Online safety for kids

Summer is here, and kids have time on their hands. That could mean hours of unsupervised internet use while parents are working. It’s been estimated that 95% of teens aged 13 to 17 use social media, and that can include younger children as well; 40% of children ages 8 to 12 report they use social media despite age restrictions.

Adolescence is a critical period of development, which is why safety measures and guidelines are so important. The California Department of Justice has an extensive list of measures families can take to protect their children online.

Their common sense recommendations include viewing the internet with your kids, especially at first, explaining to your children that they should never give personal information on a website without parental approval, including names, phone numbers, their address, birth dates, etc. For more information, go to https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/facts/online-privacy/child-privacy.

The San Diego County DA’s office has an extensive list of online safety tips for parents and kids online. Suggestions include never letting children access private chat rooms, putting accounts in the parent’s name, knowing your children’s passwords, never allowing face-to-face meetings with someone met online, and many others. For more information, please visit Protecting Children Online, https://www.sdcda.org/preventing/protecting-children-online/facts-for-parents.

At the federal level, a Kids Online Health and Safety Task force was created last year to advance the privacy, health and safety of children and youth using the internet.

Recommendations include knowing your child’s temperament and the type of media your child is drawn to, knowing the content and quality of the media your child is using, making sure online media is not crowding out or preventing emotional interactions with others, including family members, and maintaining open communications between adults and children regarding social media use.

For parents, protecting their children is the top concern. Knowing more about social media and the very real hazards that lurk online is a must.