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Top 3 Online Safety Questions from Parents - How do I Keep My Kids Safe Online?
Episode 8 • 25th January 2022 • Unplug and Plug In • Lisa Honold
00:00:00 00:15:47

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Today our topic is your questions about protecting your kids on the internet! I'll be answering some of the most popular questions parents have about keeping kids safe online.

Topic: Common Questions about Parenting and Protecting Kids Online

Wouldn't it be interesting to learn what other parents are worried about, what they want to know about online safety and their kids?

Today, I've put together a list of questions that parents send in to me, or ask me at events all the time so that you can hear- you're not alone! Everyone has questions.

  1. My child is obsessed with _____ (fill in the blank-some game or app). They're sneaking time, they're begging for five more minutes, we're arguing constantly, they're driving me crazy! What can I do?
  2. I know I need an internet filter at my house but where do I find a strong filter that keeps out most of the garbage?
  3. What about all the school technology - the Chromebooks that are coming home from school? The distractions that my child sees online? How do I help my child stay on track at school? How do I know the devices coming home from school are safe?

⭐Plus - a Bonus Question!⭐

Where do I start with online safety for my family?

(Full transcript available)

Takeaway

There is a lot competing for a parent's attention. What's important is to take tiny steps toward online safety, start early and ask lots of questions along the way.

Our sponsor

Our sponsor today is the Center for Online Safety. Their mission is to keep kids safe online and they offer training for parents and schools to protect kids from cyberbullying, predators, pornography and other inappropriate content.

Important Links and Resources

Internet filters

  • Netgear routers like the Orbi and Nighthawk + a subscription to Netgear’s Smart Parental Controls Premium ($70 per year) offer strong parental controls, screen time limits, website history reports and content filtering.
  • Bark Home (one time cost of $79) is a device that plugs into your existing router at home and adds parental controls. When you combine Bark Home with a Bark for Families monitoring subscription ($11 per month), you get a strong system for filtering and monitoring screen time, at home and on the go. ***BARK includes monitor + filter.**

Conversation starters and questions to ask your child's school

Five Actions to take today: The Five Circles of Safety

  • Here is an article on the five things parents can do today to protect their kids online. The actions spell out FAMILY and they're mentioned briefly in this episode.

Next Steps

  • Follow the Unplug & Plug In podcast for parents to get future episodes delivered to your device. It's free!
  • Please rate and review our podcast with five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help other parents benefit from this topic.
  • Suggest future topics or share your story by calling our hotline! Leave me a voicemail at 415 737 5472 and I promise I’ll listen.

Transcripts

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Wouldn't it be interesting to learn what other parents are worried

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about, what they want to know about online safety and their kids?

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Today, I've put together a list of questions that parents send in to me,

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or ask me at events all the time so that you can hear- you're not alone.

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Everyone has questions.

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Everyone is worried they're not doing it right.

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So I'm glad you're here.

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Plus you can benefit from other people asking the questions you may have and

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getting some answers and guidance.

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So the top three questions parents are asking about online safety

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and my answers are coming up next!

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Welcome to theUnplug & Plug Inpodcast for parents, where we explore your

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relationship with technology, as well as how to help your child develop a healthy

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relationship with tech and screens.

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And most importantly, you.

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I'm your host, Lisa Honold and I'm founder and director of

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the Center for Online Safety.

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Thanks for plugging in with me today!

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Hi friends, it's Lisa here.

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Today I'll be solo on the podcast, reading questions from parents and giving you

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my thoughts on how to deal with them.

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This is going to be an episode heavy on the resources.

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So be sure to check out the show notes for all the details.

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The easiest place to send you if you'd like show notes, but you're

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not sure how to get them on your podcast player is to go to center

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for online safety.com/podcast.

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Click on episode eight and select notes.

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You'll see all of the resources will pop up.

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Question one.

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My child is obsessed with fill in the blank.

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It's some sort of game or social media account.

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Roblox, Animal Crossing, Fortnite, Snapchat.

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Any and all of those and so many more.

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I get this question all the time.

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My child is obsessed with something that's technology related, an app or a game.

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They have to go on the app every day to unlock new features

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and play and see what's new.

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They never get off because it's a game, they never know

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when it's going to end exactly.

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If they're scrolling, they always want to do one more thing.

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Just five more minutes.

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Right?

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Have you ever heard that before?

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Then they sneak time when they're not supposed to be

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on it, they sneak more time.

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So we are arguing constantly.

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I don't see a way out.

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What can I do as the parent here?

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What can I do?

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Such a good question.

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You're not alone with this.

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So many parents are struggling with how to get their kids

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un-obsessed, how to get them off of whatever their favorite thing is.

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Anytime a game starts pulling that hard on your child's attention, it's unhealthy.

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You've noticed.

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They probably noticed it too.

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It's time to teach your child how games are designed.

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All of the effort the engineers are putting into keeping players obsessed

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with continuing the play, coming back to play more, the rewards that

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they're getting, like unlocking new things, but only if they come back

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every day and all that goes into that.

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Same thing for social media.

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That's the whole point of never getting to the end of the scrolling.

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There's always new information.

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There's always new things, which is why we can't stop scrolling.

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Everything is designed to create need to stay on the game or app.

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Players are being manipulated by game designers, just like social media users

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are being manipulated by the algorithms.

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It's hard to break that cycle, especially for kids.

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And especially if they don't know that that's how these things are designed.

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So give your child a peek behind the scenes with this information.

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Let them know that these things are designed to keep our eyeballs on.

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That these things are designed to manipulate us.

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Get your child's brain engaged with some potential solutions and name the behaviors

You name it:

that you're seeing that you don't like.

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Are they having major tantrums?

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Bring that up.

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If they're sneaking around, bring that up.

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If they're yelling, talk about it.

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Whatever you're seeing, name and say it's not okay.

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And not in a judgmental way, just point it out.

You name it:

This is what I'm seeing.

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It's not okay, this isn't how we behave.

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What can we do about this?

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It's not your problem to solve.

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It's you and your child's problem to solve together.

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Ask for their ideas on what they could do to fix the problem.

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Sometimes games are so triggering.

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There's nothing that a child can do to keep their cool.

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At that point, maybe it really is time to take a break.

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Maybe it's not working out for your family, but let your child

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be involved in that process.

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You taking away with the game or the app without talking about it,

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you're missing out on an opportunity

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As far as not being able to predict when the game is over, so they keep using time

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and asking for five more minutes, what if you were somewhat flexible with time

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limits, but you had a timer that went off 10 minutes before they're supposed to get

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off so that they can start to wrap up?

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What if there's a reward when they did this for three days in a row, they got

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off on time, there were no arguments, what if there was some kind of reward?

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What if you just noticed and talked about it?

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Another way to go that puts the child back in charge of their

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overall time is to think about some sort of a screen time bank.

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Say you give your kids five hours a week of playtime, of entertainment time.

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Maybe they decide to use two hours on the first day because they've

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got a lot of battling to do.

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They've got some gaming to do.

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They need to know that they have three hours left.

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They don't get three hours plus give me five more minutes, every single day.

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That's all they have.

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So after the three hours are up, they're done for the week and that

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might happen on the first day, or they might budget their time and get

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a little bit of time in every day.

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It's great to find ways to keep your kids involved in the process so that

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they feel like so that they feel like they have some independence

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and some control over their time.

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Question number two, I'm interested in some filtering software at my house.

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I know I don't want all of the garbage coming inside.

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I don't know where to start with this.

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What's the best way to filter content before it comes into my house.

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Okay, great question.

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Before we talk about filtering the internet, which parents you need to do,

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there's so much garbage out there, we need to ground this question in relationship.

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Without a solid relationship, trying to rely on an app or parental

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control, it's just not going to work.

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That's not where we start.

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That is a tool, but that's not where it starts.

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There's way too many ways around parental controls, too many loopholes.

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So working on your relationship and making sure that you're involving the

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child and not over controlling will be.

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What does this look like?

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It looks like conversations.

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It looks like sitting with them, noticing what they're doing, asking

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questions, finding out what's great about technology that they're using

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and what they wish was different.

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There's just lots of conversations to be had.

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And the good news is you don't have to know the answers to all your questions.

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Just be curious and start the conversation, share your

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thoughts, but don't lecture.

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So back to your question, how do you find a filter to filter

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that internet in your house?

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There are a couple of options.

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One is to get a router that has parental controls built into it.

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Net gear is well-known for some of the routers that they have, this router

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is what gives your home the internet.

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So two names for net gear routers are the Orbi and the Nighthawk.

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They both have parental controls built in, screen time limits.

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You can get history reports on what websites your kids have been looking

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at and there's content filtering.

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So that kind of pushes all the buttons right there.

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The other way you can go is to have something that sits on your

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existing router, if you don't want to go invest in a different router.

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You can buy a product called Bark Home.

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It's a little white box that sits on your router at home and it

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plugs in and it adds parental controls to your existing network.

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The other thing that you need is a way to monitor what's going on.

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And for that, I suggest bark monitoring system.

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It's called Bark for Families.

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It's a monthly subscription.

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It covers your whole family.

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With one cost, you get a strong system that helps you monitor what's going on.

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So what pictures are being sent to your kids?

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What they're sending out, the emojis, the text messages, the

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videos, all of that kind of thing.

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If there's anything inappropriate, you'll get an alert as the parent and

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you can look into what's going on.

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I like the system because kids get privacy, unless there's

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something inappropriate.

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So really you're asking about filtering, I'm telling you about filtering

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and I'm adding monitoring too.

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You also need to have a monitoring system, because it's too easy for kids to

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think that their behavior is invisible.

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What we know about behavior is when any of us feel like we're being

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watched or being monitored, we tend to act better than when we're not.

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if there's a police officer at the corner, I'm going to make a

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complete stop at the stop sign.

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If there's not a police officer, you know, I might not stop

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all the way every single time.

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That's just who we are.

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Question three.

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What about the Chromebooks that are coming home from schools?

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What about all of the school stuff?

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Everything that happens at school from a child getting cyber bullied

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to a child who's looking up explicit content and somehow the

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school filter doesn't block it out.

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What about an assignment at school that my child has decided they're not going to do?

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Instead they're going to open a new tab on their browser and start

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looking at YouTube videos totally not related to the assignment.

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How do I help my child stay on track at school?

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How do I know the devices coming home from school are safe?

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This question is huge.

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You're not alone.

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Trying to lock down school devices is challenging for many families.

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Trying to keep kids on task, with the ability to continue to open new tabs

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and entertain or have some fun instead of doing schoolwork is a real struggle.

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This is part of a big conversation with your school about what they're

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currently doing to protect your kids and what else they could do to

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come up to best practice standards.

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This problem is going to require your school IT department to get

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involved, perhaps a school counselor.

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Perhaps the principal.

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Every parent should be having this conversation.

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This is important.

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Find out which app your school is using to filter the internet.

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Many of the filtering systems that schools are using, they have features that parents

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can use at home to see what their kids are doing, so they can see what websites

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have my kids been on during the day?

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Do we need to have a conversation?

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Also some of these systems allow teachers to block extra tabs from being opened.

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So say they have an assignment that's a Google doc.

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The teachers would have the ability to say no more tabs can be open.

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So that would eliminate any distraction from coming up on a different tab.

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The Center for Online Safety has a list of questions for you to ask your school,

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to make sure you understand what they're doing and where the safety gaps are.

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It's almost guaranteed that there are some safety gaps that should be identified now.

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So you can work together to bridge the gaps and protect your kids.

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I've got a bonus question for you.

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I said there was going to be three questions.

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The bonus question is:

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where do I start?

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I'm a parent.

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I'm busy.

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I don't have a lot of extra time.

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I just want to start somewhere.

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Tell me where to start.

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For an overview of where to start, take a look at this article, it's

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called The Five Circles of Safety.

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We're going to link to it in the show notes, just like all of these

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other resources I've talked about, they'll be linked in the show notes.

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Basically, there's five actions you could take right now to lay out the foundation

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for making your child safer online.

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I'm going to run through them here, but be sure and pull up that article.

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The actions, they spell out FAMILY.

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And the first one is F filter the internet content.

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We've talked a little bit about where to find that filter.

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The A is align as parents make sure that you're talking to your spouse,

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your co-parent, and coming up with rules and guidelines that make sense

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for your family before you start talking to your kids about them.

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Find out where your where your lines are.

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The third is M monitor what your kids are seeing and sending and receiving.

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That's that Barkapp we were talking about.

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The I is interact with your kids.

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Ask questions, hang out with them, see what they're scrolling.

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See what they're doing.

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Get curious.

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The L is limit screen time.

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And the Y in family is, remember why you're doing this.

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This is so important to their mental health and their physical health.

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So that's it.

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That's your three questions and the bonus question, and we're

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getting ready to unplug here.

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Now that we're starting to wrap up, I'd love to hear your questions.

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What do you need to know most right now about technology?

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Screen time parenting for online safety.

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What do you need to know?

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Remember, we've got lots of links in the show notes, there's resources that

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you're going to want to have and to use.

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So be sure and check out the show notes.

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The easiest place to look for show notes is on the website center

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for online safety.com/podcast.

You name it:

Click on episode eight and select notes.

You name it:

If you've enjoyed this podcast please leave us a five star review so that our

You name it:

podcast will be seen by more parents.

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And be sure and suggest future topics or share your story with

You name it:

technology and screen time as parents by calling our hotline Leave me a

You name it:

voicemail at 4 1 5 7 3 7 5 4 7 2 and I promise I'll take a listen.

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Until next time, let's keep kids safe online.

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