Internet safety for children

The Coffee Shop
1

One of my FB friends has shared a couple of very disturbing articles in the last couple of days. One article was about a little girl being harassed in her bedroom through a Ring camera where some pervert hacked the account and started talking to the little girl in her own room. The other article, a woman posed as an 11 year old girl on Instagram and was almost instantly harassed very explicitly by more perverts.

It’s very creepy and adds to my paranoia to keep my children (daughter age 11 and son age 13) off social media but I also realize that is a little unrealistic. Neither of my children have cell phones. My son can communicate with his friends or cousins on his xbox, other than that no social media (that I am aware of anyway). He has a Kindle. My daughter plays minecraft on her xbox. She has had her Kindle taken away for abusing house rules, camera turned off of it when she does have it, parental controls set for both devices. We just bought a security camera which is in our kitchen because someone keeps getting up and sneaking sweets in the middle of the night. Daughter has an Alexa in her room she pretty much exclusively uses it to listen to music for a little while before she goes to bed.

I feel alarm at the nastiness that is out there in the world as I read these articles but I am also aware that they drop product names (Ring and Bark) constantly making me wonder are these commercials playing on parent emotions? Or should I be looking at some sort of house internet monitoring device?

How do you talk to your kids about internet safety? How do you monitor the internet in your home?

My daughter has been invited to sleepovers the last two weekends in a row and I know at least one of her friends has her own smartphone with Musically and Tick Tock so making my home safe is only one facet of this unfortunately.

2

Ya, unfortunately when you are sending your kids to someones else’s house for a sleepover, you have to inquire about gun policy along with internet issues. We just do daytime playdates now, but it appalls me the amount of screen time and the level of games that some 5 to 8 year olds are already playing. Always becomes a battle when my son comes home, telling me some friend of his little 4 or 5 year old sibling, already has their own iPad and hours a day of game playing, unsupervised. Never mind the 8 year old with a full console in his room, and day and night fortnight slaughtering…

I’m going to fight this fight as long as possible, and hopefully steer them in more learning and non violent directions. As for the social media thing, I got a few years still, but wish you the best, I will fight that one too…The way I look at it, eventually they get all the access and gadgets they want, just like we can. It will then be about making good choices, and understanding how it all works, the good and the bad…

3

One of my FB friends has shared a couple of very disturbing articles in the last couple of days. One article was about a little girl being harassed in her bedroom through a Ring camera where some pervert hacked the account and started talking to the little girl in her own room.

Lets start with internet security. They were “hacked” (a word that no longer means what it says) because they used the same id and passwords for all accounts. One of the accounts was compromised in a data breach and well now you know the rest of the story.

The other article, a woman posed as an 11 year old girl on Instagram and was almost instantly harassed very explicitly by more perverts.

Don’t know this story, but the only reason I can think she would do this is for a story, so she went looking for trouble, probably didn’t act like an 11yr old would and found what she wanted. I wouldn’t let this story trouble you to much.

It’s very creepy and adds to my paranoia to keep my children (daughter age 11 and son age 13) off social media but I also realize that is a little unrealistic. Neither of my children have cell phones. My son can communicate with his friends or cousins on his xbox, other than that no social media (that I am aware of anyway). He has a Kindle. My daughter plays minecraft on her xbox. She has had her Kindle taken away for abusing house rules, camera turned off of it when she does have it, parental controls set for both devices. We just bought a security camera which is in our kitchen because someone keeps getting up and sneaking sweets in the middle of the night. Daughter has an Alexa in her room she pretty much exclusively uses it to listen to music for a little while before she goes to bed.

I feel alarm at the nastiness that is out there in the world as I read these articles but I am also aware that they drop product names (Ring and Bark) constantly making me wonder are these commercials playing on parent emotions? Or should I be looking at some sort of house internet monitoring device?

I think you need to get off social media and stop being so paranoid, these people make up this stuff and create “scary” ads to sell you shit, no to keep you safe.

How do you talk to your kids about internet safety? How do you monitor the internet in your home?

My daughter has been invited to sleepovers the last two weekends in a row and I know at least one of her friends has her own smartphone with Musically and Tick Tock so making my home safe is only one facet of this unfortunately.

I never monitored the internet. My kids are bit older (23,21,18) but growing up family pc was in the family room, no ipads or tablets for the kids - well there was an Ipad but only used in the family room area.

Had to google Musical.ly and Tick Tock… but I think your starting to realize you cant shelter them.

Always drives me nuts when parents think the solution to something is to shelter there kids from it. I believe your raising these kids to be good adults contributing to society. So teach them how to behave properly, explain about the bad shit that can happen. Hopefully by 11 and 13 you have already talked about sex, cause I guarantee you there friends have, seeing what’s available on netflix these days.

Our kids didn’t get cell phones till 16 for the first 2 the third one got one at 14 or 15.

Reminds me of one story with my 2nd kid, was complaining about how the H.S. “free wifi” blocked almost all useful sites, my daughter then proceeded to show me on my phone how to use the wifi and get around the security.

You wont be able to stop them EDUCATE THEM INSTEAD.

4

Always drives me nuts when parents think the solution to something is to shelter there kids from it. I believe your raising these kids to be good adults contributing to society. So teach them how to behave properly, explain about the bad shit that can happen. Hopefully by 11 and 13 you have already talked about sex, cause I guarantee you there friends have, seeing what’s available on netflix these days.

This^

Kids are going to need to learn how to navigate in a connected world.

My son(an adult now) had very few restrictions growing up but we talked about the risks openly. I think he learned a valuable lesson when he got scammed out of about 20 dollars of Runescape currency.

5

Ya, unfortunately when you are sending your kids to someones else’s house for a sleepover, you have to inquire about gun policy along with internet issues. We just do daytime playdates now, but it appalls me the amount of screen time and the level of games that some 5 to 8 year olds are already playing. Always becomes a battle when my son comes home, telling me some friend of his little 4 or 5 year old sibling, already has their own iPad and hours a day of game playing, unsupervised. Never mind the 8 year old with a full console in his room, and day and night fortnight slaughtering…

I’m going to fight this fight as long as possible, and hopefully steer them in more learning and non violent directions. As for the social media thing, I got a few years still, but wish you the best, I will fight that one too…The way I look at it, eventually they get all the access and gadgets they want, just like we can. It will then be about making good choices, and understanding how it all works, the good and the bad…

My son asked for a cell phone for Christmas. I said well I hope your ready to read some articles on smart phone addiction and teen brains, the rise in depression in teens due to social networking, cyber bullying etc. “My friends all have cell phones and their parents don’t make them read that stuff”. Yes, that is exactly the problem!!! Needless to say, he is not getting a cell phone. He doesn’t need one. Our entire family is at school together all day so he can find us if he needs us.

Is it odd that I hate the thought of a cell phone but don’t have a problem with him getting a new bow and some arrows?

6

One of my FB friends has shared a couple of very disturbing articles in the last couple of days. One article was about a little girl being harassed in her bedroom through a Ring camera where some pervert hacked the account and started talking to the little girl in her own room.

Lets start with internet security. They were “hacked” (a word that no longer means what it says) because they used the same id and passwords for all accounts. One of the accounts was compromised in a data breach and well now you know the rest of the story.

The other article, a woman posed as an 11 year old girl on Instagram and was almost instantly harassed very explicitly by more perverts.

Don’t know this story, but the only reason I can think she would do this is for a story, so she went looking for trouble, probably didn’t act like an 11yr old would and found what she wanted. I wouldn’t let this story trouble you to much.

It’s very creepy and adds to my paranoia to keep my children (daughter age 11 and son age 13) off social media but I also realize that is a little unrealistic. Neither of my children have cell phones. My son can communicate with his friends or cousins on his xbox, other than that no social media (that I am aware of anyway). He has a Kindle. My daughter plays minecraft on her xbox. She has had her Kindle taken away for abusing house rules, camera turned off of it when she does have it, parental controls set for both devices. We just bought a security camera which is in our kitchen because someone keeps getting up and sneaking sweets in the middle of the night. Daughter has an Alexa in her room she pretty much exclusively uses it to listen to music for a little while before she goes to bed.

I feel alarm at the nastiness that is out there in the world as I read these articles but I am also aware that they drop product names (Ring and Bark) constantly making me wonder are these commercials playing on parent emotions? Or should I be looking at some sort of house internet monitoring device?

I think you need to get off social media and stop being so paranoid, these people make up this stuff and create “scary” ads to sell you shit, no to keep you safe.

How do you talk to your kids about internet safety? How do you monitor the internet in your home?

My daughter has been invited to sleepovers the last two weekends in a row and I know at least one of her friends has her own smartphone with Musically and Tick Tock so making my home safe is only one facet of this unfortunately.

I never monitored the internet. My kids are bit older (23,21,18) but growing up family pc was in the family room, no ipads or tablets for the kids - well there was an Ipad but only used in the family room area.

Had to google Musical.ly and Tick Tock… but I think your starting to realize you cant shelter them.

Always drives me nuts when parents think the solution to something is to shelter there kids from it. I believe your raising these kids to be good adults contributing to society. So teach them how to behave properly, explain about the bad shit that can happen. Hopefully by 11 and 13 you have already talked about sex, cause I guarantee you there friends have, seeing what’s available on netflix these days.

Our kids didn’t get cell phones till 16 for the first 2 the third one got one at 14 or 15.

Reminds me of one story with my 2nd kid, was complaining about how the H.S. “free wifi” blocked almost all useful sites, my daughter then proceeded to show me on my phone how to use the wifi and get around the security.

You wont be able to stop them EDUCATE THEM INSTEAD.

I hear what your saying. I’m a teacher. I believe in educating them also. That is why I was asking how much of this is creating paranoia so you want to purchase the product.

That said, my daughter has ADHD - it’s kind of a game changer. Impulse control is not a strength of hers. She is creative, resilient, fun loving but she is also impulsive, emotional and attention seeking. This is our reality and to pretend like I can teach her about internet safety and then she will automatically make the right choices would be naive on my part. Not saying I don’t try to teach her, but we have to have a back up plan :).

7

When my kids were growing up I insisted that I was their “friend” on all of their social media accounts. Weekly I would check their social media posts and discuss any questionable activity. We also spoke about Internet security and appropriate Internet behaviour.

I think that banning your kids from the internet is pointless. They will have lots of opportunities to access it at school, after school with their friends, sports training, etc.

Your children may become socially isolated with out access to social media.

Learning about social media, internet behaviour, etc is an important life skill. Allow them to access it under your supervision and with your support and guidance.

Many home routers include parental controls. If you do decide to block some content check to see if your router has parental controls.

8

I was a police detective for the previous 5 years. One of my areas of specialization was Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC). I also regularly taught “internet safety” classes for all ages (elementary through adult). I promoted out of this position in July and no longer work cases of this sort.

A few bullet points:

  • don’t rely on technology to protect your kids. It will fail. Your kids will outsmart the tech.
  • predators go where the prey will be found (the platforms I investigated the most were the platforms that were the most popular with kids)
  • Good parenting is good parenting, digital or analog; virtual or IRL. Talk to your kids and establish clear boundaries and expectations.
  • If your child is a gamer or user of popular apps (currently, TikTok is the most popular; followed closely by Instagram), there is a high probability they will encounter inappropriate content (not always illegal, but generally distasteful)
  • one of the glaring red flags is when a person your kid does not know IRL contacts them and asks them to jump off platform to a third party messaging app (KIK, etc.)
  • ISPs do not have your kids’ best interest as a top priority. I know a large number of people (many ex-cops and Feds) working for ISPs and they do care. But it is not the companies top priority. Facebook/Instagrams law enforcement liaison group is surprisingly small for such a massive company. Other companies are similar. A few are purposefully setup to make investigations and cooperation with .gov difficult or impossible (the chans, Discord, any number of non-US based messaging services).
  • No one, except for the very sophisticated user, is as anonymous online as they think they are.

Some good resources can be found at https://www.netsmartzkids.org/ https://www.nsteens.org/ https://www.dhs.gov/stopthinkconnect

Kudos to you for being proactive.

9

When my kids were growing up I insisted that I was their “friend” on all of their social media accounts. Weekly I would check their social media posts and discuss any questionable activity. We also spoke about Internet security and appropriate Internet behaviour.

I think that banning your kids from the internet is pointless. They will have lots of opportunities to access it at school, after school with their friends, sports training, etc.

Your children may become socially isolated with out access to social media.

Learning about social media, internet behaviour, etc is an important life skill. Allow them to access it under your supervision and with your support and guidance.

Many home routers include parental controls. If you do decide to block some content check to see if your router has parental controls.

Didn’t mean to give the impression they are banned from the internet. Obviously if they have Kindles, xbox, alexa and smart TV’s we have internet access. They just don’t have cell phones.

10

I was a police detective for the previous 5 years. One of my areas of specialization was Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC). I also regularly taught “internet safety” classes for all ages (elementary through adult). I promoted out of this position in July and no longer work cases of this sort.

A few bullet points:

  • don’t rely on technology to protect your kids. It will fail. Your kids will outsmart the tech.
  • predators go where the prey will be found (the platforms I investigated the most were the platforms that were the most popular with kids)
  • Good parenting is good parenting, digital or analog; virtual or IRL. Talk to your kids and establish clear boundaries and expectations.
  • If your child is a gamer or user of popular apps (currently, TikTok is the most popular; followed closely by Instagram), there is a high probability they will encounter inappropriate content (not always illegal, but generally distasteful)
  • one of the glaring red flags is when a person your kid does not know IRL contacts them and asks them to jump off platform to a third party messaging app (KIK, etc.)
  • ISPs do not have your kids’ best interest as a top priority. I know a large number of people (many ex-cops and Feds) working for ISPs and they do care. But it is not the companies top priority. Facebook/Instagrams law enforcement liaison group is surprisingly small for such a massive company. Other companies are similar. A few are purposefully setup to make investigations and cooperation with .gov difficult or impossible (the chans, Discord, any number of non-US based messaging services).
  • No one, except for the very sophisticated user, is as anonymous online as they think they are.

Some good resources can be found at https://www.netsmartzkids.org/ https://www.nsteens.org/ https://www.dhs.gov/stopthinkconnect

Kudos to you for being proactive.

Thank You for this reply!!! Very helpful!

11
  • one of the glaring red flags is when a person your kid does not know IRL contacts them and asks them to jump off platform to a third party messaging app (KIK, etc.)

Even in 2019, “don’t talk to strangers” is sound advice for kids.

12

I think you need to get off social media and stop being so paranoid, these people make up this stuff and create “scary” ads to sell you shit, no to keep you safe.

There will always be some degree of alarmism for the sake of selling product, or driving clicks, or whatever. But there is also a lot of actual internet or technology enabled predation out there.

I sat through a “hacker conference” a couple of years ago where different technology security professionals discussed various backdoors, vulnerabilities, hacks, etc that they had been working to discover and then pass to software or tech companies for resolution, and one of the simplest ones was hacking the GPS devices parents buy for their kids to track their location. This particular firm was working on it because predators began using these devices to track their prey almost immediately once the products came onto the market. Because they’re for kids, and supposed to be simple and user friendly, they were also chock full of security holes.

Yes, there’s some sensationalism, but there’s some very real danger too.

13

When my kids were growing up I insisted that I was their “friend” on all of their social media accounts. Weekly I would check their social media posts and discuss any questionable activity. We also spoke about Internet security and appropriate Internet behaviour.

I think that banning your kids from the internet is pointless. They will have lots of opportunities to access it at school, after school with their friends, sports training, etc.

Your children may become socially isolated with out access to social media.

Learning about social media, internet behaviour, etc is an important life skill. Allow them to access it under your supervision and with your support and guidance.

Many home routers include parental controls. If you do decide to block some content check to see if your router has parental controls.

Problem is now, there are so many social media sites and many allow multiple accounts, tracking your kids is much harder these days. Interestingly a lot of kids use more of a peer to peer site’s and have chat groups with just friends, avoiding the whole outsider thing.

You will also need to block all VPN sites, so your kids can’t just tunnel out that way. A very common and trivially simple trick kids use.

Just like the saying about door locks, if you build a better door lock the thief will build a better lock pick.

14

I think you need to get off social media and stop being so paranoid, these people make up this stuff and create “scary” ads to sell you shit, no to keep you safe.

There will always be some degree of alarmism for the sake of selling product, or driving clicks, or whatever. But there is also a lot of actual internet or technology enabled predation out there.

I sat through a “hacker conference” a couple of years ago where different technology security professionals discussed various backdoors, vulnerabilities, hacks, etc that they had been working to discover and then pass to software or tech companies for resolution, and one of the simplest ones was hacking the GPS devices parents buy for their kids to track their location. This particular firm was working on it because predators began using these devices to track their prey almost immediately once the products came onto the market. Because they’re for kids, and supposed to be simple and user friendly, they were also chock full of security holes.

Yes, there’s some sensationalism, but there’s some very real danger too.

Between this and the above post that mentioned don’t rely on tech kids will outsmart it.

I guess we could add, and preditors will use it there advantage.

Yes there are bad people in the world, but the way you think your vulnerable most like is not as slowguys story show’s.