Promoting Internet Safety
Online learning has many benefits, but one concern among parents is the lack of control over how students spend their time online. Kids and teens are among the most vulnerable groups of internet users. Fortunately, there are ways to ensure that your children are safe online.
Be Internet Awesome with Google
Be Internet Awesome is a resource by Google to prepare children for safe online usage. It includes tools for families, teachers, and kids. Interland, Google’s interactive online game, teaches digital safety with four challenging games.
Apple’s Screen Time
Screen Time is a feature available on Apple mobile devices. It provides real-time reports showing how much time you and your kids spend on apps, websites, and more. This tool helps parents make informed decisions about device usage and limits. The following information comes from Apple Support.
Turn on Screen Time
- Go to Settings > Screen Time
- Tap Turn On Screen Time, then tap it again.
- Select This is My [device] or This is My Child’s [device].
When you turn on Screen Time, you’ll see a report showing how you use your device, apps, and websites. If it’s your child’s device, you can set it up on their device or use Family Sharing to configure their device. After setting up their device, you can use Family Sharing to adjust settings from your device.
Manage Screen Time settings
Go to Settings > Screen Time on your Apple device. Then, tap See All Activity, select a category in the list below and set limits.
Downtime
When you schedule downtime, only phone calls and apps that you choose to allow are available. If you set a Screen Time passcode, Downtime includes an extra setting: Block At Downtime. When you click Ask For More Time, entering the passcode allows you to approve the app for 15 minutes, an hour, or all day. Child accounts can click One More Minute once, or Ask For More Time to send their request to the parent account.
Communication Limits
Control who your children can communicate with throughout the day and during downtime. These limits apply to Phone, FaceTime, Messages, and iCloud contacts. Communication to known emergency numbers identified by your cellular carrier is always allowed. You need to have your iCloud contacts enabled to use this feature.
YouTube Safety Controls
YouTube boasts over two billion monthly users. There’s a ton of content on YouTube, and kids can spend hours watching videos. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of this content is catered toward children.
Restricted Mode
YouTube Restricted Mode is a setting that screens adult content. It’s available on all devices, including smart TVs and tablets. When enabled, YouTube filters out inappropriate content on that specific device or browser. You can use this feature to manage videos for a child of any age, including teens.
Parents can enable Restricted Mode by device. If you and your child share an account, enable Restricted Mode on your child’s device only.
To turn on Restricted Mode on your kids’ mobile devices:
- Open the YouTube app
- Tap on your profile picture in the top right corner
- Tap Settings and then tap General
- Toggle Restricted Mode to the on position
To turn on Restricted Mode on your kids’ computers:
- Go to youtube.com
- Click on your profile icon in the top right corner
- Click on Restricted Mode: Off
- Toggle Activate Restricted Mode to the on position
To turn on Restricted Mode on a smart TV:
- Open the YouTube app on your smart TV
- Go to the sidebar menu and scroll down to Settings
- Navigate to Restricted mode and click the On button
Of course, there’s no way to completely block all inappropriate content. This is only a step in preventing children from accessing videos that they shouldn’t.
Supervised accounts
Supervised accounts allow parents to limit the videos their children can access. At first, these accounts were only available for kids under 13, but now include older teens.
- Create a Google account for your child before you begin. Children cannot manage their own accounts if they are under 13 years of age.
- Once you enter your child’s date of birth, a prompt will ask you to connect to a supervising account within 14 days.
- To link your account, click My parent is here, then log in with your Google account. You can set parental controls for apps like Google Play, Chrome, YouTube, or other Android apps.
Supervised accounts are ideal for children and tweens.
Parents can choose from three content settings that correspond with ratings for teens:
- Explore lets children view content appropriate for kids over 9 years old. This is generally for viewers ages 9 and older. Some videos may contain low levels of violence, controlled substances or provocative language. Educational videos about the human body or mental health are also in this grouping.
- Explore More lets children view content appropriate for kids over 13 years old. Videos under Explore More are geared toward the 13-and-over crowd. There may be mild profanity, violence, controlled substances and “non-explicit sexual references.”
- Most of YouTube lets children view most videos except those marked for an 18+ audience. This denotes videos for older teens, except for those marked for users who are 18+.
Supervised accounts also prevent personalized ads. This means that ads won’t show based on information from a child’s account. Instead, YouTube will only show ads relevant to the content a child is viewing.
These accounts also restrict several YouTube features, including live streams, community posts, comments, creating a channel and uploading videos, and in-app purchases.
YouTube Kids
Another option is to use the separate YouTube Kids app. YouTube Kids is a separate app that facilitates a supervised experience for kids.
A group of parents, child experts and YouTube engineers choose and filter videos. Parents still have the ability to flag or block channels and individual videos.
After creating a YouTube Kids profile, you can choose content based on age or set it up to approve each video. With the latter, you can select collections or channels for your child. This prevents kids from searching on the app. Parents can also set timers or track their child’s viewing history.
Like supervised accounts, you’ll need to start by creating a Google account for your child and link it to your own. Next, access their privileges and settings via the Family Link app or at families.google.com. Once you’ve connected their Google account to yours, you can download the app on their device(s) and log in with their account.
Like supervised accounts, YouTube Kids also offers three different content levels. But, these are geared toward younger kids. You can choose between:
- Preschool: Educational content meant for children under the age of four
- Younger: Age-appropriate content curated for children between the ages of five and eight
- Older: Age-gated content for children between the ages of nine and 12
SafeSearch
One of the last options is to use Google’s SafeSearch. Turning this on will ensure that your kids’ search results don’t include explicit content.
To turn SafeSearch on in your web browser:
- Go to families.google.com
- Select your child’s profile
- Click Filters on Google Search
- Toggle SafeSearch to the on position
To turn SafeSearch on from your mobile device:
- Open the Family Link app
- Tap View next to your child’s name
- Select Choose settings
- Choose Google Search
- Turn on SafeSearch
‘Dismiss’ what you don’t want your kid to see
The YouTube algorithm tracks your preferences and uses that information to recommend videos. For parents, there’s a way to shut that down.
Users can dismiss content by clicking the three dots on a video or channel and choosing “Not Interested.” Such content will not pop up in their recommendation feed again. This function is available only to mobile phone users. Unlike some of the other safety options, this one requires you to be an active viewer. It’s best for parents that watch videos with their kids.
Follow these steps to dismiss content:
- Open your child’s YouTube or YouTube Kids app
- Scroll through the home screen to see recommended videos
- Tap the More icon (three vertical dots) next to any video that you want to dismiss
- Choose Not interested to remove the video from your recommendations.
You can also tap Don’t recommend channels in that same menu if you want to exclude that channel from future recommendations.
This process is helpful if your child’s search settings are completely turned off. You can further dictate the content they’re allowed to see by scrubbing specific videos from their feed, so those videos won’t accidentally pop up.
Manage YouTube with Google’s Family Link app
Family Link is a Google app that allows users to filter content and manage screen time for kids. It lets you connect new or existing Google accounts for your child. For kids under age 13, you can register a new account. The app allows you to use parental controls on existing accounts for children of any age. But, with the latter, your kid must consent to parental supervision in order for you to activate it. From there, you can install Family Link on their device and manage YouTube from your own account. If your kids deactivate supervision, you’ll receive a notification.
Family Link is available on the YouTube website, Chromebook, iOS, and Android. Once you link the accounts and sign-up is complete, your kids can log in to their devices using Family Link. Then, you can set up restrictions or lock devices for each child by tapping his or her name.
With your kid’s YouTube app access connected to yours, you can set boundaries. You’ll be able to track what videos they watch and how often.
Apps for kids’ phones
With the surge in digital learning, kids are spending more time on their phones and computers. As kids spend more time online, parental controls can bring peace of mind to parents.
Net Nanny
Net Nanny is an app that uses AI to block questionable or dangerous content. The app filters certain websites and tracks digital activity and screen time. Its Family Feed feature reports on your child’s search history and app usage. Also, it can alert you to content such as pornography, weapons and drugs. Net Nanny is compatible with Android and iOS, as well as Windows, Mac and Fire.
Bark
Bark is another option for parents who want to keep kids safe online. The app monitors texts and emails, along with over 30 social media networks. It sends alerts if it detects signs of cyberbullying, depression, or adult content. You can also decide which platforms you want to track if you want to give your child some privacy. Also, the app recently launched screen-time management, so parents can set screen time limits.
OurPact
OurPact helps families balance screen time on iOS and Android devices. The app lets parents limit access to certain apps and websites, enable GPS monitoring, and schedule screen time. Also, it allows parents to block or grant internet and app access at anytime.
SafeToNet
SafeToNet uses an AI keyboard to guide children as they search and message others. The goal is to help the child be responsible and safe online without stripping them of privacy.
Parents can’t see their messages, but can view insights like the time of day and the top five apps used by their child. It can show what issues the child most struggles with, too. The software will flag messages if it detects bullying, abuse, or sexting. SafeToNet gives the child a moment to pause before sending a message they can’t take back. Plus, it provides breathing exercises, lessons on self-esteem and an emotion diary.
Google Family Link
Google Family Link lets you create a Google account for children under 13 years old. If your child is over 13, they must consent to using the app. The app lets parents keep track of their kid’s Google account. Parents can also approve or deny apps before their kids are able to download them. The service is compatible with Chromebook, iOS and Android. Also, it includes other controls such as screen time limits and location tracking.
Aura
The goal with parental controls isn’t to police what children are watching. Most parents only want to ensure they see age-appropriate content.
Aura provides content filters and screen time limits. No matter what website or app your children are accessing, they’ll only be able to view what you approve of.
- Select apps, games, and websites to limit or restrict altogether
- Set time limits for apps and websites
- Aura’s antivirus software detects and isolates such threats to secure your devices
- Browse with a built-in virtual private network (VPN) and avoid phishing sites
Teach your children online safety precautions
While technology is a powerful learning tool, it is also fraught with danger. Educate your kids about their digital footprints. Let them know to be wary of every website they visit and email they send. Make sure they also know to never provide anyone with their personal information. Finally, the most important rule is to never allow a child to meet anyone they meet online.
