Modern parents are faced with more issues when it comes to raising their children. One specific issue is associated with the Internet. Children as young as seven years of age are accessing the World Wide Web more today than ever before. This issue was not a problem for parents and their children before August 1991. Today, parents must protect their children from the potential dangers lurking on every corner of the Internet. How is this possible? Find the answer to this question and much more about Internet safety for young children.
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Teach Children The Signs Of A Predator
Child predators are all over the Internet. These criminals work around the clock preying on the world’s most vulnerable people. Federal, state, and international governments have created a list of Internet child predator signs that children need to know like the back of their hands.
No child is too young to learn these signs, which include an unexpected friend request, over-friendly online strangers, gift offers from strangers, and requests for personal information – physical address, age, name, and phone number.
Other signs include private conversation request, unexpected occurrences like showing up frequently out of the blue, a request for inappropriate content, such as personal images, and online activity monitoring. All of these red flags are signs of an online predator.
Make Children Aware
As mentioned previously, children are among the most vulnerable age group. They will think twice about trusting strangers. In real-life, parents must teach their children about land-based predators. Well, the same thing goes for online predators.
Children need to know online and offline predators exist. While you can watch your children at home, there is no way possible to monitor every second of their online activity. Bringing awareness to the issue is a great way to ensure your child’s safety when you are not present.
Teach Children About Physical Safety
Some children spend way too much time surfing the World Wide Web. While this is a fact, parents need to do their part by limiting their online activities to one hour, no more than two hours per day. There are physical risks involved in extended Internet surfing. These risks include eye strain, headaches, blurred vision, and lower back pain. There is also the risk of developing carpal tunnel, a condition that negatively impacts the median nerve that extends from the palm to the forearm.
The most common cause of carpal tunnel is repetitive activities, such as constant use of a keyboard, mouse, and Situs Poker Terpercaya game controller.
Limiting your child’s online activity to an hour per day will decrease the risk of developing carpal tunnel and the other aforementioned symptoms.
Bring Awareness To Internet Addiction
Nearly every online activity has an addiction tendency. Surfing the Internet, streaming video games, social media interaction, downloading apps, uploading personal images and videos, and taking selfies have addiction tendencies. What this means is your child’s addiction risks increases with each activity.
Even the youngest child capable of accessing the World Wide Web should be aware of Internet addiction. Even if your child does nothing but plays video games for a few hours per day, he/she is still at risk of becoming addicted.
Limiting your child’s online activities to one or two hours per day is a great way to keep these risks at a minimum.
Do Not Be Afraid To Speak Up
Monitoring your child’s online activities is the only way to know when he/she steps out of bound. Maybe it is something as simple as sending a selfie to an unfamiliar social media member is enough to draw a red flag. Do not be afraid to speak up when you are approached with such a decision. Unfortunately, too many parents fail to detect red flags, leaving their children vulnerable to the many online dangers.
Speaking up will let your child know he/she has stepped out of bound. You can only hope he/she will not repeat the same online behavior in the future. As long as your child knows you are monitoring, he/she will be very cautious about taking unnecessary risks.
Parental Controls
Nearly all mobile devices, such as the smartphone, iPad, video game consoles, desktop computers, laptops, and tablets have parental controls. These features allow parents to set online barriers for their children.
