So, your child has a blog, wants to be on Facebook and thinks Twitter and Foursquare are cool.
Chances are your child's friends are on some social networking sites and using some of the tools already.
Unless you live in a cave and shun technology, there is no way you're going to stop your child from joining the social network train.
The best you can do is learn as much as you can about these sites and tools (if you yourself are not already using them) and guide your children to be safe.
1) Trust no one
Children are very trusting. While that may be fine in school with their peers, the same is not true when it comes to social networking sites. Because everyone can be anonymous online, it is easy for a predator to pretend to be 10 years old when he is in fact a 39-year-old paedophile.
As such, children's interaction online should be limited to the friends they know in the real world.
Even if they are playing in what is claimed to be the safest and most secure virtual world for kids, they should only keep the interaction minimal with people they don't know and stick to playing with people they know from the real world.
2) Know the sites your kids are on
As parents, you need to take an interest in their world – real and virtual. This means, joining Friendster and using Foursquare, if that's what your child is on. Get on their network, be their buddy and keep an eye on who they are interacting with and what is being said/exchanged.
You can read up as much as you want to about social networks but nothing beats joining the network and using it regularly. That's the best way to learn about the danger zones and how to best secure the privacy settings.
3) Follow the age limits
Most, if not all, social networking sites and virtual worlds need a login, password and as such have rules and regulations – this includes age limits.
Read, read and read the rules and regulations and do not allow your children to become members or join the site if they are too young, even if all their friends are members.
There are reasons for these rules and age limits, so do comply with them. Failing which, you may find your child is exposed to material that may be inappropriate for his/her age.
4) Who are your friends?
Children sometimes see it as a game to “collect” as many “friends” or “buddies” as they can. Some may even compete to have the most friends online and brag about it. Children should be warned and reminded not to allow just anyone into their network as a “friend”, “buddy” or “follower”.
If your child is on Facebook, check how many friends they have. Is it more than 1,000? Seriously, how is this even possible unless your son's name is “Justin Bieber”? Chances are, they are allowing everyone into their network as their “friend”.
Sometimes they might accept people in just because they are friends of friends.
This practice should be discouraged. They should not allow anybody they don't know and trust into their network nor should they allow people into their network based on a third party's friendship.
Only allow people you really know and trust into your social network.
5) Tweak your privacy settings
A lot of people (not just kids) sign up, log in and use social networks without ever looking at the privacy settings. Then they post all sorts of information and photos not realising that a simple Google search shows all their photos to all and sundry.
When their photos turn up in other places and are used against them, who can they blame? Surely, your data and photos are your own responsibility to protect.
The best way to do that is to ensure your privacy settings, and those of your child's, are as secure as possible. This means the photos and information are only accessible to friends or, at the most, friends of friends. Check that your profile is not open to the public.
You might also make your profile unsearchable, if the social network you use allows for this. Facebook does. This means that if anyone is looking for you and does a search for your name, your profile does not turn up. This also means a web search for your name does now show your Facebook page.
6) Do not post individual photos
Social networks are a great place to share photos. However, to protect your children and their identity from stalkers and predators, it is preferable that there are no individual photos of them. It's better to use a group photo or even a photo of a cat/dog for their profile photo.
If group photos are posted online (for sharing purposes), make it a point to check that your child doesn't tag himself or herself to the photo and that their friends don't tag them either. This way predators won't be able to identify your child.
7) Guard personal information
Children should be educated not to share personal information such as their real name, address, phone number, name of school, places they frequent, places they will be at what time and date, when they will be going for a holiday and for how long ….
Kids need to be educated to be as vague as possible. “I am going shopping with mum in KL” is always better than “I am going shopping with mum to the Jusco kids section in Midvalley at 11am today”.
If you can get your kids not to say anything about where they're going and instead chat about homework, studies or TV programmes … even better!
Personal information is also revealed through login names or identities. As such, Trisha99 tells predators your child's name is Trisha and she was born in 1999. So, they would know to look out for a girl aged 12. Instead of using such login names, try something vague with no names or dates of birth.
8) Beware of bullies
Bullying no longer just happens in schools. Girls, in particular, take the bullying and harassment into cyberspace and this includes social networking sites.
Let your child know that any form of bullying – whether it is physical, verbal or even virtual – is wrong and should not be tolerated. If your child encounters such things, he or she should inform you right away.
9) Secure your passwords
The hacking of email and social networking accounts happens often these days. So does identity theft.
If you don't want to be a victim, secure, secure and secure your passwords. This means don't use your name followed by your birth date.
For a strong password, you need to use a combination of upper and lower case letters as well as numbers and symbols.
Here's a video to help you come up with a strong password and remember it, too!
Limited time offer:
Just RM5 per month.
