2. What do they discuss, and what information is being shared?

Being aware of online discussions between your children, their friends, and other parties can help you to ward off potential issues before they become genuine problems. It can help to appear passively interested and foster an atmosphere of honesty to stay abreast of the chat topics, perhaps through discussions at mealtimes or while you are out driving in the car.

Children should be aware that their details that must remain private. Their name and age, where they go to school, and other personal details should stay private. You need to emphasise this and explain why. 

This will mean explaining the risks of sexual predators and identity thieves, and/or people who may be upsetting for them or make them feel uncertain or uncomfortable online.

3. Educate children about cybercrime 

Cybercriminals target anyone they believe can offer an easy “payday.” In most cases, this doesn’t include children, but they remain at risk – not least because eventually they will become income-earning adults.

You should educate yourself and your family about the risks of malware posing as online adverts a.k.a. malvertising*, and the danger of clicking links in messages – especially from strangers. 

Viruses, worms, ransomware and more can impact a device and any personal data on it. A spoof email with a link to a phishing** site might pose as a familiar online destination (e.g. Facebook) fooling the user into submitting the usual username and password, which is then stolen.

Emails can be monitored, and spam filtered. This can be automated using anti-spam software, although web-based email clients such as Gmail (google mail) may have this protection. The best defence is to ensure your children understand the various risks from cybercriminals.

4. Outline the risks and benefits of social media

Social media can be fun, but it comes with built-in risks.These include privacy being voluntary surrendered (profile information, photos, location updates, etc.), peer judgement - comments on activities, photos, videos, and so on), and the potential impact of “doom scrolling,”i.e. reading endless bad news on social networks like Twitter. Added to that are posts that seem harmless on social media where they ask for information such as what was your first teacher’s name, or the first car you owned, or your pet’s name.

None of these things are good for the personal safety and well-being of young people.Social networks all have their own rules about what age is suitable for use. For example, Facebook and Instagram require users to be at least 13, as do Twitter and Snapchat. WhatsApp, meanwhile, has a minimum age of 16.

It is vital that children do not use these services if they are too young. Even then, a judgement call is needed by parents to determine if the platform is suitable. Parents may decide to create an account on their child’s behalf and manage it (much like a social media team for a celebrity) in order to cushion unsuitable comments, material, and contacts.



With this in mind, it is also important for parents to avoid oversharing. Data posted online can remain visible for years. Some parents choose not to post photos of their children on social media until those children can decide whether they want to be seen online. This may prove difficult if you use Facebook for communicating with overseas family members, but you can restrict access to those specific posts.  

5. Should you monitor your child’s mobile devices?

You pay the bills, you provide internet access, and you may have bought the phone, tablet, or computer your child uses. 

While children enjoy their own privacy as they grow up, it is not unreasonable to expect to monitor their online activities. Key online service providers including Amazon, Microsoft, and Google provide tools to manage access, limit websites, block specific content types, and track devices. If you use the Apple web-browser Safari you will see notifications that that it stops websites from tracking your browsing.

Finding the appropriate level of control can be difficult. If these steps are implemented at the start of of children going online it will be expected and not seen as an intrusion. 

The content accessed at home should be at the same levels they access in a school environment. Parental control tools usually offer granular controls, however, making it easy to set age-appropriate access permissions with the minimum of fuss.

As a parent, it is your responsibility to clarify what is reasonable behaviour online just as you would express suitable conduct offline. No doubt other kids get access to things your children do not. This probably isn’t as big a deal as they make out, but there is no harm in offering to check it out first, or supervising access.

6. Get the balance right

You don’t want to cause unnecessary ructions or generate friction when it is not needed. But if you want to keep your children safe online, you need to take action.

Parental control software is just one side of the coin. Sitting down and discussing the issues that put their online behaviour at risk is arguably even more important. 

That means making them aware of cybercrime, social media risks and the potential consequences of oversharing. It also means that while device monitoring is important, it should be done with your child’s agreement and understanding.

* Malvertising

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising

https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-malware-malvertising.html



** Phishing

https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/phishing

About the author

Christian Crawley has a background in general desktop support in the public sector and specialised software support in the private sector, Christian has worked as a freelance technology writer for websites and newsstand publications since 2008.