Online Safety Tools for Parents

Online Safety Tools for Parents

By far, the best tool for online safety is a vigilant parent.

Schools and districts have a substantial budget to spend on their online safety apparatus, with more money being spent with every connected classroom. Parents don’t often have the same luxury, but there are ways to secure your child’s activity on the Internet without breaking the bank, using some of the same approaches that you would find in a school.

Secure networks

Most security in a district is handled at the network level, using filters and routers designed to block kids from inappropriate sites. The benefits of that method are that you don’t have to worry about individual devices; everything is covered. You can use the same approach at home.

Secure routers are expensive (for the record, Clean Router is very well reviewed), but there are some DNS filters worth consideration. The first step, though, would be to check the router you are currently using. Some have very robust settings on the back-end that could really help with objectionable content. If you don’t know how to access administrator privileges on yours, ask your cable company.

There are also products like OpenDNS, which comes in both free and paid ($20/year) versions. It basically sits between your router and the Internet like a bouncer, only letting appropriate content through while logging what is happening so you can check it out later.

Secure devices

There are many, many products out there for securing individual devices. Again, this works great if your child is only using one device. But that’s just not realistic anymore for many homes.

The first step is to get familiar with the parental controls on each device. Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. have all beefed up their security settings in this regard. Watch a few YouTube videos for your particular operating system and you’ll learn things that will go a long way toward safety.

If you do want to use an app, Mobicip is one of the most popular among schools and districts. The apps themselves are pretty cheap and the company offers various levels of service depending on what you think you need.

You

By far, the best tool for online safety is a vigilant parent. Simply have an open dialog with your child about what is appropriate online and what isn’t, things to watch out for, and what each of you (yes, it’s a two-way street) are finding on the Internet. And this tool is absolutely free.

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