Be Cyber Smart for your Kids

Dubai - three tips to ensure your child develops a healthy online persona

It's the age of cyber children and you need to prepare yourself. Now, more than ever, it's absolutely imperative for parents to be cyber smart. This isn't only to ensure that children, who are pretty well connected digitally, are safe from a number of online dangers, but it's also up to many parents to teach their children how to manage and navigate their relationship with social media and online activity. It might be hard to fathom, but a child's relationship with the online world will most likely shape their character and be something they need to manage in a healthy and productive manner for the rest of their lives.

A phone isn't just a phone. It's not simply a practical tool of communication. It's also a library, an entertainment system, a confessional, a mode of expression, a tool of transformation, it's bait and it's addictive. No matter how tech savvy your child is, sometimes it's hard to remember that they are also pretty naïve. All you need to do is think back to when you were 12, 14 or 16 and recall some of the biggest mistakes you've ever made. Now imagine those mistakes were still there, online, for everyone to see. Pretty scary, right?

Think of a cell phone like the combination of these three things. Your child's diary, your child's best friend and your child's bully. Would you read your child's diary? We know your moral compass would point to the word no when in fact you most likely would. Would you get to know your child's best friend? Yes, why wouldn't you? If your child was being bullied wouldn't you want to know what they were being bullied about and then teach your child how to stand up and defend themselves? Of course!

We could argue about when the right age is to give your child a phone. It's a valid discussion to be had as equally as it is redundant. Children are interacting with phones if not at home then with their friends at school. Most of them (from tweens upwards) know all about Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook.

You shouldn't assume that your child (and by extension you) don't have to deal with this problem just yet. It would be much easier to think that 'my child is too young to think about having a phone.' Wrong. It's never too early to think about how to protect your child online. How? We've come up with three guidlines to help you and your child surf the net in a safe and healthy way.
PROTECT
There are literally dozens of apps being created to give you control over what your child does and sees on their phone and online. It is imperative to have one or more of these apps when your child first begins seriously using social media and the Internet. The number of apps and their services are pretty diverse. Some allow you to monitor exactly what your child gets up to online, even allowing you to block sites. Some allow you to block your child's phone after a set period of time and some that allows your children to reach out to you instantly if they are in trouble with panic alerts. You need to do a bit of research and figure out which app is best suited for you and your family's needs.
Some of the best ones we found online are: FamilyTime, DinnerTime, Famigo, VideoMonster, Canary - Teen Safety, Ignore No More, Qustodio, Avira Social Network Protection and Checky. Also, make sure you look into your iTunes account as well. Apple provides some great child monitoring settings.
ENGAGE
Fact: technology is moving much faster than we are able to keep up with. There seems to be a new social app or game every week! As annoying as it sounds, parents need to learn and engage with these new apps. There is a general idea out there that the only way to control your child's engagement with their phone is to restrict their time on it - or their ownership of it completely. No, you can't have a phone, no you can't get Instagram, no, you can't get Soundcloud. Sometimes 'no' is the right answer as long as it's said for the right reason. But 'no' can also be the easy way out and frankly an ineffective solution to an ongoing issue. No matter how technologically challenged you are, you need to engage with apps your children talk about to understand their potential dangers. There are dozens of parents' forums and websites that give you reviews on new apps for children, but honestly the best way for you to learn about apps is to download them yourself and play around with them.
TRUST
As your kids turn into teenagers we know it might seem like you're in a constant state of war. This has nothing to do with their relationship with their phones or technology. It has everything to do with them trying to take control over their own identity while trying to figure out what that identity is while you as the parent are simultanously attempting to protect them (and let's face it control them sometimes as well). It's easy for parents to assume the absolute worse when it comes to teenagers. The worst-case scenario seems the most realistic in any given context. But the truth is your child has already formed some kind of relationship with the Internet, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not. So, starting from a place of protection (and control) like using some of the apps we've mentioned, you need to also learn to trust your teenagers who, like you, are learning how to navigate themselves online as well.    
 

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