If you were born before 1993, then you would have spent at least some of your childhood without access to the internet.
But it’s a very different story for our kids. Rapid development of technology means most Australian children are introduced to the internet before they even start school.
And if you didn’t grow up with the technology yourself, it can be difficult to know how to keep your kids safe.
The Kids Research Institute Australia cyber safety expert Professor Donna Cross says parents should remember the following ‘three C’s’ when monitoring their child’s online use.
1. Confidentiality
“While cyberspace offers many advantages, including opportunities for learning, socialisation and entertainment, young people are at risk of making poor decisions about the information they access and share online,” Professor Cross says.
“Often young people don’t realise how much they are sharing online, which means parents need to talk about confidentiality and what they are sharing online,” Professor Donna Cross says.
“In their minds they may have decided not to give out their personal information but geotagging could be embedded in their photographs for example, that gives information about their address, so it’s not just spyware extracting illegal information from their phones.”
Professor Cross recommends parents do the following to protect their child’s confidentiality:
- Help your child to keep their personal information private. This means avoiding using full names, phone numbers, home address, school name, sporting team names and date of birth. Set their online profiles to the highest privacy settings.
- Check the security settings on your child’s profile in all the sites they use and ensure they are set to private.
- Play with them in online games or join in their social networking to see what they may be sharing online
- Set up a Google Alert to find anything posted with your child’s name, phone number and your home address.
- Encourage children to never share their passwords and to create passwords that are strong
- Consider dual access on your child's device or phone. Decide if you would like to read your child's text messages and discuss this with your child prior to doing it.
- Use parental controls and install filtering software to help block unwanted content, pop-ups and restrict access to specific content and pages.
- Install anti-virus and other e-security software to restrict unauthorised access to data on your home computer.
- Activate safety features on web browsers to protect yours and your child’s devices and personal information.
2. Contacts
Professor Cross says it is important to regularly talk with your children about who they are ‘friending’ or ‘following’ online so you understand who they are in contact with.
“Make sure the friends your children communicate with online are people they know in real life,” Professor Cross says.
“Ask to be a friend or someone who follows them on their social networking sites, if you allow them to set up a social networking site like Instagram, that way you can monitor who they are connecting with.
“Have your child agree to never meet someone offline who they have only met online without a trusted adult being present. An online friend can be an offline stranger.
“And remind your children to respect the personal information of friends, family and others and not share photos or information about others without their permission.”
Tips for contacts:
- Encourage your children to not accept randoms (people they don’t know offline) as friends or followers on their social media or limit what randoms can see through tight privacy settings
- Try to know who your children are communicating with online by only allowing the use of their digital devices in shared areas in your home
- Watch and listen for signs that your children may be having a difficult time online such as loud keyboard contact or poor moods when they come offline.
- Encourage your children to block and report anyone who is making them feel uncomfortable online. Most online platforms have this function.
- Help your children to control their privacy settings to limit who can interact with them or see the things they decide to share on their digital device
- Turn of the chat and or multi-player settings on your children’s gaming devices to limit their exposure to abusive in-game behaviour
- Talk to your children about cyberbullying behaviour and actions they can take to get help.
3. Content
Professor Cross says parents also need to consider content – that is what their children are watching, doing, interacting with, uploading and downloading online.
“Parents need to show interest in what their children are sharing and also learn what content they are most interested in and check in regularly with your child to see what they’re viewing.
Professor Cross recommends parents only allow devices in areas of the home that can be supervised and that digital devices especially ones with cameras should never be used in bedrooms.
“We need to remember that any digital device such as laptops, mobile phones, tablets, gaming consoles and other forms of technology can be connected anywhere in your home if you have wireless access, even in bedrooms and bathrooms,” Professor Cross says.
Tips for content:
- Inform your child that sharing nude photos (referred to as 'sexting‘) is illegal if the person is under 18 years (or looks under 18). (Note: children may be criminally liable from the age of 10 in Australia), even if the photo is of themselves.
- Talk to your child about the moral and legal consequences now and later (e.g. in work force) of sharing nude photos to help them to understand the risks associated with this behaviour.
- Help your children to know how to respond if they are sent an inappropriate image or make a mistake with the images they share.
- Help them to practise strategies they can use when they feel uncomfortable with something they experience online. Encourage them to close the site and talk to a trusted adult or file a complaint.
- Ask your children to show you how they can get help in each of the online places they like to spend time.
- Find out how to manage access to adult content and similar services offered by your Internet provider and your child‘s mobile phone carrier. This information may be available on the provider company's website (e.g. Telstra).
Click here to read more on our cyber safety research.