It is like showing your 1-year old kid how to walk. You teach them how to take those tiny steps with your support and after one or two months they start running without any support. When you look at the big ocean of the Internet where there
If used in a positive way the Internet will bring major positive revolutions in your life and if not then it will ruin the life of your kids. This rule is applicable to all group of ages. If a student starts a negative use of the World Wide Web then he/she will not be able to properly concentrate on their first priority which is obviously their studies.
The Internet is full of information. You can get data on almost every topic that comes to your mind. But intelligent use is advisable. To make the future of your kids brighter, you need to get out of the shelf. You are no more supposed to be conventional parent or teacher. You need to focus on your kid’s online as well as real life. The internet is an excellent educational and learning platform for kids if they use it under your supervision.
Your kids are innocent, but some people on the internet are not. Your innocent kids may easily become the prey of these cruel people if you are not taking proper steps. Here we will talk about a few of the most important things that you can adapt to keep your kids away from all the negative and harmful activities.
Encourage Safe Search Practices for Kids
Searching for a specific topic on the internet will be an excellent way for learning purpose. You can find multiple solutions for a single problem which is really a great aspect of the World Wide Web. But if a kid searches for a query on a traditional way as you do then this is not guaranteed that they will get kid-friendly content. There are higher chances that they will come across a mix of content i.e. both kids and adult. To avoid this, you should teach your kids to use a dedicated search engine.
We highly recommend all the parents and educators to educate kids on using Kiddle. It is a search engine from Google with a kid’s safe visual search engine. Kiddle only shows results appropriate for kids. This search engine contains only those websites that are healthy for kids.
It is a search engine, once you enter a keyword/query in the search box it returns only safe and relevant results. Besides, kids Safe sites, it also gives results of those which provide helpful content.
It divides its search results into three categories. First three results are only kids-oriented pages. From 4-7 its shows kids relevant and simpler, readable pages. From 8 onward, it shows harder content and pages written for an adult but safe for kids.
Enable Parental Controls on Devices/Network
Parental control gives you a peaceful mind that your kids are now safe while using the Internet. Enabling parental control means that your kids/family only access and view content on the internet which you want them. Nowadays on most of the common gadgets, you can easily turn on the parental controls to know what should be accessible and what should be not.
So, what kind of control you can enable on your Internet?
Basically, there are three types of controls i.e. Network-based, Device control and application controls.
- Network level controls are those controls that you can enable on the router end. In this way, these controls will automatically apply on the connected devices on that router.
- Similarly, you can enable controls on your gadgets. These controls can be enabled on a smartphone, TV or any other device connected to the internet.
- Application level controls allow you to restrict access to a specific device. You can restrict access to YouTube, to Mobile app etc.
Keep an Eye on Their Social Media Profiles
Usage of social media especially by the younger generation is on peak these days. Besides a few of its positive aspects, social media is totally a waste of time for kids. This is also harmful when it comes to online privacy, email scams, cyberbullying and blindly posting on social media pages.
Parents need to notice this growing threat closely in order to avoid the regrets in the future. We have listed a few of the measures that you can use for avoiding the ruined future of the new generation.
- Encourage them not to use social media for all the time
- Give them negative aspects of social media
- Educate them with whom they should connect
- Treat them like friends so that they can share all their problems with you without any hesitation
- Ask them to be in the communities of good people
- Show them the negative aspects of sharing personal information with unknown people
- Tell them not to trust blindly on each passing man/women
Final Words
The Internet is a great source to grab quick solutions for all your problems. The Internet is a useful invention, but it can be harmful if not handled properly. As a parent, it becomes your responsibility to control your kid’s activities on the Internet.
Your kids don’t know exactly what you know about the dark world of the Internet. They only know the positive rays of it and ignore the hidden dangers. But you are not supposed to ignore the hidden threats, if you do so, then it means you are ruining your kids future by your own hands. Keep these safety checks in your mind before handeling your smartphone or Tablet PC to your kids.
These selected safety checks will help you in minimizing the hidden dangers associated with the Internet. If you want to give us suggestions or want to give us feedback regarding this post, feel free to do so. We love your involvement here in our discussions.