November 4, 2014 By Fiona Lucas

ONLINE AND OFFLINE SAFETY AND YOUR KIDS

Online Safety

One of the biggest concerns every parent has for their children is to keep them safe, whether online or offline (At home, at school, at play).

Some new developments are making online safety easier and improving offline safety as well. In this blog we will look at some of the newer features and products making our connected world safer.

Facebook

Facebook have recently added a few great new features which go a step towards making things safer in the online world.

Firstly they introduced Privacy Checkup which you can access from the drop down box under the “lock” symbol on your Facebook profile.
This will run through your settings and help you to tweak them and is a great way to start a conversation with the family about online safety.

More recently the Facebook Safety Check has been released which determines your location based on either the city listed in your profile, the city you are using the internet or if you use “nearby friends” the last location you were in. It then sends a message to anyone in the vicinity of a natural disaster or other major incident which may be of threat. You can immediately let family and friends know you are ok by tapping the I’m Safe button. (See illustration below courtesy of Facebook.com). You can also indicate you are not in the area, and access a list of friends to check they are ok as well. Great for peace of mind and definitely a step in the right direction. Of course if your friends don’t use Facebook often (or at all) they may not use it, and I can see issues with people worrying because the “I’m safe” button has not yet been pressed.

Monitoring Apps

So what else can we do? Certainly we need to constantly be educating ourselves, having conversations with our children, friends, relatives, neighbours, work colleagues, teachers about staying safe online and understanding more clearly how communication is evolving in the age of the Internet of Things. Continually sharing experiences and learning helps to develop a much more grounded understanding of the online world, and helps to remove some of the “fear” factor.

Concerned developers have been looking at other ways we can use the amazing technology available to us to help create a safer world. Recently whilst I was in the States I met up with one of the creators behind KidTrackMobile™. They invited me into a voluntary role as a project advisor for their app and I was happy to be involved at the ground level.

There is much debate about how much we should monitor our children as they navigate the world, both online and offline, and equally much debate about “marshmallow” parenting, “helicopter parenting” and not allowing our children the freedoms they need to develop into confident young adults, whilst trying to balance keeping them safe. I personally am passionate about being respectful of people’s views, privacy and opinions; however through my work I often observe damage being done through poor understanding of modern communications technology, and I believe we need to take early action, to help our children grow up with a safer mindset.

Is it “spying” ?

I personally believe that as parents we must show respect for our children’s interactions on line. They have a right to privacy and therefore as a rule we should not be reading everything they write and checking on them every other minute. When a parent feels there is an issue, then that is reasonable grounds, but I also believe that parents should review with the child present ensuring they are aware that their conversations may be read and there should be transparency. It is often enough just to know that a parent “might” look to keep online behaviour at a more reasonable level.

KidtrackMobile™

Some people say to monitor or track your children is invasive of their privacy but I would like you to consider these facts, and if they ring true for you, to consider using an app such as KidTrackMobile™.

KidTrackMobile™ is an app (currently Android only) which allows a parent (if they choose) to monitor where their children are “playing” online (what products they are using and how they are engaging with them) and the location your children are in. There is also an add-in option to actually set “no go” zones for them, so that the parent is alerted should a child end up somewhere they were not supposed to be.

Before you get hot under the collar about this being “invasive”, I would like to put to you that your child is possibly using platforms and apps right now that let a complete stranger know where they are when you don’t! We have to look at our current amazing connected world in both the good and bad light, and start making changes now.

There are more smartphones being “born” (produced) than humans at a ratio of around 4:1. That’s a lot of smartphones. There are literally millions of apps for almost every possible purpose, and many of the include ways to find, speak, connect by video and meet up with total strangers as well as friends. This also means you can be

When you first decide you are giving your child a smartphone or tablet, you are not handing them a toy, or just a phone, but an incredibly powerful computer and location device all in one. The first things most people do (adults and children/teens alike) is to start adding apps to their smartphones. They want to make their lives easier, manage their fitness, play games in their spare time, help them become more organized and connect with others. There are millions of apps out there, and many are free. Often you get what you pay for. Free apps can be filled with malware or may be more susceptible to being hacked or compromised. At a recent Google developer’s conference it was noted that that there are now around 1 billion Android users vs 470 million iOS (apple) users. Statistics show that Android users spend half as much as Apple users on apps, preferring to use free apps. Android systems are still more susceptible to security breaches than iOS so it’s a very interesting observation.

Apps such as KIK for example, can expose your child or teen to unsavory adult content and is a known app for grooming by sex predators (just google KIK and pedophiles and be prepared to be shocked). There are many apps which have even more exposure than KIK and they keep on being produced.

If you want to see a review of some of the apps which pose a risk, you can read here.
Add to the mix the risk that your child might decide to meet up with a stranger, and suddenly apps have a whole new factor that can make a parent worry.

Using apps such as KidTrackMobile™ provides peace of mind. It enables you to allow your teen/tween some freedoms, whilst knowing you can easily check on them, and you can see where they are via the Geolocating inclusion.
I recommend that you have a conversation with your child and tell them you are purchasing this type of product because you love and care for them, and that you won’t be invading their privacy unnecessarily; but that they need to earn your trust in the way they use a smartphone. I’m not saying this will be an easy conversation, it totally depends on the age of the child and perhaps how much freedom they have previously had. If the consequence is that the smartphone is “grounded” you might get further (after initial grumbles). I do think that in the end, with a bit of time to think, they will agree it’s a small trade off teaching them responsibility and respect for the equipment you have given them, their own safety and your trust.

Often as parents we get an inkling that something is not right when it comes to bullying and cyberbullying, or worse still grooming. Our child may become withdrawn or angry and either lock themselves away from us or become quite obsessed with checking statuses and their phones constantly. As a concerned parent with some apps you can even set alerts, so if particular words are used in a conversation you are notified. Although this to some may seem invasive (and well, to a point it is), but this is allowing us to be proactive, and to step in before things get too bad. Early intervention in a supportive environment is far better than having your child suffer bullying for months. It can also alert you to your child’s actions if they are in fact, submitting others to bullying behavior.

It is important to note that this is only a first step, we strongly advise that you seek professional advice in the event of your child being bullied or harassed because intervening in the wrong way can make things worse. Show your child you are on their side, even if you disapprove of what they are doing, but make it clear they are loved and that you are willing to negotiate. It may be that you increase your monitoring of your child’s online activities until things settle down.

Not all apps are alike. Another reason I like KidTrackMobile™ is that it sits inside the operating system so your child cannot remove it like a normal app. It is not free and there are different subscription levels depending on your needs. As one of the voluntary Project Advisors I am able to offer my readers special prices on this product – in fact my readers can obtain up to 73% of the 12 month platinum subscription (see link at the end of this post).

Time Away

Another Android only app, is Time Away. This app helps you to monitor just how much time your growing darling is spending online and provides additional features such as monitoring downloads of apps, usage, location and like Kidtrack™ also enables turning off devices during family events (which is something I would like to see more people doing). This apps allows you to monitor your kids’ device usage & app downloads, locate your child on the go and set schedules for school time and bedtime which are device free. You can also set time limits and block apps.
According to reviews it has had a few glitches. Both of these apps enable remote monitoring by parents.

If you search online you will find a range of apps which can help to offer peace of mind. Prices range from free basic entry to $70 or more a month. It is worth checking features vs price before purchasing.

Life 360

This is an iOS (apple) app which is not as fully featured as many of the other and is not so much a tracking app as an app that lets you create private circles with family and friends. This means you don’t have to share locations with the public. You can communication one on one or in a group and receive notifications when family and friends check into favourite places.

Parent Kit

Another ioS app, this one provides parents the ability to set up a schedule and parental control from their own device remotely. It allows you to track time on apps and internet as well as purchases of apps and other content. A downside is that the child is able to delete their profile.

Google

Sometimes people say that all problems stem from the content that is online, and often look to blame Google as the main search engine. Google a tool which enables access to all kinds of material (as do other search engines).

Thankfully Google is becoming more proactive around issues of safety and have deveoped a online safety centre to help education in the safe use of the internet. The “explore” section guides you through tweaking settings and limiting types of words and phrases to make searching online much safer. You can visit them here.

Google also have a child friendly search engine called Safe Search Kids where tighter settings are always on. I would still highly recommend parents be close by when young children are using the net) .

As mentioned earlier in this article, if you would like to read more about KidTrackMobile™ and perhaps take up their generous offer, please follow this link.

Online Parenting Conference

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This conference runs from 10-14 November and is FREE during the live sessions. You are also able to sign up for a very reasonable cost to enjoy the full content of over 20 experts at your leisure. Click on the image below to find out more.

November 4, 2014 By Fiona Lucas

Mobile Apps and your child

There are literally hundreds of thousands of apps available for us to download to our smartphones and tablets. The choice is incredible with apps for all kinds of things, from keeping us organised with shopping lists, travel lists, find a quote, manage our business, play a game, apps to find a date (or meet a stranger) , to apps that tell you when its a good time to go to the bathroom during a movie (yes the pee app exists).

The amount of time we are spending on apps is increasing with many spending over 30 hours a month using apps (nielson 2014) so it seems we are becoming increasingly reliant on using apps to manage our lives.

The question I would like to put to you is whether you supervise (or ever check) the applications that your children/teens are using?

Perhaps you do try and keep on eye on what they are doing, but find it hard to work out which apps are safe and which are not? You are definitely not alone on that front! How are we supposed to keep up to date with so many new apps appearing?

In this post we give you some tips to consider so that you can begin to understand what your child is doing with their mobile device, and then we list the apps we are most concerned about when it comes to children, tweens and teens.

9 tips to consider

Talk to your child – they will tell you what the latest, greatest and most popular app is
Use the conversation as a lead into having a look on your child’s device together to see what they have loaded.
Ask questions about what an app is for (chat, game, dating)
Ask your child if they understand the privacy or safety aspects
Check the age ratings of the apps they are using the most? Are they suitable?
Given the purpose of a particular app, it is suitable for your child (for example a 10 year old with a dating app)
Keeping your child involved in the discussion, remove apps which may be putting them at risk.
Apps which require only user names don’t really protect your child, they can act as a shield for less savoury persons and make it harder to determine who is behind the name. Whilst some people feel having a user name protects identity, this doesn’t always work in real life. Anonymity allows bullies and trolls to hide behind a user name.
Don’t allow FOMO (fear of missing out) to cloud your judgement when helping educate your children on app safety. Just because they say a lot of their friends use it, that doesn’t make it safe (and often you might find they actually are not using it at all).

Apps which can put your child/teen at risk

KIK: A free instant messenging app which requires the use of a user name. It is rated for users 17+ years of age, yet I am aware of children aged 8-12 using Kik.

KIK has been noted by the Australian Police force as one of the apps used by sexual predators for “grooming” young people. It is not just a messenger app due to the fact that is has integrated a browser into the message capabilities to enable easier sharing. This of course immediately opens up the risk of inappropriate material being shared. (Previously Kik used “cards” to bring in content). With over 100 million users we should be concerned just what the app is being used for and the risks to our children. Users can pose as teens, men as girls or women as boys in order to make connections with young people. Sexualised content is frequently found on KIK.

It is very difficult to monitor what is being said and shared on KIK as there are no records to review and threads can be quickly deleted.

Many complementary apps allow access to data. Kikfriends lets you find user names, therefore exposing our young people further to risk, as does integrating the app with Instagram. Sharing KIK names is popular, you may see posts which say “kik me @” or what’s your kik name? This is a dangerous practice as it allows strangers to connect more easily.

You can read some parents experiences on Commonsense media here.

Tinder – ages 13+

Tinder is a “hook up” app. It is primarily an adult site using location technology to allow users to find people close by. They can then choose if they like the look of the person. If the other person also likes the look of them, then they are able to chat, and of course meet up. It must be a two way connection. It has been described as the “site to find sex”. There is a huge risk to young people by sexual predators given the app narrows location down to around one km. Provided your child hasn’t lied about their age, those under 17 cannot engage with adults, but of course this cannot be monitored where someone has entered an incorrect birth date. Tinder is the only app of this kind open to under 18s. Other similar apps (rated 18+) are OK cupid, Grindr and Blendr.

Snapchat

Snapchat has been around for while and sexting is the biggest issue we see facing teens with this app. The app operates in a way that images are supposed to only display for a “snap” , but because of this the temptation to take nude pictures is pretty high. Recently over 90,000 images were copied from snapchat via a hack into a third party app. Called the snappening, the hacker released images including user ids. Many of these pictures were of naked or semi naked teens. Third party apps can be downloaded which can grab the images before they disappear. We wrote about snapchat in 2012 if you would like to learn more. We do recommend that if your teen is using snapchat and you cant get them off it, perhaps start using it yourself and make sure you are connected to them. This seems to work with many teens to help them think about what they are posting and why. (While we are at it, ask them just that.. what are they posting and why?).

Omegle is all about connecting with and talking to strangers. It is also rated 17+ (in Australia) and has strong adult sexualised content. Check ratings for other countries but their website says not to be used by under 13s and that under 18 need parental permission.

This app concerns me the most as it is all about connecting with randomised strangers both via chat and video. It’s one to one interaction and its anonymous (until you tell it otherwise). There is strong adult themes and language and cyber sex is rampant on this platform. It is possible to connect a facebook account which immediately removes another layer of safety. Omegle does have “no perverts” statement, but with a site and app such as this the risks are extremly high for young people to be exposed to inappropriate contact and content.

I would consider blocking this site for under 16’s at a minimum.

Meow Chat- rated 12+ for mild sexual content/nudity/profanity

This is a combination of a chat app and a meet up app. It uses location based technology to tell you who is nearby and offers for you to select (a bit like the hot or not Tinder selection) to potentially chat with and meet up with. You can also go for a global search and chat with people anywhere in the world. On one had I’d like to say it’s the modern communication version of a penfriend – meeting and connecting with people from all over the world can be a wonderful experience. This problem is again with the tendency towards sexualised content and the dating aspect. Having a 12 year old or younger meet up/hook up with a stranger is not something I feel comfortable with. I am concerned at it’s low rating as apparently sexual content and nudity seem to be now considered fine for our young people. I would like them to have a chance to develop their cerebal cortex just a little more before throwing them into the online dating/chat/meetup world personally.

A previous post about meow chat may be read here.

Apps you thought were safe

Instagram

Seems like a harmless photo sharing app, but of course as with all tools for some it can be manipulated. Instagram is for ages 13+ . There is a lot of peer pressure to have tweens and younger on instagram (often driven by parents who create sites for their own toddlers etc), but as with all apps, we need to look at the maturity level of the individual child, their resilience and as parents, try to preserve their innocence as childhood is a fleeting moment in life. For the most part Instagram can be a very creative space and for those of use who are visual it’s a wonderful platform. However there can be a dark side. Instagram can be used to connect to other apps and by doing so, reveal the person behind a user name. We all want to keep our youth safe and away from predators, so again, it’s about having conversations and making sure that we know who we are connecting to online.

Another risk is the obsession with selfies. For some teens they can become quite psychologically affected by comments (ok lack of comments) on photographs they post of themselves. Self esteem can take a bashing which is sad because this is superficial. It is normal for teens to seek validation, but when it is totally based on looks, and not personality and the whole package then this is when we start to see some damage. Bullying and trolling can come into play here. Talk to your teen about how they feel when using apps such as Instagram. If it’s fun and they enjoy it that’s great, but if they are finding themselves being affected by the comments, then it’s a great time to open up the conversation, and if necessary seek professional advice and help to try and minimise damage to self confidence and self esteem.

Yik yak

Many parents I speak with see Yik Yak as a fun posting app, but in actual fact it is fast becoming the most rampant site for bullying, pranking and cruelty. It has a voting/points system for “awesome yaks” which of course can act as an incentive to try and get the most controversial post. It allows you to post and search for apps within a particular radius of your location. This makes it extremely attractive to teens in High School and College. Again it’s anonymous user ID’s seem to promote the idea that behind a “mask” one can be forget respect for others totally. Reports of threats of violence, bombings, and sharing of sexual content and “paybacks” are being reported. Parents this app is also rated 17+. Principals and teachers are reporting a rise in cyberbullying with this app.

Various Gaming Apps:

There are literally hundreds of thousands of apps which involve play, and for the most part you might feel they are simply fun and/or educational. What we ask parents to consider is purchasing paid versions to eliminate advertising (rather than using free versions which may take players off game to inapprioprate sites, or have inappropriate banner ads) and also to consider apps which are constantly enticing players to upgrade or purchase new features. For some of our youth this is in fact grooming a new generation of gamblers. If your child is highly competitive or has an addictive personality in particular, please have conversations with them about how they are playing and try and keep it fun.

Age ratings:

Just a quick word about age ratings. These are of course given as a guideline in regards to use of apps. It is important that parents consider the individual maturity of their tween/teen when considering whether an app is appropriate and whether perhaps it should be removed. The issue with age ratings is that there really is nothing to stop anyone uploading an app and just saying “yes I’m old enough”. We highly recommend adjusting phone settings so that apps of inappropriate rating cannot be downloaded without access to a password (and that the parent should control that password initially until they feel their child has obtained maturity and/or age to hand over their independence).

For more information you may like to read our guest post at Happy Parenting on Mobile Apps and the Traps.

Please be aware that the information is made available for educational purposes only, and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. You must exercise your own due diligence before implementing any recommendation and/or purchasing any product. Fiona Lucas, Socially Skilled and iRespectOnline are exempt of any and all responsibility associated with misuse or your own interpretation. Do not delay seeking medical or professional advice. You acknowledge and agree that the above warnings and disclaimers shall apply to all content and that you take responsibility for your own health and wellbeing and that of your children.

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