe!
Take the Cyber Survivor Challenge Quiz. This quiz helps you learn how much you really know about internet safety. I try to keep a close eye on my daughter’s Facebook activities, but you really can never be too safe. This quiz offers you more tips and recommendations on how to promote a safe internet environment for your child. Just by taking the quiz, you could win some great prizes for yourself or a Boys and Girls Club of your choice. Knowledge and prizes are a pretty good combo, don’t you think?
After you take your quiz, don’t forget to watch the Cyber Safe Futures videos that go further in depth about internet safety than the quiz can. I had no idea that only 7% of parents are worried about cyber bullying. I know that it is a frequent topic in our home. I don’t want my daughter to be bullied, no do I want her to be the bully, and I try hard to make sure that doesn’t happen. Also, be sure to check out your child’s social media profiles to make sure that they have proper privacy settings. The Boys and Girls Club of America offers great online privacy tips to help you get the conversation started.
Safety Also Involves Your Child’s Phone
Teens send more than 1,000 texts a month.
Be sure to check your children’s phones. Often. That is something that I don’t do quit enough of. According to one of the videos, children send more than 1,000 texts a month on average. Wow! I think my fingers would fall off. And who knows who all they coming from, going to, or what are contained in them. We really need to be more proactive as parents to keep our children safe.
Protect your child’s online privacy. You can keep your child’s searches from online strangers with SearchLock. Keep companies and organizations from seeing where your are online with the Searchlock download. After all, you might not want companies marketing who knows what to your kids.
A Personal Story About Internet Safety
A few years ago, we had an experience with cyber bullying. It’s important to know that children are not always the bullies. An adult friend of the family posted some material that should not have been seen by children on his Facebook. He posted really graphic and disgusting jokes repeatedly. I asked him to stop posting the material {as his child was also seeing these posts}, but unfortunately he could not see what the problem was. My family ended up having to delete him from our friend’s list. Fortunately, since I have a Facebook, I was able to see this and put a stop to it {as best I could}. I highly suggest anyone that has children create accounts on the same social networks that your children use. At the very least, they might try to be on their best behavior since you are there. And if not, you are more likely to find out so that you can step in if necessary.
My boy is really interested in the internet now and I need to start learning as much as I can. He is very tech savvy even at 5 years old.
Thanks for sharing your story…you’re so right. We tend to focus on kids (which is, of course, very important) but adult cyberbullying is quite prevalent as well — and its effects are pretty serious. It’s very stressful and distressing for adults and kids. I wish we could somehow make it just end, quick and simple.
Me too. It’s too bad that everyone doesn’t see everything in terms of the best interest of the majority.
SO many great tips . I love the one about joining all the social networks your kids do!
This is not a popular idea, but my best suggestion is not to let your kids on social media until the appropriate age. For example, I think the Facebook minimum age is 13 years old…..many of my 11 year old 6th grade students have an account. Not only would that help to minimize the chance of cyber bullying, but it also helps to instill the idea that online honesty is not a compromise. My kids won’t have a FB page until they’re at least 13 if I can help it. Just my two cents!
You are right. And there are many adults who don’t need one either, lol. 😀
I believe kids should be kept off of social media sites, period. That being said, I also think schools need better filters in their on campus browsing. Some of the social media sites are live at our local high schools and I think that just encourages cyber bullying and catfishing!
You are right about the schools. I know that many of the middle school kids can get on pretty much whatever site they want while at school because they go through other sites to get there. Kids are really smart.
Thanks for the post. There are so many things to learn about the internet and safety. I had to be on my toes when my son was on the internet and that was before security passwords.
Great post! My son is still a toddler but I thinks your tips are really good! I will share this with friends who have kids that are already active online.
With two teenagers, internet safety is something we are very familiar with!