Should you be worried about your kid's online experience and habits? Maybe not if you make sure that they learned these basics before you let them out in the virtual world:
1. You, as a parent, should establish your own internet rules. When you allow your child to use the internet and surf it on their own without your guidance, then you have to clearly communicate with them the things that they can and could not do online. Your rules should clearly define if they can use social networking sites (but it's not recommended for children 13 and below), how they can use these sites and what information can they post online.
2. Make sure that your kids does not tamper their age or date of birth just to joins social networking sites. Unless your kid is 13 years old, never allow them to join social networking sites as these sites contain information that may be "too much" for your younger kids to handle.
3. You have to evaluate the site that your child wants to use and you have to make sure that you and your child reads the privacy policies first, and the code of conduct second. This would ensure that both you and your children are aware of the site's practices and policies about handling information and whether these can be shared to other parties without your consent.
4. Tell your child that they should not try to meet up with anyone that they've men online. Kids are always vulnerable to online predators like identity theft criminals, paedophiles, and scammers because kids are very innocent and gullible. It is not enough to tell your child that they should not talk to strangers because people that they met online may not be "strange" to them at all.
5. You have to encourage your child to join sites where their friends are so that they can further communicate even after school or summer camp. This would ensure that your child will less likely communicate with strangers since they have online friends to talk to.
6. Educate your kids that they should not use their full names when they go online. You can teach your child to use their nickname or first name, because using their full name can draw a lot of attention to them especially from fraudsters, identity theft criminals, spammers and other online predators.
7. Be suspicious of any information in your child's profile. A lot of social networking sites allow kids to create their own groups or networks based on the same social characteristics like going to the same school.
8. You have to pay particular attention to any picture of information that may reveal anything about your child's personal information like a picture of your kid with a school mascot on the background, your workplace, or the name of the town where you live. These are very subtle information tat can be utilized by criminals to get in touch with your kids and seriously put you and your child's identity and life at risk.
Tina L. Douglas is a well established author on the topic of identity theft.
For more advice and information on identity theft, just click on the link.
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