Online safety tips

• Encourage your children not to share any personal information with someone they have only interacted with online.
• Explain how they shouldn’t share their username and passwords with anyone, including their best friend, boyfriend or girlfriend.
• Review how to block or report people who make them feel unsafe or uncomfortable.
• Review how to set high privacy settings for all their social media accounts and apps.
• Encourage them to develop a habit of closing all their apps when they’re done using them.

• Discuss the possible legal consequences of cyber-bulling, sharing or requesting sexual images, and child pornography.
• Encourage your children to refrain from sharing or re-sharing inappropriate or hurtful messages or pictures.
• Remind them about the permanency of the internet. Deleting something does not make it go away, and everything that's shared or posted stays on the internet.
• Encourage them to avoid uploading pictures, videos or posts with backgrounds that make it easy for someone to identify their location.
• Explain how traffickers often look for vulnerabilities through online messages like “Nobody gets me,” “I hate my parents,” “I hate going to school,” or “I hate the way I look.” Encourage your child to abstain from posting information that may suggest problems or issues at home or school, and instead, reach out to a trusted adult who can help.

• Help your children understand how traffickers often "catfish" victims, which means that they pretend to be someone else by creating fake profiles. They can appear as "a friend of a friend," someone who wants to "help" or someone who has "contacts" with the music industry.
• If what someone is offering seems too good to be true, it probably is.
• Encourage them to trust their gut and reach out to a safe adult if something doesn’t feel right.

By setting clear boundaries, you are helping your child stay safe and be responsible with their online activities.

You can consider creating a family agreement that may include things like:

• Monitoring their online activity by following their social media accounts and using parental control apps. You can ask about names you do not recognize.
• Agreeing on which apps can be downloaded and what sites can be visited.
• Setting limits on how long they can be on their phone, online or on gaming sites, as well as the appropriate location to use technology in the house. For example, some parents don’t allow their child to keep their phones or computers in their bedroom.
• Advising them not to meet with anyone they connect with on the internet without you being aware of the meeting, details and giving the go-ahead.
• Asking them to share their username and password anytime should you have a valid reason to probe.
• Asking them to share their location with you when they are outside socializing, for example using the “Find My Friends” app.