(6 votes, 3.67 / 5
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The proliferation of computer and communications technology in my lifetime has been amazing, When I was a kid, the only person I knew who had a mobile phone was James Bond. He had a phone in his car! How cool was that! Back then, the only people with portable computers were the crew of the starship Enterprise!
Kids today have access to technology that is approaching, and in some respects exceeds the tech of the 23rd century world of Captain Kirk. We don’t yet beam them to school, but we send them off with laptops, smartphones and tablet computers. Keeping kids safe online is a major responsibility of 21st century parenting.
Concern for children online has been growing since the early Internet and the first online chat rooms. In this world of always online ubiquitous computing, parental guidance is essential for the safety of children, not to mention having them get the most positive experience from this amazing technology.
Parent’s knowledge on the Internet: To keep children safe from online dangers, the first and foremost thing of each parent is to get a clear knowledge and understand on how internet works, what are the ways, through which their children can get attacked online and how to prevent their children from online dangers.
Online safety skills training for teachers: Teachers are also equally responsible in taking efforts in advising children on e-safety. A recent survey says that only 28% of teachers have had proper online safety skills training. This is not enough to teach e-safety, when Internet is considered as the key factor in the recent education system.
Blocking unauthorized content: The best known defence mechanism against unauthorized content is to block it before accessing it. Use Antivirus for Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista Parental Controls and Xbox parental controls. These Parental Controls helps to block unwanted content and websites.
Limit downloads: Block downloads which causes risk to security and privacy. Advise children not to download games and music from unauthorized sources through the Internet as they have high tendency to pull in spyware or other inappropriate software which might infect the system.
Increase privacy with multiple user accounts: Parents can create multiple user accounts. The administrator accounts can be managed by the parents with full control over the computer and giving limited user accounts to their children, which limits downloading games, installing chat programs and changing system settings.
- Children should avoid strangers online: Child’s safety in the virtual world is as important as real world safety. Make your children aware that there are strangers online just as the real world strangers. Try to make them understand and provide them an in depth knowledge about online dangers. Teach them not to reveal their personal information or photos to anyone online.
- Strong Passwords to the children’s rescue: Teach Children on how to keep strong passwords to protect private information. A combination of special characters, upper, lower case letters and numbers with a minimum of 8 characters should be maintained.
- Edit Web Browser security settings: Customize the security levels of the web browser that helps to control your preferences on security and privacy, thereby protecting your child through the web browser.
- Track children’s online activity: Review the history details and check on the recently visited sites by your child.
Conclusion
• Spending time with your children to get online
• Show all your interest in knowing what your child is up to – online!
• Setting rules to protect your child from online dangers
These few simple steps means keeping kids safe online is mission possible.
