For today’s kids and teens, the internet has become a familiar part of life. They access the network not only for entertainment, friendships but more importantly for learning activities as technology becomes increasingly applied in education. However, the internet also contains many risks that affect the safety of children online because not all of them have enough awareness and skills to protect themselves.
– The children are at risk of abuse of trust leading to the theft of personal and family information for illegal purposes. They can be influenced by their curious mentality; they may visit the “bad” websites, forums,… and accidentally create an opportunity for “hackers” to install wiretapping apps and destructing computer data.
– Students are at risk of being bullied, harassed, solicited, terrorized and threatened to commit wrongful acts.
– Violent, sensitive content, movies or games that lead the children to misconceive, imitate and follow.
Often, when children are noticed to show abnormal signs, parents tend to secretly monitor, question, control, or prohibit. However, these solutions are not positive solutions when educating children. On the contrary, the control and pressure for the children are at risk of abetting the act of lying as well as making children lose their trust in their parents. So how do parents keep children safe online?
Parents cannot strictly regulate the time their children spend using the internet if they themselves do not take their eyes off their phones and laptops whenever they are free. Children tend to imitate the behavior of adults very quickly and that will impact on personality formation. Therefore, parents should be role models in using the internet for children to understand that we should spend a certain time of the day surfing the web for entertainment, not using technological devices during meal time or when living with family,… Parents need to bring useful knowledge from the internet to guide their child’s search behavior.
If your child is at a young age, parents can use the parental control app to set the safe content and websites children can access, as well as prevent pages with content that is not age-appropriate, to keep them safe online. These apps also help parents control the children’s time using the internet, helping their children live healthier lives.
From early childhood, children have formed a sense of what belongs to them and this is strengthened throughout the development process. Therefore, parental control, if used improperly, will make children think that parents are invading their privacy and becoming defensive, losing trust in their families, becoming introverted or rebellious.
In a more positive way, parents need to orient their children to healthy content, useful for learning or hobbies. Listen, discuss issues that are not culturally appropriate or illegal for your child to understand and stay away. In addition, parents should instruct their children to use the secure search function on browsers and to set the security mode of protecting personal information on online applications or games.
Make it a habit to use the internet safely from home by teaching your child how to secure personal information, not to give it to others, especially strangers; not to access unfamiliar links. Remind your child to be careful about what they post online, especially personal stories about themselves and their family to avoid being misused by bad guys. Most importantly, parents need to build an open, trustworthy relationship so that children understand that parents are always around and ready to support any issue.
The Internet offers opportunities for students to actively search for information; play, entertain; connect with people without geographical limitations,… but also hides unpredictable pitfalls. That’s why students need to be educated in knowledge and skills to protect themselves in cyberspace. Parents should also raise awareness of the family’s responsibility to keep their children safe online.
For the school, it is necessary to build a healthy learning environment, educate students with important information technology skills and increase their awareness when accessing the internet. The application of science and technology to teaching and learning such as at Tesla Education has brought significant benefits in developing technology mastery skills in students from the first years of school.
