Internet Safety for Kids

Internet Safety for Kids. Keep your kids safe from the darker side of the internet. Parents need to take care of children in vulnerable age-groups and keep track of their gaming and online activities.

Internet Safety Facts for Kids & Teens

The Kidsafe website, one of the respected authority, reports that almost 32 percent of grown-up children (particularly teens) hide / delete their Web browsing history, so their parents cannot keep a track of what they’ve been doing.

The same survey shows that 16 percent of teens have email addresses or accounts on social networking sites that they haven’t told their parents about.

Websites usually don’t allow eleven and twelve year old’s (less than 18 or 16 in some cases) to create accounts on social networking website accounts, obviously because they’re too young. But then they lie about their ages, but that often means they attract dangerous sexual attention from older children or even adults.

The U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports that about 15 percent of children received sexual messages from strangers on the Internet. A full 35 percent also saw nudity or other sexual images online, and only 1 in 4 of these children told their parents that they had seen these pornographic images.

Here are some more instances, in addition to ones around identity theft, which should concern most adults. Even though the percentage is lower, over the years they have been increasing.

• Many children receive aggressive solicitations from adults who attempt to meet them in person, and some of the children have actually met the strangers in the real world.
• Most girls polled said they could chat online without their parents’ knowledge, could read their parents email, and could conduct a cyber relationship.
• Teens regularly receive personal messages online from people they don’t know, and most of them don’t tell a trusted adult about it.
• Teens (mostly females) post photos or videos of themselves online, and most teens also post info about where they live. Very few are worried about others using their personal info in ways they shouldn’t be.

Cyber-Bullying: Teaching kids and teens to deal with it

Cyberbullying is using digital technology to deliberately hurt someone. It can happen in lots of different ways (on FB, blogs, etc.). You can help your child avoid cyberbullying by agreeing on rules about smartphone and computer use. Making your child aware of online safety is important too.

Cyber-Bullying Forces Florida Girl to Commit Suicide, Mother Demands Tougher Laws

Several months of cyber-bullying by classmates forced a 12-year old Florida girl to commit suicide. Mother demands new & tougher laws after criminal charges against her daughter’s alleged bullies were dropped.

Public schools have the authority to discipline students for cyber-bullying if it substantially disrupts the learning environment or infringes on the rights of other students. However in this case, it seems proper safeguards were not in place to ensure that the bullying ended in an appropriate time frame.

Keep kids away from dangerous games

Parents, get your kid off the ‘blue whale’ game right away.

Parents, you should be concerned if your kid is playing the ‘blue whale’ game. All parents out there, or anyone who knows of any kid playing the online game called Blue Whale, please get your kids off this game right away. The game gives them 50 challenges and the last challenge is to commit suicide.

‘Digital Citizenship’ Lessons in Indian Schools

Google and NCERT will soon introduce a course on digital citizenship and safety in the information and communication technology (ICT) curriculum for schools across India.

The aim of the course will be to teach Students on how to be good and responsible digital citizens, by focusing on the social, ethical and legal aspects of internet safety.

Google has also created a curriculum for teachers so that they can effectively teach students about digital citizenship in their classrooms.

“This makes it important for us to start a dialogue on the dangers and threats they can be exposed to when surfing the net. Through our course integration with NCERT, we aim to catch children young and teach them the essentials of staying safe, while exploring the online world,” Google India.

The internet safety program has been divided into four themes:

• Being Smart
• Being Safe
• Being a Digital Citizen
• Being Future Ready.

The curriculum has been structured as per the various age groups:

• In lower classes, students will focus on engaging with technology and learning the use of basic digital tools.
• In middle classes students will be introduced to basics of the internet, concepts of account safety and distinguishing good content from bad.
• Further, they will be taught more advanced topics such as privacy, device management, intellectual property and reputation management.
• Finally, as they become ready to graduate as digital citizens, they will be prepared with online financial literacy and cyber crime concepts so that they are future ready.

Social Media Hazard: Avoid Keeping Children’s Pictures as Profile Picture to Keep Away Child Traffickers

A guy sends you a friend request. You don’t know him, but he’s got a cute profile picture, so you accept his friend request.

It’s your baby girl’s first day of school. She looks SO cute in her new outfit you just have to take a picture and put it on Facebook so all your friends and family can see.

You’re so excited dropping her off that you ‘Check in’ to her school on FB saying
‘I can’t believe how big she’s gotten. Time sure flies. One proud momma/daddy right here’.

Meanwhile, the mystery guy whose friend request you hurriedly accepted earlier this morning is saving that picture you posted of your daughter in her cute new outfit to his phone and texting it to 60 other grown men across the world with the caption –
‘Indian Female. Age 5.
Brown Hair. Black Eyes.
Rs. 70,000/-‘.

Not only did you provide a picture of your little girl to a child trafficker, you’ve handed him the name and exact location of her school on a silver cyber platter.

You go to pick her up at 3:00 this afternoon, but she’s nowhere to be found.

Little do you know, your precious baby girl was sold to a 43 years old pedophile before you even stepped foot off campus this morning, and now she’s on her way to South Africa with a bag over her head, confused, terrified and crying because a man she’s never seen before picked her up from school, and now she doesn’t know where her parents are, where she’s going, or what’s gonna happen to her.

STOP ADDING STRANGERS ON FACEBOOK
and
STOP
posting everything about your life on Facebook.

Avoid keeping children’s pictures as profile picture.

To Conclude

It is strongly recommended that you have adequate parental controls in place, and keep the computer in a central area in your house, especially if your kids are going to use it.

You should also use a good anti-virus software, and use good practices such as disconnecting from the internet when not in use, and even turning off your computer once you are done with your work.

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