Cybersecurity Blog

Kids and cell phones, how to keep them safe – 08/08/18

 

As parents gleefully start planning for back to school, one question that may come up is ‘Does my child need a cell phone?’. If your answer is yes, there are some things that you can do to help protect them from cyber bullies, predators and scammers.

  1. Enable the password protected screen lock.  Let your child know that the password should not be shared with anyone but Mom or Dad.
  2. Know every app on your child’s phone, every account that is created and what the passwords are.
  3. Check your child’s phone for disturbing content on a regular basis. Their access to a phone should depend on you having access to it as well. You pay the bills, you make the rules.
  4. Check the privacy and security settings on the phone and apps. Be careful with location tracking. If you can find your child, so can someone else.
  5. Keep the apps and phone software up to date.
  6. Have a talk with your kids about online safety. Teach them to:
    • Never respond to calls, texts or emails from people they don’t know.
    • Talk to them about cyber bullying, harassment and predators. Make sure they know they can come to you for help.
    • Be careful about what they post. Too much personal information can make them vulnerable. Posting the wrong photo or making the wrong comment can mess up your life.
    • Only connect to people through social media that they know.
    • Watch for geo-tagging on photos. They don’t want their exact location to be displayed.

Even if you don’t follow all these guidelines, having a frank and honest discussion about phone safety and modeling desired behavior will go a long way to keeping your kids safe.  For more resources on determining when is the right time for a cell phone and how to keep your kids and teens cyber safe, visit Safe Search Kids by Google.

 

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