I learned it the hard way. When it comes to online child safety, it’s so easy to be lazy.
Parental vigilance is essential to keeping kids safe online and offline. Parents are much better about keeping the physical space child-safe: installing child-safety locks, fences, security cameras, etc. But when it comes to protecting kids in the digital world, most parents take the “hope for the best” approach. They don’t want to take the time to understand the safety tools available and go through the laborious process of enabling them.
I had a foster child who would get screen time when he achieved certain goals. He was allowed to play a video game on my laptop. He could only use the laptop in the living room where I could “supervise” him from the kitchen. My house had an open plan. One day, I went into my room for a little bit and came out. He didn’t hear me coming out. I saw him watching porn on my laptop. I looked at the browser history, and he had done this in the past weeks as well. He figured out that I was listening for the game music. I wasn’t looking at his screen. When I walked close, he would switch the screen to the game screen. I was appalled that he was watching porn on my laptop, and dumbfounded that he was doing it in the living room under my “supervision.” He was 9 years old!
I should have created a child account on the laptop, which would have blocked those sites. But I was lazy. I knew it was a good idea but thought that it wasn’t needed since he was in an open area where I could see him.
Yes, it is so much easier to just hand your child a device with your login. Not only are the kids exposed to potential dangers online, but you may end up with surprise posts on your social media accounts and text messages to friends and colleagues. 😀
There are many tools available to help parents block inappropriate content, some of which are built into the devices. Fortress has how-to guides to help you navigate through some of them. But here is one thing you can start doing, if you haven’t done it already: create child accounts.
If your child has a tablet or smartphone, set it up with a child account. The device’s operating system (e.g., Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android) has built-in child safety controls once the device is set up with a child account. It may take about 10-20 minutes to set up. It’s probably the best 20 minutes you will spend for your family’s peace of mind.
Even on a shared computer, make sure that the child has a child login. Log out of your account and have your child log in with the child account.
If your child is using your device, restrict access to just the one app that your child is supposed to be using. You can do this by turning on Guided Access (for Apple devices) or App Pinning or Screen Pinning (Android devices). If they are searching the web, turn on the kids safe search filter on the browsers. Check out Fortress’ step-by-step guides on how to do these.
Creating a child account is a great start, but don’t stop here! Check out all our how-to guides to keep kids safe online for non-techie parents.
Your child’s online safety is worth your time! I promise.