The safety of our family is a necessity we all can never compromise on it. Whether it is about protecting your family from real-world dangers or virtual threats, you always try to do your best. Especially when it comes to protecting our children from potential dangers, we take all the necessary measures to avoid any mishaps. 

The fancy and attractive world of the internet is increasingly turning into a scary place. Growing cybercrimes have put parents in a severely stressful situation. It is no longer a safe place where you can let your children surf or explore on their own. The websites or links that appear on your smartphone, laptop, or tablet just redirect you to other websites. 

Most children these days have easy access to violent and sexual content over the internet – this has been observed within a couple of years. Moreover, cyberbullying, unethical online activities and others have drastically impacted the mental and physical health of children across the globe. 

Therefore it has initiated a long yet thoughtful and provoking debate among parents and concerning authorities to find out best practices, tactics, and solutions for safeguarding the young members of our families. Click here to find some great internet plans that can interest you! 

Six Ways to Protect Your Children while Exploring the Internet 

You can find plenty of ways to keep your young ones safe while surfing the internet. However, here we have filtered out the six most common and highly practical approaches for you. You can easily try out any or all of these to make sure your children are safe while exploring the internet even when you are not around. 

So let’s check them out!

Tip # 01: Engage your kids in Establishing Constructive Online Habits

The first thing you can do for the safety of your child is to encourage them for building good online habits. You can educate your children about the potential danger of using the internet excessively or irrationally. Try to make it little fun so your children won’t get afraid of the internet. Be mindful while having a discussion with your children at home. 

It can be achieved by establishing a trusting relationship with your children. This way, your children can comfortably express their opinion on this issue.   

Tip # 02: Get Access to the Parental Control

The next step you can take is to activate the parental control feature. Most of the internet service providers in the country are offering this feature in their internet plans. If you have never come across this feature before, reach out to the customer support rep of your ISP. Your ISP must have mentioned its contact number on the website such as Spectrum Phone Number. 

All you need to do is to get the number and book an appointment with the tech rep for acquiring detailed information on how you can restrict access for your children on the internet. You can also set filters using keywords so your children won’t be able to access inappropriate content or websites. Also, this feature allows you to track, limit and filter the online activities of your children. 

Tip # 03: Manage Cyber Bullying Through Privacy Tools 

The best thing you can do is to report the issue to the police. Your child is your responsibility and no one should ever try to bully them, especially if the cyberbully is trying to go far turning bullying into harassment. Don’t wait even for a moment and report the issue to the concerned authorities.  

However, if cyberbullying is in its initial phase, try to put some filters for specific words, and messages, or block the bully across different social media accounts of your children. We recommend you take screenshots of the mean comments or tags for disrespectful or inappropriate posts/pictures. 

You can use these screenshots as pieces of evidence to report the matter to the concerned authorities or community heads if things get a bit complicated.

Tip # 04: Give Smart Devices to Your Children in Common Spaces of Your Home 

If you have scheduled online activities for your children, it will be easier for you to follow this tip. Otherwise living in a house with strong in-home Wi-Fi coverage and no restriction on accessing the internet will give them enough chances to get online whenever they want. 

Staying always on the internet is not a good habit even for adults. If you don’t want to keep raiding your children, backyards, stores, porch, or the basement for checking what your children are doing on the internet, go for this tip. 

Tip # 05: Guide Your Children to Pick Appropriate Content

Not all websites, content, or platforms are appropriate for your children. Neither can you force your children of different age brackets to watch the same content. So what can you do? All you can do is educate or guide your children on how to choose content appropriate for them as per their age.

Try to keep your children away from content with sexual imagery, violence, arguing children, or a sassy attitude, because such content will influence the minds of your children negatively and could push your children to imitate the same behavior. 

Tip # 06: Set an Example for Your Children – Cut Down on Your Screen Time

Last but not on our list is the family media plan. It is the best tip that would help you in overcoming your concerns related to the safety of your children in the online world. You can sit together to pen down a list of rules related to the time spent on smart devices or the internet along with digital activities. 

Action speaks louder than words and the same goes for creating a family media plan. If you avoid spending long hours on smartphones or smart devices, your children will do the same. Our children are our reflections, as they copy whatever we do. 

Therefore we should also put a check and balance on what content we are watching on the internet, and how much time we are spending on the internet. It is the only way to make our children well-protected and sensible while using the internet even when we are not around. 

In a Nutshell 

Hopefully, this guide will help you in protecting your children from the threats of the internet. However, it is important to work on the mindset of your children rather than giving them a sense of always being under supervision or monitoring. It can also lead to a feeling of discomfort or lack of trust in your children. 

So be cautious while setting boundaries for your children and harvesting a safe online environment for them. You can also check out what other ISPs in your area are offering for parents in this regard by visiting BuyTVInternetPhone.