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How To Teach Your Child About Online Privacy And Security: 3 Tips You Should Know

By Paul Liu
Friday, May 23rd, 2014

In this digital age, even young kids have access to the internet. However, the internet could be an extremely dangerous place for children so it is the duty of the parents to explain the concepts of online safety and privacy to their kids. In this informative article, you will learn few tips on how you can make your child more aware about online privacy and security.

Tip #1: Keep Your Personal Information Safe
Tell your child that it is not safe to share his/her name, address, phone number or passwords with other people on the internet. Since most kids have been taught not to interact with strangers in real life, you might use this analogy to explain that except for their friends, everybody is a stranger online.

When your kid starts using the internet, you should supervise few sessions to explain what’s right and what’s wrong so that he/she imbibes some good privacy and safety practices from you. You should also explain how to construct strong passwords and how to stay away from websites that demand too much personal information. Most kid-friendly websites just ask for the first name, date of birth and parent’s email address so you should be able to explain how to identify a friendly website quite easily.

Tip #2: Social Networks Safety
Social networking users are getting younger than ever before and it is no surprise to see kids younger than 13 years on Facebook. The use of social networks by kids brings its own set of privacy challenges that should be addressed by the parents. Encourage your children to join a social network appropriate for their age and teach them the basics of privacy on social sites. Teach your child that is not OK to befriend strangers or reveal personal information about themselves or their parents on social sites. You should also explain how the information posted on social sites is not private and is available to others even years after the post was made.

Apart from teaching about privacy on social networks, you should also explain the dark side of the social sites (and the internet). Explain how posting emotions could lead to cyberbullying or posting revealing images could attract the attention of sexual predators. You should also explain how their online emotional outbursts could be used against them by future college authorities or employers.

Tip#3: Overall Security
As well as teaching about online privacy and safety, you should also explain best practices regarding overall safety and security. For instance, you could explain to your kids how their mobile devices or computers could get infected with viruses and what should be done if such a thing happens. In addition, you should reveal the dangers of using public Wi-Fi hotspots and how they can remain protected at all times with the help of a firewall, anti-virus and VPN. You should also make them aware about how search engines and online marketers track their every move and use their browsing preferences to market products to them. As your kid gets older, you should also teach them about online scams and how to keep their baking and shopping activities safe.