Things You'll Need:
- Knowledge
- Awareness
- Standing firm in your decisions.
- Patience
- Understanding
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Step 1
Parents need to understand why kids go online and share incredibly personal information about themselves and their families. Many times children feel neglected, or lonely and are looking for help, attention, a bond with someone who shares their problem, or countless other issues. The problem with this, many times children fall victim to internet predators that are lying about their age, sex, and motivation to help or bond with your kids.
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Step 2
IMO teaching your children about internet safety is as important as teaching them about sex, drugs, safety around strangers and so on. Internet predators are experts at what they do, often times taking weeks to break children down and gain little bits of information about them.
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Step 3
Explain all this to your children. Make sure they understand the depth of what you are saying. Yelling or forbidding them to do certain things will only push them away or make them rebel in many circumstances. The goal is to make them understand just how real and dangerous providing online strangers with private information can be.
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Step 4
Never let your children give out:
Real name.
Where they live.
What school they goto or summer camp.
Where they like to hang out.
Where they have lived in the past.
What college or future school they plan on going to.
Where their parents work or attend church.
Anything along these lines should be avoided at all cost. -
Step 5
Parents need to understand that someone who can place a virus on your child's computer through an "innocent" file transfer can find out almost anything about them. Something as innocent as typing in your address at mapquest could be stolen and give someone full access to where you live. There are many examples of this, and it goes to show how important an issue this is for your children to understand.
