Ten years ago, who would have ever imagined the power that kids could have in their hands to search the internet and see and read just about anything and everything. We can see movies, read books, look up a phone number all on the web Everything online is searchable. So how do we keep our kids “safe”? There are different ways to keep our kids safe online by restricting non age appropriate material on the internet.
If your child has an iPod, the first thing you can do is to change some of the settings. This will keep your child from accidentally stumbling upon something you don’t want them to see or hear. Enable or disable restrictions on your child’s iPod by setting a pass code that only you can change.
- You can restrict the type of movies your kids download by the movie rating.
- You can turn off the permission to install apps as well as in-app purchases.
- You might want to turn off the Location app so people won’t know where your child is via the GPS locator.
- YouTube can be disabled since there is no way to restrict inappropriate content from being seen.
- Music, Podcasts, and TV shows can also be set for clean viewing/listening.
Look into some apps that can filter out what can pop up. All material goes through the app allowing you to select the content that you want to be seen. One app you can try is called Safe Eyes Mobile.
Talk to your children. Let them know that there are dangers online. Tell them to never to give out their personal information.
You may want to keep the logs available. Don’t let your kids erase their logs. It will make them accountable.
Depending on your child’s age, chat rooms are not the best idea and let them know to be very careful when participating in a chat room.
Today’s kids have access to resources way beyond what we had when we were growing up. By protecting your kids, they will have the freedom to surf the web safely and you and they will have a little peace of mind. Happy surfing!