If you are a parent of growing up kids, you will have a thousand reasons to feel insecure and protective of them. And keeping them away from internet’s exponential effects will always top the chart. Children are exposed to a lot of things that they should not know in their tender ages. So there is an obvious need to keep a strict check on their web activities.
11 Do’s Of Parental Control over Internet
But, how to do this without making your child insecure and feel that you have a police eye on his/her activities?
Here is a list of 11 do’s of parental control over internet:
1) Keep the System In Open:
Your kid won’t like to find out that you have been spying on him/her. To deal with it, keep the system in open, where everyone keeps coming and going out. This will keep a regular check on searches that your child makes.
Someone or other will come to peep into the activities of the child, without making your child feel that he/she is being spied.
2) Teach Them the Personal Info Security:
Tell your kids to keep their info secure, and not let it out online. Tell them not to respond to people whom they don’t know. Tell them how this can pose a threat to their lives.
Keep your kids aware to a certain degree, to which they can accept it.
3) Encourage Real Friendship:
Encourage your kid to make real friends whom they can meet daily. Making online friends can make kids dull. See if your child is devoting more time to the online friends, and not paying enough attention to real life.
Keep your kids away from virtual world, and try to make them understand the importance of real world. Talk to them, or make them understand through experience.
4) Lay Down Rules to Internet Usage:
Only you can put a check on your kid’s internet usage. So lay down some rules to its usage, and make your child abide to them.
It is better to make them understand the importance of these rules. But if you think your child is too young to understand them, you can just ask the child to comply with the rules.
Tell them what the right behaviour on web is.
5) Talk to Your Kids:
It is always appropriate to talk to your kids and make them understand that what you do is for their own good. Instead of putting down a foot, try to explain to your kids how important it is for their security.
6) Use Parental Software to Check Their Activities:
If you have a difficult child, it is advisable to use the parental control software to monitor your child’s activities. It will help you enforce the rules laid down by you for the kids.
You can also block certain websites from the system, and give a limited access to your children. This way, there won’t even be any need for you to track your child’s searches. It will keep their activities regulated.
7) Follow Their Social Media Profiles:
Check your kids’ social media profiles. Have the login id and password, so that you can access their profiles and see that all the friends added are the ones, whom they know personally, in real life. Check on their messages every once in a while.
Do these things to make sure that you know your kids’ social life. It is crucial to know who your child is talking to.
8) Family E-Mail Address:
It will be a good idea to create a family email address and ask your children to use that. Wherever your child creates an account, you will get an update on what new is your child trying.
You can tell the children that this is a temporary ban, and this will be uplifted in sometime. Remember to show your child that you have full faith in her/her. This act should not convey mistrust.
9) Keep Your Child Informed:
It is your responsibility to tell your child about the online predators. Tell them about what can be the repercussions of getting into contact with wrong people.
This is important for your child to know if you want to develop trust in him/her for you. Let them know that what you are doing is for their own good.
10) Internet on Phones:
Internet is no more restricted to desktops and laptops. Children are carrying it in their hands in mobile phones. So you will have to take measures to regulate its usage on phones.
It will be good to ban a personal smartphone, till your child reaches a certain age, where you trust him/her more with internet. This way you shall not have to go out of the way to check the mobile internet searches.
11) Ultimate Regulation is The Belief in You:
While all these factors are good to put a check on your child’s activities, there will be a lot of ways of dodging them. SO it is more important to have your child’s faith in you and the rules.
Talk to your child and convince him/her in a way that he/she best understands.
It is harder to be a successful parent in current times, with children being exposed to so many threats. But with your vigilance, mental power over the kids, and an emotional connect, you will be able to bring best brought up to them.
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