How to Act Safely Online

Before you can adjust the children’s safety settings, you need to create a user account for the child and link it to your own or another family adult’s account. Creating a user account for a child is usually done as part of the introduction of a new device. On android, adding a child’s account to a family group is possible using family link. On the iPhone, family members are added in the settings under the family sharing section under your user account. At the end of the article you will find links to more detailed instructions.

The most important safety features for a small school child are limiting screen time to ensure sleep (a first grader needs almost 11 hours of sleep a night on average) setting age restrictions on content and installing apps and allowing purchases only with parental permission. You should also familiarize yourself with the security and privacy features of individual applications together with the child and consider who can see the information shared by the child and be in contact with him. However, security settings do not reduce the need to talk about the safe use of the network and the risks associated with using the network.

Can the child’s location be tracked

A child has the right to privacy, so his movements cannot be arbitrarily monitored, even if technology makes it possible. On the other hand, the parent has a responsibility to ensure the safety of the child, which can sometimes mean checking the location. The most important thing is to think about what best serves the child’s interests at any given time. In any case, the child should be told if his location is being monitored.

The best safety feature is the calm presence of a parent

Even the strictest security and privacy settings can be circumvented in one way or another. The best way to protect a child online is to build a trusting and open relationship with the child and discuss the use of the network as part of everyday life as naturally and calmly as possible, taking into account the good and the bad. In this case, conversations about the dangers of the internet are better remembered, and if a child encounters something strange or scary while moving online, the threshold to come and tell a parent about it remains lower.

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