As a retired Instructional Technology teacher at the elementary level, this question is near and dear to my heart and I'm thrilled that it is being considered by Thought Leaders in the industry. Unfortunately, the burden of providing instruction for students about their digital footprint and online safety is having to fall on teachers whose instruction plate is already full to over flowing and many of whom do not fully understand online safety themselves. Teachers have tools to monitor student safety when using devices at school for educational purposes but students need to understand the power of being online, not just follow the rules. It is unreasonable to expect teachers to master the ever changing landscape of cyber-security and pass it along to their students in a meaningful way so it is essential that every parent take the time to monitor their child's online activities and explicitly talk with them about safety.
My sons are grown and out of the house, and I retired a year ago after 30 years (I was teaching technology in the days of Fetch and Gopher) but my #1 suggestion is SUPERVISION. I have always advocated for technology to be used "in the open" and never allowed my sons to have a computer, tablet, cell phone, etc. in their bedroom, unsupervised, behind closed doors. Screens were always positioned to face into the room, so that I could see what was going on at a glance, and cell phones could only be used with the bedroom door open. I also became very stealthy at just appearing in the room when my sons were using technology. Now, I'm not naive enough to think that this solved all the problems and kept them 100% safe, because I know it did not. However, when situations did arise, I had a frank and detailed conversation with them about their digital footprint and digital citizenship.
Being a digital native, as this generation is, doesn't mean they understand it's impact any better than their grandparents do. In fact, maybe less so because they just take it for granted. So it becomes much more important to spend quality time educating them on it's use before just turning it over to them unsupervised.
One of the resources that I used extensively in my classroom, and highlighted to parents is CommonSenseMedia.org. This organization give tools for students and parents, not only related to teaching kids to be safe online but also about the content of books, movies, games, etc. that kids are exposed to and parents know nothing about.
Thank you for giving me a minute to get on my soapbox and for addressing this important topic.
I recently tried to find the most functional and free child monitoring app out there. After my evaluation, I gotta say I personally love the Google app "Family Link" intended for kids under 13. You can check the location of your child's phone at any time, which is helpful in more than one scenario, if your kid losses their phone as often as mine. The child has the ability to browse the Google Play, but then must request permission to download any app. Once you approve the app on your mobile device, then the app downloads automatically.
Besides being proactive on what apps are used, I think its important to limit the social media apps or any media sharing apps like Tik Tok. I always create myself an account first and then once I have evaluated it and figured out the best privacy settings, allow my kid to have an account that I have the password to and of course I befriend the account if no parental account/controls are available.
I don't think you can be too protective or overly pro-active when it comes to children and technology. It is a different world than from when I grew up in the 90s. 😉
Never be online away from parents. Remind them that posting anything online is like writing with permanent ink.
It's a great discussion to have with your children. Kids are using devices at very young ages now. They really don't see the dangers in downloading apps and talking to anyone on social media. It's easy for them to give out personal information without even knowing they are doing it. Maybe there should be security awareness training for kids also?
-Stephen
There are some really great comments in this thread. Educating both the kids and the adults are the key to improved security. Being aware and suspicious of everything on the internet is fundamental.
Supervision is the key here when it comes to your kids or Grandchildren. To warn and teach them how to be smart on the internet.
I believe in keeping them off of Social media networks and to never give out any personal information. Have Security protection in place such as Antivirus and Firewalls, etc.
Always monitor what a child is doing online. Even YouTube videos need to be questioned. Networking with safety measures. Never click links in emails. In fact children should not have an email until absolutely necessary. Monitor the games they play and teach them if a pop-up box comes up not to click on it and to ask first. Don't let children purchase anything online on their own. Have a password for purchasing games so that children can't order themselves.
Keeping up on Security updates and cleaning up your/their systems until they can be taught how. Talk to children and ask them what they are doing. Having guidance and guidelines are very important in my book to keeping children safe. Encourage self esteem and praise them so they do not go elsewhere. Predators are online always. Do not trust anyone you don't know.
Alot of great information from this Thread and from reading the Blog. Thank you folks for your insight and wisdom. I enjoyed reading them all.
I have already commented and I have my white board right here in front of me. Thank you .
Discussions with children about online safety often revolve around the topics of cyberbullying and avoiding online predators, but what about staying safe from cybercriminals? It's quite easy to think that hackers and nefarious actors out there are only after adults. However, kids are just as likely to be targeted. We've compiled a few ways to keep your kids safe online that you can read about on the Webroot blog.
What I'm most curious about is hearing from you, the Webroot Community.
How do you keep your kids safe online? Did we miss anything in our post? Let's kickoff a discussion in the comments below and share real life examples so that everyone can benefit.
For those of you that open up and share, we'll be giving away a Webroot whiteboard and laminated #CyberSmart checklist for you to reference. Our hope is that our checklist will act as a friendly reminder to always be mindful and keep cybersecurity for you and your family top of mind.
Limit Social Media usage, Any Online gaming is very limited and supervised if MIC is in use. My son knows bullying is never okay, and anytime he hears or sees of this activity online he is to not partake in it. I am very excited to see this topic come up as it has unfortunately become a big problem with the way technology has evolved
Limit Social Media usage, Any Online gaming is very limited and supervised if MIC is in use. My son knows bullying is never okay, and anytime he hears or sees of this activity online he is to not partake in it. I am very excited to see this topic come up as it has unfortunately become a big problem with the way technology has evolved
This is a great article. It is scary what people will do on the internet.
Well my kiddo hasnt gotten to the age of being online. I made sure Parental Controls were enabled or a "Kids Mode" app is installed so that way My kid can only get to what we allow.
Like others here, I believe having frank discussions with your kids and explaining to them the dangers of being online, is crucial. We also severely limited screen time for them until age 13 (no phones or PCs of their own.) They did have tablets that were heavily locked down which they used primarily for games, educational and otherwise. They didn't have social media accounts until they got their phones. We limited screen-time to 1 hour/day.
Now, both of my kids (17 & 14) are very responsible with their phones (their primary device for being online). We know their pins so that we can access their phones at any time. They don't have anything to hide. We are lucky to have a good, open, honest relationships with them. They're probably are on them more than they should be, but they are very good students, regularly participate in sports and other extra-curricular school activities (school play, math club, BLIND, etc). They also have active social live that take place beyond the scope of their phones. They aren't glued to them 24/7. I suppose if they started having trouble at school or encountered instances where their phones were getting them into trouble, we'd have to reconsider our approach.
We just try to be very honest with them and try to instill in them how important it is to be careful online, particularly what they post. I would hate for them to deprive themselves of a future opportunity simply because of something they posted, maybe in haste or reacting to another. I tell them to count to ten before reacting to anything online, or just put the phone down and walk away, if things get a little too tense. My younger son is a gamer with a new PC, but he knows that he cannot go online until all homework/chores are done. He is limited to 2 hours a day of gaming, but he doesn't play daily. He's kind of old-school as he spends a lot of time outdoors biking, skateboarding, jumping on the trampoline, etc. like we did when we were kids. I guess that a good balance is key when it comes to your kids being online. Too much of anything can be bad.
Then there's the technical side of things. Besides a good AV, we also use OpenDNS's Family Shield, which blocks all of the crap you wouldn't want your kids seeing. It's free and customizable. I use this at the router level, so all devices on our network go through the DNS filter. I also encourage my kids to use strong, individual passwords and to use 2FA whenever possible. We've also taught them to be suspicious of anything that sounds too good to be true and approach all email with suspision. I think we're doing a pretty good job. Our kids are savvy users who understand that it's important to employ a cautious approach to being online and that it there responsibility to maintain positive, safe, and beneficial routines when online, for their own good.
My best advice would be to be involved in your kids lives and foster honest, caring relationships with them. Take an interest in what they are doing online and off. My kids know that they can tell me anything and I hope that they will always feel that way.
Education is definitely key. For younger kids, getting them started with a Kindle Fire for Kids is a great way to get them introduced to devices. The included subscription to Amazon FreeTime limits where the kids can go and what they can download, so they are protected. As they grow older though, education will be the only way to prevent security issues. (And that goes for Adults as well!)
My children grew up in a household full of computers, servers, firewalls, switches, etc... So I started worrying early on that they might take a "don't worry, dad can fix it" attitude towards computers and internet use.
For my part, I have always used plenty of hardware and software means to protect the brood (5 kids).The toughest thing to protect my kids from on the internet has always been social engineering and a few minor cyber-bully incidents in MMORPGs.
From a very young age, with my children I often used "playground" and "classroom" analogies to describe the benefits and pitfalls of the internet. The use of these common social constructs seemed to lend well to their understanding that the internet can be fun, but IRL, its literally just people out there, and not everyone plays nice.
Cyber-bullies...On the "playground", sometimes there are "moderators" that are like teachers who are there to help keep you safe. Sometimes you run into a bully when the teacher is paying attention to something else. Just like on a playground, if a bully starts to pick on you, you should leave, and call a teacher and let them know what happened.
Click-bait...You may be getting bored in the classroom, and get distracted by a funny yellow dog running around out-side the window. Oh my gosh that dog looks like fun to play with, but would you jump up from your desk and run outside to pet the dog? What would your teacher say? She might say "Have you thought about what you are doing? Have you seen that funny yellow dog before? What if it's not a friendly dog? What if it tries to bite? What if it chases you?
Ultimately, I used lots of other analogies, but as my kids got older, I stopped using quaint stories, and gave my kids the real, hard facts. I also started training them techniques for spotting scammers, click-bait, phishing, etc...
Great article. One thing I did with my daughter was have her only able to be on the internet in our living room with us while she was small. Teaching online safety is critical. I had a friend ask me to come speak to his church youth group about that very subject. I asked we wait 90 days and give me a list of the kids involved. When I went there they saw me and went oh no another adult telling us the evils of the internet. I then told them many things I knew about them that I had gotten from Facebook and such. You see they knew me as Tasha Yar (gotta love Star Trek NG), a fellow teen from a couple states away. Got their attention. Education is the key. We have to use tools like DNS Protections, and the like too.
Wow, this is important. My kids are so young and using tablets. You must have security set on your devices and web filtering at the device level and the network level. The bad guys seek out the very young and the very old - as they are the weak points in technological security.
Good points by many here, but I have to agree that education is the key - if you try to lock them out of too many things they'll just a)find ways around your blocks or b)use someone else's phone/computer/tablet. We can't put our kids in a bubble forever, we have to teach them to recognize and deal with the bad actors in life.
As a retired Instructional Technology teacher at the elementary level, this question is near and dear to my heart and I'm thrilled that it is being considered by Thought Leaders in the industry. Unfortunately, the burden of providing instruction for students about their digital footprint and online safety is having to fall on teachers whose instruction plate is already full to over flowing and many of whom do not fully understand online safety themselves. Teachers have tools to monitor student safety when using devices at school for educational purposes but students need to understand the power of being online, not just follow the rules. It is unreasonable to expect teachers to master the ever changing landscape of cyber-security and pass it along to their students in a meaningful way so it is essential that every parent take the time to monitor their child's online activities and explicitly talk with them about safety.
My sons are grown and out of the house, and I retired a year ago after 30 years (I was teaching technology in the days of Fetch and Gopher) but my #1 suggestion is SUPERVISION. I have always advocated for technology to be used "in the open" and never allowed my sons to have a computer, tablet, cell phone, etc. in their bedroom, unsupervised, behind closed doors. Screens were always positioned to face into the room, so that I could see what was going on at a glance, and cell phones could only be used with the bedroom door open. I also became very stealthy at just appearing in the room when my sons were using technology. Now, I'm not naive enough to think that this solved all the problems and kept them 100% safe, because I know it did not. However, when situations did arise, I had a frank and detailed conversation with them about their digital footprint and digital citizenship.
Being a digital native, as this generation is, doesn't mean they understand it's impact any better than their grandparents do. In fact, maybe less so because they just take it for granted. So it becomes much more important to spend quality time educating them on it's use before just turning it over to them unsupervised.
One of the resources that I used extensively in my classroom, and highlighted to parents is CommonSenseMedia.org. This organization give tools for students and parents, not only related to teaching kids to be safe online but also about the content of books, movies, games, etc. that kids are exposed to and parents know nothing about.
Thank you for giving me a minute to get on my soapbox and for addressing this important topic.
Well said, @shardon. It's really interesting to see this issue from the perspective of a teacher. Maybe the key is not to rely on the education system, but rather educate our kids ourselves. I think you might be interested in points in this post from @JustinB:
"As someone who does not have children yet, I know that my thoughts on the topic will likely evolve over time, but here is my current opinion.
I completely agree with all points in this article. Kids today do not truly understand the impact their online presence can have on their lives. One wrong click or a bad message can have negative effects on their future career or education goals. I think that the best thing for parents to do is to stay in contact with your kids and have open discussions when possible. Monitoring tools are good, but you must still allow them some sort of freedom to make their own choices. At the end of the day how someone chooses to protect their kids from the dangers of the world is their own choice, but I believe providing them with training and knowledge is the best tool that you can give them to remain safe on the web. Todays kids are more tech savvy than most of their parents and I believe that this will only become more true as time progresses. At the end of the day breaches can happen to any of us. Articles like this one are great to share with kids as well as adults. We all need to remain aware of these threats and act accordingly.
I look forward to reading the thoughts of others and learning from their experiences and suggestions."
Never be online away from parents. Remind them that posting anything online is like writing with permanent ink.
So true! It's hard nowadays to always know when our kids are online or not, but teaching them the repercussions of their actions is a great way to plant to seed of cybersecurity in their minds.
This post from @aje speaks to that same idea:
"There are a couple of rules that my kids have learned that seem to help.
1) nothing is free, you should be able to understand where they are making their income. If not itβs something sneaky.
2) the only way to never have a picture or video leaked online is for it never to be taken, so just make sure that every picture or video of you would be ok for your grandparents to see."
Hey everyone, I wanted to update the thread since we have sent out all of the whiteboards. We hope you received them in one piece!
I think it would be really fun to see how these whiteboards are looking in your kitchen or any other creative place you may have put them.
Feel free to share below with the rest of us or on Twitter using the #CyberSmart
