And while your teen might be more tech-savvy than you are, their confidence can cause a problem when it comes to their online safety. Teaching your kids how to stay safe when using the internet is important, and can help put your mind at ease when they use it.
Help your teens stay safe online with the following tips.
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Set some ground rules
Ground rules are important to make sure everyone in your home uses the internet safely. With your teen, it’s important that they realize that you’re setting rules for their safety, and not because you want to have control. Some good ground rules to set include being the keeper of passwords, only allowing browsing at certain times of the day and putting punishments in place for breaking any rules or misbehaving in general. Try to have device-free time in the home, like during dinner time so that both kids and parents don’t spend too much time online and missing out on more important things.Use security measures
You need to have basic security measures in place to make sure your whole family stays safe online. Putting parental controls in place is an obvious one, and you can also use family-orientated antivirus software to keep your data safe.Not all kids use common sense when it comes to the internet, so if you’re particularly concerned about your teen’s activities, you might want to consider other measures to keep them safe online. Family Orbit phone tracking software is particularly useful, and can help you track your teen’s location, as well as monitor who they talk to online. These measures can help everyone feel safer when using the internet, and means you don’t have to look over their shoulder constantly to see what they’re up to.
Talk to them about it
Internet safety and cybercrime regularly feature in the news, and it’s something that you should discuss together as a family. Talking to your kids about online safety can help them become more aware of the dangers of sharing their personal data, as well as issues like cyberbullying, etc. Talking to them about it will help these issues become more normalized, and can give your teens the confidence to come to you if something isn’t quite right.Helping your teens to stay safe online is one of those teen issues that all parents will go through. There are different things you can do to keep your teens safe, but being open and honest is likely to provide the best result. Online safety is an important issue for everyone, so make sure you do what you can to keep your family safe online.
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