20 years back barely any kids were knowing about internet. This was because they were not exposed to such kind of digital atmosphere in which current generation of kids are exposed. Nowadays we find kids who even do not know how to walk but still know how to use smartphone. Likewise young children are getting access to internet. So they must utilize this opportunity as advantage and learn new things.
They can develop new skills. Internet can be useful for them as they can learn how their school is operating and know what are the different activities their school is conducting apart from education and can participate in those events. They can even communicate with their teachers. Not only these they can also play interactive games where they can interact with their friends. Even though there are many advantages on child using an internet there are risks too. There are online predators who prod with the child to expose their personal information such as their address, phone number and so on. There are many sites which have inappropriate content and can be accessed by children.
So government must bring some safety law for children. Government must create a law in which a child can not share his/her personal details with any website without knowing to their parents. Each and every website used by a child will have to submit their policies to the government and parents must accept those policies before a child wants to use the website. This allows the website to take only limited details from children which parent has agreed for example name, number and other details.
Role of parents:
Role of parents plays a major role here. They can take all the necessary precautions in initial stage , so that their children do not get into wrong path. The first and important precaution every parent should take is to start conversation as early as possible with their children . If a children is starting to use a mobile or access to internet the first responsibility of every parent is to educate their children regarding what is bad and how to avoid them. They always need to ensure that the relationship they share with their children is transparent no matter how serious the issue is. They must communicate with their children on regular basis so that they can know what different types of activities their children are doing.
If they find anything appropriate they can politely discuss with their children and make them aware of what it may lead to. They must teach them on regular basis and give them some safety measure like not to share personal details with anyone on internet , not to share their passwords with anyone ,never respond to threatening mails . In case of communication with new person on internet they should tell their parents about it. Parents should also take some measures to safeguard their children .Parents should always monitor their children’s activities.
They can keep the computer in a common area from where they can easily monitor their children. If their children found a mail or message in internet stating that they have won a gift or cash prize ask them to kindly ignore such mail. And also ask them not to respond to such mails by providing their bank details.
Some common ways to safeguard your children
1. Switch on parental control mode: Now a days almost all the internet service providers are providing parent control options. So parents can check and block access to those sites.
2. Bookmarking frequently used website: Parents can make it easy for their children to access the websites that are regularly used by them by bookmarking them. So that they directly visit the website which are needed by them.