Parents’ guide to kids’ cyber safety

(NC) As a parent, your children’s safety is your number one priority. But keeping them safe online can be harder—you won’t always be able to see what they’re doing, and not everyone is comfortable navigating or talking about digital environments.

Here are some ways to help make your household a more cyber safe place while respecting boundaries and letting your kids be kids:

Make sure you know your stuff. It’s not just a stereotype—most kids genuinely know more about computers than their parents. It can make getting them to listen to you about digital safety harder if they feel they know much more than you. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the apps and services your kids use. The more you understand how they work, the better you’ll be able to help your child understand the risks involved.

Have open, honest conversations. Like with any difficult subject, the best way to approach it is with openness, honesty and leaving any sense of judgement at the door. It’s important that your kids understand you’re not an authority figure trying to restrict them or pry into their personal business, you’re working with them as a family to help keep everyone safe.

Teach your kids to build simple safety habits. The reality of digital safety is that, like locking the door or animal-proofing the trash, it’s neither glamorous nor exciting:

• Teach them about phishing, where some messages they get from trusted places can be faked in order to gain access to their information. This can involve some fun sleuthing for kids as they look for email domains that don’t match, or suspicious link previews.
• Set up multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all important apps and accounts. MFA makes it much harder for someone to access your family’s accounts remotely. Kids may see it as a hassle to do every time they log in, so positive encouragement to form the habit will go a long way.
• Get them to run updates as soon as they’re available. It’s easy to put off installing device updates, but they’re an important security feature. Explain to your kids that criminals can find weak spots in their operating system, and that updates are the way to stay ahead of them.
• Make sure they’re backing up their data regularly, preferably once a week. This may be something they’re already doing, depending on how actively they use cloud storage, but staying on top of it takes some discipline.

Staying safe online as a family takes diligence, good digital habits and working as a team. Bring your kids onto that team by making sure they’re building the right habits, and make sure to follow them yourself.

Find more ways to keep you and your family safe at getcybersafe.ca.