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

Parenting is no easy job these days. We are really excited to be part of the 2014 Happy Parenting Raising Adolescents Online Conference.

You’ll hear great tips, tools and strategies to help you:

Communicate better
Establish loving connections with your teens
Keep your teens safe
Grow positive happy healthy confident young adults

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.

September 10, 2013 By Fiona Lucas

The Connected Family: 5 Fab ideas for safer social media FUN

Author and online reputation educator Fiona Lucas shares 5 ways to balance “real” life and social media to connect with your family for the best of both worlds!

Families are so busy these days that it may seem easier for parents to leave children playing with smartphones, ipads and other devices to keep them entertained. These devices and online games can be highly addictive and once habits form, it can be very hard to break them.

We need to try and find a balance so that we remember that our devices are merely tools to help us to achieve a goal, and are not more important that spending time with each other. We don’t want our future childhood memories to consist of the high score they got on “angry birds”! Further the “good” use of the internet and social media platforms is becoming more and more integrated into the way our children learn at school, so we must ensure that we are able to support our children as they learn and not allow a ‘digital divide’ to grow.

We have put together some suggestions to help parents find ways to engage with their children using a balance of “real” experiences and online fun. This allows us to create an environment where our children see that our online tools are just that – tools that can add to an overall experience, but they are not the only experience.

Here are five ways that you can start engaging and having fun with your family, mixing up both online fun and real life fun to make a much more complete experience and create memories to last. By enjoying time together you can make the online experience safer because you are there to guide and monitor your child’s online time.

1. Create a family day trip scrapbook:

Organise a day trip, to the local zoo or fun park, you might like to involve extended family or friends.

Take photographs on the day (make sure you ask for parental permission if you take photos of other children). When you get home, or the next day or so, put aside a couple of hours to play with the kids and create a scrapbook album on your chosen social media platform. You might like to use Pinterest or Facebook.

If you are involving your children we highly recommend keeping the albums private – just for you and your family (you might choose to allow access by extended family). Have your children help you make up titles for the photos but don’t “tag” any of them with names.

Sit with your children and look up information on some of the animal or activities that you did during the day. You could then help your children to make comments on the photos with some of the facts. For example a title on the photo might be Mummy Giraffe and baby. The comment could be: A baby giraffe is called a calf. Giraffes can have necks up to 2 metres long. They have really long tongues too.

You might then look for fun (and age appropriate games to play). For example at Africa games there is a hungry giraffe game and they also have interesting facts about Africa.

2. Go on a real life treasure hunt! Geocaching experiences can be lots of fun!

Ever tried geocaching? Its fun, gets you outdoors and is a great way to show how your smartphone is really just a tool! Did you know that around the world geocaching enthusiasts have been hiding various “treasures” and marking them via GPS for others to find. Little trinkets (stickers, balls, toys from things like kinder surprise) are hidden to find and trade, along with a log book so you can mark when you found it, and leave something else for others to find. There are now over 6 million geocachers worldwide and over 2,214,540 active geocaches (treasure spots) across the world.

All you need is a GPS or an iphone. You can download a geocaching app for around $10 or create an account here and discover what’s hidden in your area (and around the world). A basic account is free, but if you really find you are enjoying it you might choose to join (annually around $30). Find our more here geocaching.com Beginners experiences are marked in green on the site. Check the details as some are more complex than others. Don’t do microcaching to start – they are very tiny and hard to find. Start with the bigger ones.

The only rule is that when you find a cache, whatever you take you replace with something of similar value.

Why not don your pirate gear with the kids and head off on a geocaching adventure!

3. Get APPY!

Hold an APP party where you all compare and talk about the different apps your children are playing with on their mobile devices. This is a great opportunity to talk about safety of apps and to check out just what your kids are playing with online. Take a good look at the types of advertising particularly on free apps and consider whether some apps are “grooming” for future gambling. You might discover some great new apps, and you might find there are some you decide to delete as well. Make sure you discuss with your child the pros and cons and help guide them to make the right decisions about the apps they are using.

4. Paper Chain Family

Here’s a bit of fun. Create some paper chain people or paper dolls and decorate them to represent your family members. Have fun posing them in places like around a tree and take a photo – then take a photo with the actual family doing the same thing. Stay safe, but you can have lots of fun. (add some of the photos to the family scrapbook you created in number 1 above. This is a great opportunity to have a few silly photos taken and then discuss what it might mean to have them online. There are bound to be a few that the kids say “oh yuk, no don’t post that”, and that is exactly what you need to bring a discussion into the space about respecting the rights of others and not posting pictures without their consent.

5. Savvy Shopping skills

With so much of our spending being online and via card, it’s hard for our children to understand that there is not an never ending supply of money. Play “online shopping” but use toy money and see how “savvy” your little budgeters can get. This is a great way to teach your children that money runs out and that prices vary. They will start to understand concepts around making better choices when they can see that the money doesn’t last. If you want to, you could give a small real prize for the one who shows restraint and compares prices (maybe some pocket money or a new money box!).

With more and more of our time being “screen time” it is vital that we seek to educate our children (and ourselves) early in finding balance, not just for on and off screen time, but balance between onscreen play and enjoying family activities offline.

Guiding our children as they grow up online can be tricky for parents. If you have enjoyed this post you may be interested in Futureproof your Kids – a parents guide to the social media playground.

To stay up to date with news for your connected family subscribe to our blog now and watch for our free app coming soon!

We hope you enjoy our suggestions and would love to learn of other ways you use social media to engage effectively with your child. Please let us know in the comments below.

You are most welcome to share this post on your social networks and parent groups. Help to spread the message for safe and balanced social media use.

Fiona Lucas

Fiona Lucas is the founder of iRespectOnline, providing education, training and strategies on managing your online reputation and social media. She is passionate about making the online world a more supportive and happier environment for all. She is the Author of Future Proof your kids.

www.fionalucas.com.au

July 6, 2013 By Fiona Lucas

Gambling and your child

Accessibility and availability of games and applications which encourage or simulate gambling are saturating the market for children in the 12-17 age group.

The Victorian Responsible Gambling foundation (VRGF) is working hard to generate awareness of the possible massive social issues which our children may face in the next few years if we don’t get proactive on this important issue.

Often we don’t even correlate the games our children are playing with gambling, however any game which rewards with credits and bonuses may be actually “grooming” our children to have issues in the future. According to research collated by the VRGF there has been a huge explosion in online and mobile gambling apps which are created in such a way as to avoid the regulation of the traditional gambling market. They do this because winnings cannot be rewarded as cash. We should be concerned.

Many parents and teachers see gambling games as being a good learning activity, and in the right environment, with controls this can indeed be true. What is vital is that we ensure we are monitoring the usage and behavior of the children when they are using such apps, and providing education on the addictive nature of such games.

The term “free to play” is deceptive as certainly early levels may have no cost, but quick rewards encourage the purchase of add on credits and upgrades, and many apps also are saturated with in app advertising which is designed to appear as part of the game. In Australia alone in 2011 the free to play industry turned over more than $60 million worth of business – that’s a lot of upgrades and addons.

With a choice on iTunes alone of over 50 million apps (all apps – not just games – May 2013) the lack of industry regulation is certainly raising its head. Add into this the many games available on facebook and we can see the increasing risk of potential gambling problems. The addictive nature of games can be seen in the longevity of apps on facebook such as Farmville2 and Candy Crush saga both of these apps have over 40 million users per month, with an average daily user count of 15 million for Candy Crush and 8 million for Farmville2. Here’s a fact that might really make you sit up .. King who own Candy Crush and who do not release their profit figures, is believed to have turned over more than 500 million in profit last year – staggering!

The fact the apps are portable and readily accessible on multiple devices means that once a player has a problem, the problem can follow them everywhere!

Behaviours and symptoms to look out for in your children include:

spending more and more time playing
conversation revolve around the app or around wins and losses
skipping school or work
falling grades at school
lying about using the app or how much game play is actually occurring
concealing actual spend on the app
borrowing or stealing money to be able to continue playing
mood swings, depression, irritability, particularly when not able to play

As we stress at irespectonline, when it comes on online behaviours our children tend to imitate what they see. Be very wary of gambling or celebrating wins in front of young children, who may not yet be able to understand the risks and the poor odds of winning.

For more information regarding apps and safety you can download our tip sheets (written in collaboration with our colleague Mel at Social Ediquette)

Join the 100 day gambling challenge now! If you or someone you know has a problem with gambling, seek help here or call the gambling help line 1800 858 858

Fiona Lucas

iRespectOnline® – Your Social Media Mirror

Have you checked your reflection lately?

*information for this post was sourced from the Responsible Gambling Guide, Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation 2013, iTunes and the writers own opinion.

October 1, 2012 By Fiona Lucas

Mobile devices and your child’s safety Infograph

As parents we do what we can to try and protect our children; but when it comes to the internet and mobile devices, it really comes down to diligent parenting. The only way to be 100% sure of what your child is doing on mobile devices is to actually observe them, but I know this is not practical. How do we keep them safe when they can access the web and various appplications and online games from anywhere on their mobile device. Here are my top tips to help ease your mind and keep your children safer when they are using mobile phones and tablet devices.

learn more about the author at www.fionalucas.com.au