How to Keep Your Kids Safe Online­­­­­­­

Worldwide Homeschool News

­It's summer and time for that family trip. Traveling can be stressful enough with planning, packing, long flights with delays, and screwed up hotels. The last thing most people think about is how you and your family stay safe online. 

You’re on a trip with your spouse, young teen daughter, and 9-year-old son. Never fail, the kids are boisterous in a restaurant. All you want is a nice, quiet family meal. Out comes an iPad for the little one, and the teen is told to stop pestering her brother and play with her phone. All quiet. Guess that worked. 

Let’s consider the iPad in the hands of the young boy. He restores a session in an online game. Unbeknownst to you, an avatar appears in the game holding up a sign asking for his name and where he lives. The kid types a chat reply. The interaction continues. Is there a problem here and what might that be?

Meanwhile, the teen daughter is in a chat forum with her “friends”. She posts how much she hates her brat brother. At one point, she updates her Facebook page about how she’s stuck in some boring restaurant in Winnipeg. She wishes she could just be at home, hanging out with her crew back in Dallas. Could this be a problem?

Given: "On the Internet, nobody knows your a dog!" We can now generalize that there are two categories of carbon units (people) that you interact with online:

1.    Friends online: Online with people you really know. Or think you know.

2.    Online friends: An interaction with people not known outside of the session.

(Note: there is a third category that I'll get to in a future piece that includes ChatBots)

For the young boy is playing with online friends. The exchange of harmless information can be very dangerous with ugly consequences. He may be getting groomed by a predator.

The teen daughter believes these are friends online. She vents personal information. Pew Research Center (2022) tells us that 54% of girls experienced cyber bullying, while 44% of boys experienced at least one incident. The FBI reports these percentages are way higher in 2026. Friends online can betray even a best friend, or that friend’s account has been acquired and is being used by someone else. The Facebook post is for all online friends. All cyberattacks begin with recognizance to identify and discover information about potential victims.

Here are few things to help keep safe:

1.    Keep personal information private. This includes a lot of information types. Discuss this before you leave. 

2.    Think before you post! Any current information can be used against you.

3.    In games, don’t post or chat about anything other than the game itself!

4.    Always use a strong password (numbers, upper- and lower-case letters, and symbols). Don’t be afraid to change it. And don’t share it with anyone.

The Digital Detective book series covers these topics and much more. The books educate through fun story telling. All the individual cases, tools and techniques described in the book are from real cases investigated by the author. Be safe and enjoy the summer trip.