Parents Guide to Start Protecting your Family Online

Summary Steps

Check Your Family Activity
Establish Safety Boundaries and Goals
Select Parental Controls that Support Goals
Put Controls in Place and Monitor Results

Check Your Family Activity

This will help inform your decision about want devices and applications should be managed more closely and which are not used or present little risk to your family. You can get a pretty good idea about where to start by:

Looking at router network activity
Looking at device activity for each family member
Talking with each family member about online use and needs

Some routers provide great usage analysis. Ubiquity, as showen below for example, provides detailed usage data for each type of network traffic, application and user of each device.

Goal: Identify the devices, applications that expose each family member to risk.

It can be useful to profile your family in a table (See example below) of your findings to identify the best ways to control risks.

Name	Devices Used	Apps Used	Key Areas of Risk
Dad	Laptop, iphone	Work networks, online accounts, Home Automation	Password, financial, and personal information phishing.
Mom	Laptop, iphone	Youtube, Microsoft Store, Work networks, online accounts, Instagram, Facebook	Password, financial, and personal information phishing.
Teenager	Laptop, Android, Xbox	Youtube, Microsoft Store, Google Play, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook	Physical and emotional over-exposure Predatory Concerns, Unauthorized purchases,
Elementary School	iPad, Youtube	YouTube, AppleStore	Physical and emotional over-exposure Predatory Concerns, Unauthorized purchases,

Establish Fair Boundaries and Goals

Everyone is exposed to certain risks on the internet. Everything from risks posed by exposing personal and credit information among adults, to child predatory risks among children, to the potential self-inflected emotional and physical impact of simply spending too much time online. While we are often most concerned about the risks and negative effects of our children being on the internet too much.

Blocking access is not the answer. Instead, talk with your child and establish fair boundaries so that they can have a positive experience, and more importantly, that they feel comfortable coming to talk to you about something if they are worried or have a question that needs answered.

Goal. Come up with clear, simple goals that best protect your family. Some examples follow to start

Set an overall online limit per person
Set content restrictions by age
Set monitoring and review schedules
Discuss goals and incentives to capture compliance

Below are some practical guidelines from Internet Safety 101 to help you establishing age appropriate goals for your family.

Application specific guides are also available from Internet Safety 101 below:

Develop a Practical Family Media Plan

By creating a Personalized Family Media Use Plan, you can be aware of when you are using media to achieve your purpose. This requires parents & users to think about what they want those purposes to be. The tool below will help you to think about media & create goals & rules that are in line with your family’s values. HealthyChildren.org from the American Academy of Pediatrics has an easy and practical age-based tool to help families create and agree on a plan including discussion topics with “check box” fields such as:

Screen Free Zones
Screen Free Times
Device Curfews
Media Choice
Balancing Time
Digital Manners
Citizenship and Safety
Sleep and Exercise

AAP Screen Time Recommendations

For children younger than 18 months, avoid use of screen media other than video-chatting. Parents of children 18 to 24 months of age who want to introduce digital media should choose high-quality programming, and watch it with their children to help them understand what they’re seeing.
For children ages 2 to 5 years, limit screen use to 1 hour per day of high-quality programs. Parents should co-view media with children to help them understand what they are seeing and apply it to the world around them.
For children ages 6 and older, place consistent limits on the time spent using media, and the types of media, and make sure media does not take the place of adequate sleep, physical activity and other behaviors essential to health.
Designate media-free times together, such as dinner or driving, as well as media-free locations at home, such as bedrooms.
Have ongoing communication about online citizenship and safety, including treating others with respect online and offline.

Technology Can Help Support Your Goals

Usage Controls – which can limit the time spent accessing content or preventing specific types of use.
Content Filters – which can prevent a child from accessing content that is age restricted.
Monitoring – which can detect locations and activities when using a specific device.
Computing Use Management Tools – which can enforce the usage of specific software

Six Useful Parental Control Sites

1. Comcast and Xfinity xFI

2. Microsoft

Great for monitoring and managing access to and spending on microsoft devices, applications, games, and content online portals.

Step-by-step guide from ESRB.

3. Apple Devices

Use parental controls on your child’s iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

With Content & Privacy Restrictions in Screen Time, you can block or limit specific apps and features on your child’s device. And restrict the settings on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch for explicit content, purchases and downloads, and privacy.

4. Google and Android 10 Devices

5. Norton Family Online

Norton Family helps you supervise your kids’ online activities. It blocks unsuitable sites while your kids are surfing the Internet, lets you see what websites they’re visiting, sets limits for their online time and more.

For a limited time, get Norton Family free for 6 months, no credit card is required. Simply create an account and start setting up Norton Family.

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References

Last Updated OnMarch 31, 2020

byHAS_MasterWP

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