A Must Read About Kids and Internet Safety: Advice from Yahoo!

All I can say is if you’re a parent or have a child in your life, please read this.  A lot of information comes my way these days, but this is one of the more important and interesting topics that I’ve written about.  La Jolla Dad and I have talked about how we’ll handle online safety and cell phones with La Jolla Girl, but she’s so little, it’s not relevant yet.  But it’s on our minds in a big way and coming quickly.

Because of my Yahoo! Motherboard membership, I was able to listen in on a call with Catherine Teitelbaum, the Director of Child Safety at Yahoo! Inc.  There was so much useful information shared, that I hope I’m able to pass it on appropriately.  I didn’t realize that Yahoo! is a long time leader in child online safety and committed to helping foster a safer environment. Here’s some data you might be interested in from a recent survey they took:

• 70% of parents talk to their kids about online safety 2-3 times a year
• 45% of parents talk to their kids about it once a month
• 74% of parents are connected to their children’s profiles on social networking sites
• 71% of dads (compared to 63% of moms) are taking at least one action, including having conversations about respecting privacy of others
• 53% of dads plug their children’s names into search engines at least 2-3 times per year (compared to 38% of moms)

I’m very interested in how other parents handle cell phone and online safety, as this is something my household is facing sooner than we’d like.  The message I took home is that it’s just not enough to put the family computer in a place where parents can monitor what’s going on.  That, while helpful, is now a dated solution.  It’s important to give your children training wheels, just like on their first bicycle, and then take the training wheels off so that they can navigate the big online world with good sense and care.  Though in the online world, you take the training wheels off slowly and monitor the entire way. Friend them on social media sites like Facebook so you can see what they are doing. Monitor.

We all know what the risks are online such as cyberbullying, internet predators, inappropriate content and more.  But what struck me is the emphasis on managing your child’s digital reputation, which is a concept that I can see a bit difficult to teach a young child.  What a child puts out there may make them more vulnerable to the above risks. There are 5 basic recommendations from Yahoo! that help foster a good online experience:

1.  Own Your Digital Reputation:  Teach your child that everything they put up is public.  Teach them that whatever the put online, should be information that they’d be comfortable sharing with their teachers, grandparents and future job prospects.  They need to be aware that once it’s online, it’s online.  This also applies to parents.  Parents have a huge impact on their child’s digital footprint so whatever they put online needs to be well thought through.

2.  Keep Private Information Under Control:  This means passwords and other information.  Yahoo! has found that young girls have a tendency to share passwords with each other when they first get online. Friendships change while passwords often don’t.  We parents know it’s risky to share passwords, but kids don’t think 3 steps ahead like we might.

3. Be Nice (and pass it on):  The more you treat people with respect online, the more it will come back to you. Teach your children that if there is a bully, to ignore them. You can use privacy tools to block them and that it’s very important to report abuse to a trusted adult.

4.  Know Your Rights: Kids need to know that they have the right not to respond to an email, text or anything that makes them uncomfortable or scared. They don’t always know that they do not have to respond. They should show it to a parent or a trusted adult.

5.  Have a Family Chat: Everyone benefits when everyone is on the same page. Bullying is less likely to escalate if you have regular chats about your kids’ online experiences.

Inappropriate Content:  There was a lot of discussion about kids starting on one site and accidentally navigating to others that should be off limits.  You can try software blocks but, in the long run it’s better to teach the child how to know when she’s gone beyond acceptable parameters. Teach them about the URL and when it changes they’ve left the site they started on, and that mommy or daddy then needs to check to see where they’ve gone. Explain what you’re looking.  Say, “I’m looking to see if this is taking you to a place you’re seeing videos that are not appropriate” or “I’m looking to see if this is a place where you can talk to other people” or similar.  Tell them what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

Evolving risks:  I thought this was extremely interesting.  Kids need to understand that who they are talking to online might not be who they think they are talking to.

Kids should not be friends with anyone online that they are not friends with in real life.

Peer to peer issues are big now.  Even kids that your kids know online can take on different online personas.  And with those online personas, some kids can behave terribly.

Teach your children that there is no separation between their online life and their personal life.

Phones:  Give serious thought to what kind of phone you give your child.  If it’s for safety reasons, think about at first having them hand it over to you when they walk in the door.  Turn the phone off and leave it outside their bedrooms so they aren’t receiving late night texts, etc. You can ease off once you feel comfortable and the kids are older.  Always check phone records to see who they are calling and what kind of photos/videos they are receiving or sending.  You should have household rules about computers and phones.

I’m totally all ears to how you all handle cell phones and online safety.  Comments are VERY welcome.

Tagged as: Cyberbullying, Internet Safety, Kids, Parenting, Safety, Yahoo! Motherboard