Parental controls
6 questions to ask about your child's online safety
6 questions to ask about your child's online safety
Before going any further, determine if your child is ready to go online. There’s no magic number to determine at what age your child will be ready for the internet, but according to Child Trends, 41% of children age 3 to 5 and 57% of children age 6 to 11 use the internet at home. And even if you do restrict access at home, by the time they reach kindergarten, they’ll likely start accessing it at school.
But just because your child can access the internet, doesn’t mean they need to access the entire internet. It’s important to research age-appropriate apps and sites to understand when your child may be ready to use them and to assess if your child is mature enough to do so.
Luckily, many sites and apps, especially social media sites, have age restrictions that can help guide you. Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube all require users to be at least 13 years old. But these are just guidelines: it’s up to you as a parent to determine if your 13-year-old is ready to access these apps and sites.
If you do decide your child is ready to set up accounts and apps, or if they’re ready for a phone or device of their own, there are a few ways to help keep them safe.
Sometimes, even with the best intentions, children can stumble upon dangerous sites and content without meaning to, so it’s great to set up online safety for kids with a few free tools on some of your kid’s favorite sites, apps, and devices.
iPhone Parental Controls: Restrict certain content and apps and set screen time limits. If your kid has their own iPhone, add your kid's device to your “family” with the phone’s Screen Time settings. From there, even if you share a device, you can set a variety of controls.
Google Family Link (for Android devices): Set controls and screen time limits remotely, from your device. To get started, search for Google Family Link on Google Play.
YouTube Safety Mode: Blocks mature content. On any YouTube page, find the footer that lists your settings. Click the “Restricted Mode” button to turn this feature on or off.
Google SafeSearch: Filter sexually explicit content from Google search results. Check out your search settings to set it up, or turn it on for all users under 13 through the Google Family Link app.
Social Network Privacy Settings: Keep your child’s activity and information restricted to just their friends and control who can follow them. Check out your child’s social network account settings to change who can find them.
These tools won’t block every malicious site out there, so you may want to consider finding an additional parental control solution to improve your child’s online safety.
The key to success for parenting in the digital age is to keep an open conversation with your child and to take the time to teach them about key internet safety tips, like the tried-and-true rules below:
Don’t give out any personal information online before talking to your parents, including your name, address, phone number and more.
Don’t share your passwords with anyone, even friends.
Don’t say anything online you wouldn’t say in person, and if you receive messages or comments that are mean, tell your parents.
Don’t upload any photos or download any files without talking to your parents.
Don’t talk to anyone you don’t know online, and don’t meet anyone in person you’ve already met online.
If you come across anything online that makes you uncomfortable, don’t hide it. Talk to your parents about how you came across it, how you can avoid it in the future, and ask any questions you may have about the content.
In some cases, your kids may know more about going online than you, so keeping open lines of communication is important. The more open you are, the more ready they’ll be to talk about their activity online, allowing you to guide them toward good habits.