Keeping Your Kids Safe Online - Resources

Keeping Your Kids Safe Online

Resources

This list has been culled by me personally and is exhaustive. I will be adding to it constantly, as questions arise, or new technology or even new safety features come out.

My recommendation is to tackle these topics slowly. Do not attempt to take this all in at once. It will be overwhelming!

Find a topic that presently piques your interest or is relevant to a conversation you are having with your child right now. Find one or two sites in the given topic that you think will work best for you and/or your family.

There will be redundancy in some of the materials presented, what is often different though is the way it is presented.

Digital Citizenship

Be Internet Awesome - https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en - To make the most of the Internet, kids need to be prepared to make smart decisions. Be Internet Awesome teaches kids the fundamentals of digital citizenship and safety so they can explore the online world with confidence. There is also a game, a curriculum, and a pledge available from this Google Resource.

Digital Citizenship - https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship - Common Sense is the nation’s leading non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21s century. Their site here provides several resources including lessons broken down by grade levels. There are also some games and family engagement tools.

Digital Citizenship Guide for Parents - http://mediasmarts.ca/sites/mediasmarts/files/guides/digital-citizenship-guide.pdf - A semi-lengthy, but intelligent guide for raising children in the digital age; tackling topics ranging from “when should I let my child have a social media account” all the way through plagiarism and illegal downloads. From Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy.

What Your Students Really Need to Know About Digital Citizenship - https://www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-citizenship-need-to-know-vicki-davis - Discusses the “9 Key Ps” (Passwords, Private information, Personal information, Photographs, Property, Permission, Protection, Professionalism, Personal Brand).

Why you should be spying on your kids (video) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2buaziaNnE (11m 25s) – Detective Richard Wistocki gives an overview of why raising good digital citizens is so important and also describes his “Golden Ticket” approach.

Filtering/Monitoring

Google Families - https://families.google.com/families - Whether you’re a Google/Android household or not, chances are fair that you are making use of at least one Google (Alphabet) service. If more than one member of your household is also making use of said service, this is a good place to tie everything together. Not only will this allow you to setup an account (email) for your child/children, but you can manage their membership into multiple services, such as Google Music, YouTube Red, etc.

Microsoft account – Your family -  https://account.microsoft.com/family/about - I’ll be honest, I don’t have much experience in this realm, but this appears to be a way to tie together family accounts in a 365 environment. You’d most likely do this in Windows 10 or newer operating systems. This would allow you to manage files amongst your family easily and across multiple devices, set screen time limits for accounts labeled as children accounts, share calendar information, etc. If you are using Windows 10 and/or also using 365 for anything, you should consider setting your family up in here.

Families – Apple - https://www.apple.com/families/ - Same as above for me, I do not have much experience in this realm. My family is both a Microsoft family and an Android family. We have very old Apple devices that this probably would not even work on. However, all of that said, the concept is the same. It provides you the tools and account access necessary to manage your children and your family across multiple Apple devices. If you are an Apple family, and/or make fair usages of more than one Apple device in your household, chances are great that you will want to look into this.

Disney Circle / Meet Circle - https://meetcircle.com/ - I have only just begun to explore this, but this is a monitoring tool to can plug into your home network, or if you have bought a newer Netgear router, comes built right into it! There is an app you can use on your phone and it will allow for granular control of screen time as well as application use on your network. It is subscription based. A better summary can be found here: https://www.pocket-lint.com/parenting/news/disney/141515-what-is-circle-with-disney-how-can-it-moderate-kids-internet-usage-and-how-do-you-set-it-up - The device itself costs $129.00 and includes a one-year subscription for free. If you already have Circle built into your newer router, or your one year free trial expires, then the monthly subscription rate is $9.99/month.

OpenDNS Family Shield - https://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security/ - The web service OpenDNS provides a mechanism for doing some free, basic filtering on your home network. They provide guidance on how to set things up across devices or on your main WiFi router.

Limiting Screen Time

Children and Media Tips from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) - https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/news-features-and-safety-tips/Pages/Children-and-Media-Tips.aspx - This guideline draws from the AAP’s “Growing Up Digital: Media Research Symposium” and seems to be updated about once a year. If you’ve ever wondered what your child’s pediatrician had to say about your kids and screen time, this is the official word.

Family Media Plan - https://www.healthychildren.org/English/media/Pages/default.aspx - I cannot say enough about how cool this “wizard” is. You put your children’s names and age range in there and it gives you a great checklist of Device Free Zones, Device Curfews, what we’ll do when we have recreational screen time, manners, digital citizenship, and so much more! Honestly, just give it a try. You can use this as your own personal guidance as a parent, or you can print it out and make sure everyone knows about it! There’s also a media time calculator which can show you what your child’s day might look like if you fill it out with tasks/situations appropriate to your family.

How to Tell Relatives, Teachers, Babysitters, and Even Your Spouse Your Screen Time Rules - https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/how-to-tell-relatives-teachers-babysitters-and-even-your-spouse-your-screen-time-rules - Communication! As with nearly everything in this list, this guide provides tips for you to help manage the rules you’ve set for your child with everyone else that is not you! It is so important to clearly set expectations for your children when it comes to their device usage, and it is very important those rules are consistently enforced!

9 secrets to managing your child’s screen time - https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/managing-your-childs-screen-time/ - If you don’t read the suggestions from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), then give this list a read. The tips are more high level, but they get the point across just as well.

Lingo / Terminology
(you will find bad words in these lists)

Urban Dictionary - https://www.urbandictionary.com/ - This site is a rabbit hole of awful slang, hilarious slang, and hilariously awful slang. If you’d prefer to avoid reading things which undoubtedly will eventually offend you, avoid this site and peruse some of the others below. This site is the granddaddy of all slang terminology websites.

Teen Slang: The Complete Parent’s Guide + Infographic - https://netsanity.net/teen-slang-parents-guide/ - This site has some fun infographics to look at broken up into a couple of categories. They also write up about what they see as trends in social media amongst teenagers.

What slang words mean, from bad to okurrr, shade and woke - https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/allthemoms/2019/02/06/kids-teen-slang-terms-meaning-of-lit-fam-sis-flewed-goat-okurrr-shade-woke-tea-cappin-trip/2767570002/ - sometimes it’s fun to see these things in an actual news article on an actual news site. By no means comprehensive

30 Trendy Internet Slang Words and Acronyms to Know in 2019 - https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/30-trendy-internet-acronyms-slang-need-know-fit/ - This one actually has a lot more long-standing slang terms such as AMA (Ask Me Anything) and FTFY (Fixed That For You), but it also has a handy video of 60 slang terms to boot!

Instagram

A Parent’s Guide To Instagram (official) - https://help.instagram.com/299484113584685 - This guide was created by employees (parents) at Instagram and was developed and localized with the help of safety and parenting organizations around the world. Focuses on a) How to manage privacy; b) managing interactions; c) managing time. This guide is geared towards a parent or parents of teenagers.

The Parent’s Guide to Instagram - https://www.connectsafely.org/instagram/ - A guide created by the Connect Safely group whom aim to be a leading voice calling for rational, research-informed policies and not “moral panic” responses. This guide is easily digestible and covers other topics important to your understanding, such as what is “rinsta” and “finsta?”

Facebook

Parents Portal - https://www.facebook.com/safety/parents - If you are new to Facebook or ever wondered how you might look at Facebook as a parent (of a teen just joining the site), the official Facebook portal for parents is exactly the right place to start! Not only will the material [most likely] remain up to date, but Facebook knows their own material than anybody else who might write on the subject. There are other tools and resources this page might lead you to as well.

How to stay safe on Facebook - https://www.digitalunite.com/technology-guides/social-networking-blogs/facebook/how-stay-safe-facebook - Not geared specifically to our children, but a privacy guide in general that includes the most up-to-date settings for the website’s privacy controls, and where to look for these things in the app.

Gaming

Video Game Guides - https://www.askaboutgames.com/advice/video-game-guides/ - A UK-based site, this page has a great number of overviews of all the new, most talked about games! Search on the page for a game you are interested in – there are approximately 70 games on the page for review, dating back to 2015. Once you find a review, dive on in. There are game summaries, description of objectives, screenshots, sometimes video reviews, etc. In the “Parental Controls” section, they also provide links to each respective console/device’s website on how to enable or disable features.

Snapchat

Safety Center – Safety on Snapchat - https://www.snap.com/en-US/safety/safety-center/ - Snapchat’s official safety site. A great starting point to be sure, but it can dive deep quickly.

A parent’s guide to using Snapchat safely - https://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/internet/social-media/what-is-snapchat-a-safety-guide-for-parents-11364052742537 - British Telecom provides a great overview of what Snapchat is/does and some of the possible dangers a child may face. They also provide guidance on settings you can enable to keep things safer while on Snapchat.

Malware

How to Talk to Your Kids About Malware - https://cyberscout.com/education/blog/how-to-talk-to-your-kids-about-malware - Like the title says, this blog post gives you some ideas on how to have a conversation about malware with your children. I’d recommend NOT taking a heavy-handed approach should malware arise on the family computer or a personal device (of theirs or yours). Malware can be unavoidable, but it takes lots of practice or at least lots of reading to understand all the signs. Malware infections are intended to happen by accident, it’s built into the design. Anyway, again, here are some things to think about.

Malware Facts for Kids - https://kids.kiddle.co/Malware - Kiddle is a kid’s based search engine. This is a good article describing what malware is, how it works, and how it can be stopped.

Twitch

The Hidden Dangers of Twitch - https://www.netnanny.com/blog/the-hidden-dangers-of-twitch/ - Despite the title, the page actually gives a fair take on why Twitch is a valuable resource (game reviews, for example). It does however spell out things to take into consideration as a parent and what types of things a user of Twitch (your child) might find. There is a brief product pitch at the very end of the article. I can speak nothing about the software, because I am not familiar with it.

A Twitch Guide for Parents - https://www.tomsguide.com/us/twitch-guide-for-parents,news-22606.html – Picking up where the above guide leaves off, this article spells out some other considerations when looking into Twitch. For example: do you pay for an ad-free subscription or not? Should you pay for a subscription to one user’s stream? (The money gives that user revenue.) It also shows some controls you can utilize on Twitch to keep things safer.

Twitter

Parent’s Guide to Twitter | Internet Safety Guidance - https://www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/hub/parents-guide-to-twitter/ - You may have heard before that Twitter is a flaming hot dumpster fire, and, well… the critics aren’t necessarily wrong. But just like the rest of the internet, there is a lot of good there too. Twitter just isn’t great with regards to safety controls and reporting issues. But if you can keep things relatively contained (your child understands their boundaries well), or you are just interested to learn more, this guide is about the best practical guide I can find that isn’t full-blown scary.

A parent’s guide to Twitter* - http://www.digitalparenting.ie/twitter.html - This site is based in Ireland, but provides a good picture of some of the things that are quite scary or worrisome about Twitter. While I’m not doing a great job of selling Twitter as a worthy social network, I do need to note the same flaming hot dumpster that is Twitter really is/can be everywhere else too! Again, it’s just a matter of controls, or lack thereof.

YouTube

YouTube Kids - https://www.youtube.com/kids/ - A separate application aimed specifically at families/our children. They use a mix of filters, user feedback and human reviewers to keep the videos in YouTube Kids family friendly. It allows much more control over content than the standard YouTube app.

Get Smart on YouTube: A Parent’s Ultimate Guide - https://ptaourchildren.org/youtube-parent-guide/ - Great advice on how to approach YouTube with your child/children. If your kids are anything like mine, YouTube has effectively replaced what we knew as “TV.” Navigating the endless content on YouTube is a challenge in and of itself, but then considering what we want our children exposed to in a sea of unknown content, adds yet another challenge. But there’s good advice here.

What Kids are Really Watching on YouTube (and how parents can deal with it) - https://www.raisingdigitalnatives.com/youtube-parenting/ - Similar to the guide above, this brief site gives you some strategies to think about in allowing your children to be YouTube consumers.

6 Ways To Make YouTube (And YouTube Kids) Safe For Your Children - https://www.scarymommy.com/monitor-youtube-kids-content/ - Exactly as the description says, six things you can and should do. #6 is actually, “Delete the YouTube app!” Despite the website name, Scary Mommy is a great resource for parenting advice, and other entertainment as well.

YouTube Kids: everything you need to know - https://parentzone.org.uk/article/youtube-kids-everything-you-need-know - A UK-based site, this page provides you with a good overview of why the YouTube Kids app is different than YouTube. And it provides a nice run down of some of the parental controls/features this app has too.

Your child wants to start a YouTube channel? Here are some points to consider - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2018/07/19/your-child-wants-to-start-a-youtube-channel-heres-what-to-consider/ - Maybe your child/children are like mine… they really want to start their own YouTube channel. It seems easy, and it is easy. But due to how easy it is, there are a number of things you’ll want to ask yourselves/your children. Most people don’t get famous on YouTube, but what if? Again, there are questions/conversations you’ll want to have, in this article.

Misc.

A Guide To Parental Controls By Device - https://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/advice/a-guide-to-parental-controls-by-device/ - If you think to yourself: “I need to get started somewhere!” when it comes to managing controls for keeping your kids safe online, then you can’t go wrong by starting here. Of course, this guide comes from Parents Magazine, and begins giving you tips/things to do for iOS, Android, Amazon Fire, Windows 10, and even advice on web browsers. There are certainly more comprehensive guides available for each of these specific things, including guides that will really drill down into everything you can do, but as stated at the start of this summary – this is a great starting point!

A Parent’s Guide to Online Safety - https://www.webroot.com/us/en/resources/tips-articles/malware-kids-online - This article has the “9 Things You Can Teach Kids to Help Improve Online Safety” which rehashes some of what my talk was about. But really is just good, practical advice for navigating the murky waters of raising digital citizens.

Trace my Shadow – https://myshadow.org/trace-my-shadow  - A tool that allows you to get a glimpse into the digital traces you’re leaving: how many, what kinds, and from what devices.