When it comes to protecting babies and toddlers, parents obviously focus on the immediate threats they can see. However, as children get older their worlds expand outside of the home and into the neighborhood, playground and eventually school. Add computers into the mix and it’s not surprising the task of protecting kids for most parents becomes overwhelming.
How does a parent teach their children about online predators without scaring them? What types of conversations are appropriate for each age? Of course, the goal is for kids to feel safe in the world and online as we set up proper boundaries to protect them. Yet, somehow they need to be involved in the conversation without causing too much anxiety.
Your child needs to be informed enough so they can do their part to understand and know their boundaries. Your child also needs to know that if they notice certain behaviors that you’ve taught them to look out for, they will be ready to tell you right away so you can protect your kids online.
Protecting Children from Predators
Here are some ways to help parents educate their kids on the topic of online safety from predators. We will also share some tips on what a parents can do so that their children don’t have to worry and be overly frightened when interacting with friends on social media or when surfing the web.
Apps and websites to be aware of where online predators can view or begin to communicate with children. This can happen when kids they give out their personal contact information or allow strangers to connect with them on social media. The most popular apps that kids and teens are using include: Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Discord, Houseparty, Ask.fm, VSCO, Kik, and the world’s more widely used app; Whatsapp.
How to Warn Children about The Dangers
It’s not uncommon for parents to avoid talking about these difficult subjects with their kids. The first thing you can feel good about is that there are ways to have these conversations and still remain positive. For example, when talking about bad people, it’s important to let your children know that most people are good. A positive way to bring it up is to make it personal. You can begin talking about kids they know in school. Some of them are not very kind or they may even be bullies.
Children are not dumb. They know good behavior when they see it. And they know bad. Most people are not mean. Most are not cyberbullies, yet these people still exist. Now you can transition the conversation to adults. Some adults are this way as well, even after they grow up. But most adults who want to hurt people will pretend to be nice so they can get something they want. Your kids may know other kids like this as well.
The older your child is, the more you can tell them what these bad grown ups online are trying to do. The teach your kids the signs to be aware of so they can let you know when it happens. You can also include in the conversation about inappropriate touch even from someone close to their age. As they grow older kids need to be taught about consent and what that means.
Teach Your Children the Signs of an Online Predator
If you are uncomfortable with the word predator, especially with younger children, you can refer to them as ‘adults who want to hurt others’. Yes, even kids. They may seem nice, but they have hidden secret motives. Just like parents teach their kids to be aware of strangers outside and not get into a car with them, the signs online may be a little more subtle but obvious if you know what they’re looking for. Online predictors ask personal questions. They try to get private information from you.
The other element kids need to know is that online strangers lie about who they are, at least at first. They may pretend to be much younger than they are. They may pose as someone the same age as your child, or at least just a few years older in their late teens or early 20’s. This is especially true for teens being preyed upon.
Rule #1 is to make sure your child never gives out any personal information. This is regardless of a person’s motives. You can teach them that we don’t even tell people who call from our banks our personal information. It’s probably someone trying to steal our money. Just like there are online scams to be aware of, there are people who want to get close to kids and they shouldn’t trusted.
Ban Chat Rooms
One of the most common areas that a predator will target children is an online chat room. If the predator is talking to a child in a one-on-one chat room, they can build a relationship with them. This is what you want to avoid at all costs. Public chat rooms are accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, but you can restrict your child’s access to them. Unbeknownst to most parents, the popular app TikTok can actually work as a chat room using their live stream feature.
You have the choice of blocking these websites using parental control monitoring, or talking about them with your child. If your child promises to stay away from these types of sites, that may be sufficient as long as you have a way to check in once in a while to monitor they are not using chat rooms.
Things get more dangerous is someone your child is talking to someone in a chat room lives close by. Chats can turn into texts and the possibility of meeting. All the more vital for your child to know that anyone online may not be who they say they are. This can even happen on social media.
Ensure Children’s are not Accessing the Dark Web
Many people do not know what the dark web is exactly. They may have heard it referenced on a TV show as a place where criminals surf the internet to evade capture, or unscrupulous people access very bad content. It’s not illegal to be on there and allows anonymity. Your child won’t stumble upon it using a regular browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Microsoft Edge. Parents should be vigilant and be aware of how their kids are accessing the internet. Check for strange or unknown browsers, as well as software, on any device children are using. If in doubt about any suspicious installation you find, simply “Google It” to learn what it may be used for.
Help Them with Privacy Settings
If your child has a social media or online video game account, their information is readily accessible to whoever wants to see it. You can reduce this risk of possible stalking by helping your child set up secure privacy settings. Your child may not be interacting on chatroom, but there are online predictors (and predator groups) that find and share easily accessible information about where children live, play and go to school. Typically, training and helping kids with their privacy settings would include changing the settings so that only their friends can view their photos and posts. This will also block unsolicited messages from people who are not on their friends and contacts lists.
Parents need to also check their own privacy settings. Often a way for online predators to get to children is through their parents social media accounts. Consider everything you post online about yourself and your kids. Make no personal information is included or public due to lack of proper privacy settings.
This tip also includes helping your child choose a strong password. Identity theft is a common occurrence even with children and can have disastrous consequences. Teach them to use different passwords for different accounts and make them difficult to guess. Then, you will need to stress the importance of not sharing their passwords with anyone, even with their friends or significant others.
Stay Aware of Your Child’s Friends
It is a good idea to be aware of what is going on in your child’s life for multiple reasons. Being familiar with their friends will give you a heads up if they start mentioning a new name. You will be able to have a chat about who this new friend is and where they met. It may be a legitimate friend, but if this person sounds suspicious, you will be better prepared to deal with the situation. Taking the time to talk to your kids about inappropriate dangers online is the first time to implementing all of these strategies. It’s something parents and kids can and should do together. This way, no one is left in the dark.
The Dangers of Online Chat Rooms
Chat rooms are linked to several significant concerns, including the following:
- Predator grooming
- Exposure to creepy material
- Information disclosure
- Access to private information, including messages and videos.
Predator Grooming
Sadly, many predators are lurking online who want to exploit kids. The police have warned parents in many ways about predators who were hanging out on sites like Omegle, which had been a hot spot for predators. These can be exploited in many ways. Some predators “groom” kids by establishing friendships, possibly presenting themselves as someone else, such as another child of the same age, and then attempting to exploit the child. This has resulted in more than one Omegle lawsuit as victims seek justice and compensation.
Children can be frightened of complying with predator demands by observing their behavior. Upon gaining a kid’s trust, they may tell them to take their friendship to another platform, requesting the exchange of creepy messages, images, or videos, or requesting a face-to-face meeting. A standard method of obtaining child pornography is through sextortion, which involves sexually explicit material as part of the extortion. Although the victim may not have provided any of such material, this strategy may still be employed.
Exposure to Creepy Material
Reviewers say that video chat features, such as appearing nude or performing sexual acts on-screen, have attracted the most negative reviews. This unavoidable exposure to creepy content is a concern shared by both parents and children. Children today are expected to be exposed to pornography by a young age, on average 11, in the age of modern digital technology. Although unintentionally witnessing a stranger perform sexual acts live is disturbing to some young minds, it’s not for everyone.
Every parent and child should be aware of what the application is before using any platform. Omegle was known for having explicit content that cannot be avoided, so no matter what users are looking for, they might be exposed. There have even been instances where reviewers say they were exposed to child pornography, violence, and even bestiality.
Both law enforcement and reviewers question video tracking effectiveness, though some video clips are monitored. The site says: “Understand that human behavior is fundamentally unpredictable and may not follow appropriate standards.”
Information Disclosure
Exposing personal information is one area in which kids often lack judgment. Even though chat rooms may make users anonymous, children are surprisingly willing to divulge details about themselves, such as names, ages, birth dates, the place where they live and school they attend, and other personal details. The information contained in these sites can be hazardous if it ends up in the hands of hackers or child predators.
Users of text chat can remain anonymous until they give out any personal information. According to its website, you can chat anonymously unless you choose to tell other users who you are, and also you can end a chat whenever you wish. It is also important to note that either of the users can choose to retain the entire chat in some shareable link format.
Access to Private Information
A chat room’s server are reportedly vulnerable to hackers gaining access to chat records, including messages and videos. Hackers may use any information grouped with a person’s name, social media handles, or exact address for indecent purposes, such as fraud, phishing attacks, online stalking, and even offline stalking. The victim could be harassed or extorted using creepy messages, images, or videos.
The following information was collected and stored by Omegle according to its privacy policy:
- Data regarding each chat and participants’ IP addresses, cookies, and timestamps.
- All the full-text chat messages that users have saved.
- For moderation purposes, images are captured from video chat sessions.
Omegle was shut down by owner and operator Leif K-Brooks on November 8th, 2023. He said in a statement that Omegle started to be misused by some in order to commit unspeakably heinous crimes. Leif willingly worked with law enforcement to stop predators from using the site, but the stress and expense of maintaining the chat room became too much.
Further Steps to Protect Children
One-to-one conversations on a stranger platform are risky. Children should be taught that the more information they share, the greater chance of predators misusing it. Chat rooms and even online games pose a threat to the online security of your child. Cybercriminals can target your kids with just one wrong click on these apps. You should block these apps immediately to protect your child.
Direct your kids to reputable social media groups and online forums where they could connect with like-minded people more safely. This isn’t to say that they are completely safe, and they indeed have their own set of problems, but eliminating the anonymity does help mitigate those risks.
When deciding which apps you will allow your kids to use, here are a few tips:
First, try to access the app on your own: You will find it helpful to see firsthand what you’re dealing with if you’re permitting your child to use it (or if you already know they’re doing so). An app may not necessarily be set up to communicate with strangers, but there may be loop holes where conversations can be initiated.
Use the app together with your child and discuss it: If you are not familiar with an app, use it with your child to see if there are any red flags regarding connections with strangers or an opportunity to see explicit content.
Educate about data security: It is vital to reinforce the need to keep personal data private. Children should know that even if accounts are purported to be anonymous, there are still ways a stranger can find out what they are doing.
It is worth repeating discussions about the permanence of online data. If someone used a screen recorder or screenshot app, you can make anything that happens live permanent but reposting it elsewhere.
Parental Controls on Computers, Tablets and Phones
Even if you trust your child, there are still many ways that they can be manipulated online. All of your child’s computers and tablets should have some level of parental control on them. Let’s not forget that phones are little pocket computers too, and possibly the most dangerous if kids are not savvy to how predictors can access their information. There are way to protect your devices using built in parental controls that also provide resources to protect children from online predators.
Restricting use a child’s computer to a shared space will make it harder for children to access dangerous websites. Parental controls also allow parents to limited usage to specific parts of the day so that kids can’t access the internet late at night. The best parental controls also includes geo tracking and monitoring of texts and suspicious photos.
Samidha Raj works as part of the content marketing team at Planet Spark, a platform that provides online classes to K8 learners on “New Age Skills” like, English Communication, Public Speaking, Grammar, Creative Writing, Debating, etc. She is passionate about empowering the youth by educating parents about the importance of 21st-century skills. In her free time, you can find her watching documentaries or animated movies and organizing game nights (board games are her thing)!
