Here are some tips on how to help keep your family safe online.
1. Make sure your children use your GoTab in a central place. This will make it easier to keep an eye on your children’s activities.
2. Know where your children go online. If you have young children, you might use the Internet with them. For older children, you could talk about what kinds of site they like to visit and what isn’t appropriate for your family. You can also check where your kids have been by looking at the history in your browser menu. Another option is to use filtering tools like Google SafeSearch.
3. Teach Internet safety. It’s impossible to monitor your child’s online activity all the time. As they get older, they need to know how to use the Internet safely and responsibly when they’re on their own.
4. Use privacy settings and sharing controls. Many sites that feature user-generated content, including YouTube, Blogger and social networking sites, have sharing controls that put users in charge of who sees personal blogs, photos, videos and profiles. Using sharing controls is particularly important when you or your children share personal information such as names, addresses or phone numbers on public sites. Teach your children to respect the privacy of friends and family by not identifying people by name in public profiles and pictures.
5. Protect passwords. Remind your children not to give out their passwords. Make sure that they make a habit of unclicking “remember me” settings on public computers, such as those at school or in the library.
6. Beware of strangers. Teach your children not to arrange in-person meetings with people that they “meet” online and not to share personal information with online strangers, because people may not be who they claim to be.
7. Help to prevent viruses. Use anti-virus software and update it regularly. Make sure that your children avoid downloading from file-sharing websites and don’t accept files or open email attachments from unknown people.
8. Teach your children to communicate responsibly. Take the following as a good rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t text it, email it, instant message it or post it as a comment on someone’s page.
9. View all content critically. Just because you see it online, there’s no guarantee that it’s true. Children should learn how to distinguish reliable sources from unreliable ones and how to verify information that they find online.
Cyber-bullying
If you’re concerned that your child is being bullied online, talk to them. It might be a difficult subject to broach but being open, honest and approachable will make it easier for them to discuss their feelings. Don’t get mad, but tell them you will do all you can to help them – don’t act alone or behind your child’s back, try to do the following with them.
If you discover your child is being bullied, the first thing to do is report it. You and/or your child should use the reporting mechanisms where possible on sites to flag the bullying content, so that it can be removed. Don’t respond or retaliate, but you can block users, and make sure you save any bullying messages, posts, pictures or videos you receive or see as evidence when you report them.
Ensure your child knows where they can go to get help and support if they are being bullied. Children, who often find it easier to talk about their problems to other youngsters, can get online support. We recommend looking here for further advice – http://www.beatbullying.org/dox/help/help-for-parents.html
Understand what your child is doing online – but talk to them, don’t spy on them. Make sure they understand how to stay safe. Here are some tips for children:
What else to do if you are being cyberbullied or harassed online:
• Report any cyberbullying, whether it’s targeted at you or not, and flag it up to the YouTube team. Block those users too.
• Never respond or retaliate, as this can just make things worse. It might be difficult, but try to ignore the bullies.
• Save and print out any bullying messages, posts, pictures or videos you receive or see.
• Make a note of dates and times of bullying messages, along with any details you have about the sender’s ID.
• Don’t pass on cyberbullying videos or messages – that makes you as bad as the cyberbully.
• If you’re being bullied repeatedly, think about changing your user ID, nickname or profile.
Finally… if you think that someone else is being cyberbullied, don’t ignore it, report it.
• Don’t post personal information online.
• Don’t let anyone know your passwords.
• Think carefully about what you say before you write or post anything online.
• Respect other people’s views – just because you don’t agree with them, it doesn’t mean that you have to be rude or abusive.
• Google yourself every now and again. It will show you what is online about you and what others can see – and you can make changes if you don’t like what you see!
Protecting your child from sexually explicit, violent material and other inappropriate content
There are some great things you can see on the internet, but sometimes people with bad intentions can post pictures and things to read which might upset you. This might be racist, violent or pornographic or may include abusive images. You shouldn’t have to put up with this. If your child should come across any content that is inappropriate, worries them or makes them upset then they should be encouraged to come to you or a trusted adult and ‘flag’ the issue. If your child does experience inappropriate content online they should also report it, or ‘flag-it’ to the website it appears on. CEOP and the Police have developed an Internet safety ‘one stop shop’ with more information – click here for more information.
Some options to help prevent your child’s exposure to harmful content might include:
• The internet-connected computer must be in a family room with the screen facing outward so you can see what’s going on
• If your child accidentally goes to an unsuitable website they should tell you – you can delete it from the ‘history’ folder and add the address to the parental control filter list
• It’s never OK to use abusive or threatening language in any online communication
• Your child should take breaks from the computer every 30 minutes for health and safety reasons
• Your child shouldn’t download unknown files from the internet without you agreeing – it’s best to never download unknown files at all
Only install apps with “everyone” or “low maturity” content ratings
You have the option to filter apps in the app store by changing the content filter settings:
1. Open the Google Play app on your GoTab.
2. Press Menu and touch Settings.
3. Touch Content filtering, choose “everyone” or “low maturity“, then tap OK.
4. Enter a PIN code, then touch OK
5. Re-enter your PIN to confirm
Of you can alternatively Set a password on your Google Play Account – read our guide here
This article was created with thanks to Google.