Protect
You wouldn’t teach your kid to drive by getting them to watch “The Fast and The Furious”. So too, you shouldn’t put a smartphone or tablet in your kid’s hands and give them the go-ahead to journey freely into the digital world.
Kids need training, guidance, adjustment and continual oversight when learning to manage devices – right up until their late teens and sometimes beyond!
Our top tips:
- Apply the principle that smart devices are “loaned not owned” – resist giving them to your kids, but instead loan them, so that you can manage them and check in any time you want or need to;
- Change default privacy and location settings on devices;
- Install good parental controls and filters on both devices and your WiFi, to alert you issues including screen time, access to inappropriate apps, cyberbulling, predation, suicide threats and more;
- Keep checking in and checking up – their safety and sanity is way more important than their privacy (not that there is any online)!
