Protecting children online includes recognizing warning signs, reviewing privacy settings and keeping communication open between children and trusted adults.
Social media, video games, messaging apps, livestreams and chat rooms can expose children to people seeking to exploit them. Online predators may use fake profiles and pretend to be children or teenagers to build relationships.
Those interactions may begin with shared interests, compliments, attention or gifts. Over weeks or months, conversations can shift toward inappropriate subjects, requests for pictures or attempts to move discussions to private platforms. Someone asking a child to keep a relationship or conversation secret from parents or caregivers is a warning sign.
Artificial intelligence (AI) adds another concern. The technology can manipulate photographs, videos and voices, including turning ordinary photographs into sexually explicit images. Altered content known as deepfakes can make someone appear to say or do something that never happened.
Families can discuss what children share publicly and who can access their pictures and personal information.
Parents can also take 5 steps to help protect children: learn which apps and games they use, review privacy settings, establish boundaries for device use, hold regular conversations about online experiences and use available parental controls.
Making accounts private, turning off unnecessary location sharing and reviewing who can contact a child can help limit exposure. Parental controls support those efforts, but ongoing communication and supervision remain necessary.
Children also need to know they can ask for help when an online interaction becomes uncomfortable or threatening, even if they trusted someone or shared something they regret.
Fear of punishment or losing access to a phone may keep children from reporting a problem. Parents and caregivers can encourage disclosure by listening, remaining calm and focusing on the child’s safety.
Every child should be able to identify at least 1 trusted adult they can turn to for help.
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