Talking about online safety isn’t enough
According to Avast's Kids Online: Generation Lockdown 2020 survey, 44 percent of parents have made agreements with their children about what is and isn’t safe to do online. And that’s great! The best defense against potential online dangers is communication, communication, communication.
But, as any parent knows, kids are still going to push back against rules. And that’s where digital boundaries in the form of parental controls come into play, especially for kids under the age of 12. However, parents don’t seem to be taking that fact into account when it comes to online safety: Only 34 percent of respondents to the Kids Online: Generation Lockdown survey set parental controls on every device their kids use and 36 percent make sure privacy settings are in place on social media apps and sites.
Psychotherapist and author Catherine Knibbs, who worked in tech before she went into the mental health field, says that when it comes to internet safety for your kids, your best bet is to use a combination of conversation and digital boundaries.
“The best form of parental control is conversation,” Knibbs says. “And you can use a tool to assist you if you don’t feel confident enough.”
In her own life, Knibbs chose to have a computer in her family’s living room. The result was “a lot of conversation and interaction” when they were younger, as she was able to just look over and comment on what they were doing. But ..
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