This is an excerpt from the book “CyberSafe: Protecting and Empowering Kids in the Digital World of Texting, Gaming, and Social Media,” by Gwenn Schurgin O’Keefe, (American Academy of Pediatrics, $14.95).
Safety First
Teaching kids about online social safety is really no different than reinforcing off-line social issues. It all boils down to being realistic with your kids about being honest with what they are doing online and off, and following the rules!
Kids often become confused by boundaries and are quick to bond and part ways with other kids. As parents, advising our kids about friendships and off-line activities is a major part of our day and helps our kids enormously in mastering the social tasks necessary in life. For them to be successful in the online social world, we have to have some familiarity with the online social world our kids travel through.
Privacy in Social Settings
Given their popularity and the social trends in use, it’s important we all have a sense of what these sites are about, including the privacy policies and safety controls you can build in at home. As you’ll see, some of these sites sound scarier than they are, and most have more control than you realize. In the end, there are two big dangers to kids with these sites – your child’s young age and inability to understand proper and improper posting, and parents not understanding age issues related to these sites and allowing kids to participate younger than they should.
For each social media site, know where the privacy settings are and what it means to enable or disable them. For groups like Facebook or MySpace, the issue of even having your child join becomes the first privacy question to answer. Keep in mind that nothing is truly private on cyberspace, so before you allow your child to sign on to any site, know what the site is and isn’t about.
For younger kids, sites that allow anonymity and parental consent provide better peace of mind and security than simply joining Facebook or MySpace and hoping for the best. For teens, it’s important that they learn to understand how anything written anywhere online and the appearance they give online represent who they are, not just today but perhaps in the future. This holds true for video and picture posts as well.
The concept of permanence of online material is not easy for kids to grasp but crucial for them to begin to learn. One way to explain online behavior to kids is to remind them not to say online what they would not say off-line to anyone.
We need to help our kids understand that if name-calling isn’t OK off-line, don’t do it online. If insulting someone off-line isn’t acceptable, it’s not acceptable online either. We have to help them learn to have polite conversations online, even if they disagree with the person they are communicating with, just as they do in the off-line world.
All sites have carefully worded privacy statements and most require parent permission for kids younger than 13 years to participate. I’ve actually been impressed by what I’ve seen on some of my kids’ sites in terms of patrolling and enforcing of rules and regulations.
At the same time, privacy rules only go so far. What really keeps kids safe is ensuring that you and your kids have a well-understood plan of use for any social networking site.
1. User names and passwords: Make sure your kids never use their real names for user names and have passwords that are not easy to track, such as birthdays, towns, or names of streets. For added safety, make sure you know your child’s user name and password for all sites so you can go on once in a while and make sure everything is as safe as you are told it should be. For teens, as added protection, I suggest you have them friend you on sites such as Facebook and consider not allowing them to go on sites on which you do not have a profile. They will be much safer if you are on the same social site as they are.
2. Friends: On sites that allow you to friend others, you need to have a frank discussion with your kids. True friends are people you know in off-line life. Just seeing a name on someone else’s profile is not enough to warrant a friending.
3. Profiles: On sites that have complex networks, such as Facebook, set up preferences so only your friends can see what you post. You don’t want your child’s words, pictures, or information going to the entire site.
4. Personal information: Never post personal information such as e-mails, home address, or phone numbers on social networking sites.
For teens using Facebook, you can negotiate with them what they will be putting on their profile and help them limit to a reasonable amount of information without offering too much.
5. Stranger safety: This doesn’t happen as often as you think, especially if you have the privacy settings set up appropriately. The safest rule to follow is this – if you do not know the person off-line, do not friend the person online. However, if a stranger does try and contact your child, simply have your child inform you so you can look into the situation. If the situation warrants, contact the site. All sites have a way of reporting suspicious activity. Predators do exist on these sites and we have to be sure our kids are safe.