Regulation is a Start, but Empowering Parents is the Real Solution

February 11, 2026

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The Illusion of Safety: Why Parental Intuition is No Longer Enough in the Digital Age

December 29, 2025

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I recently came across a disturbing news report that every parent needs to read. In Israel, a mother’s intuition saved her 10-year-old son from a predatory situation involving his own teacher. The mother noticed messages arriving at odd hours, spotted behavioral changes in her child, and decided to investigate. She discovered a stream of inappropriate, intimate messages sent by an authority figure the child trusted.

This mother saved her child, and she deserves credit. But this story is scary. It proves that keeping kids safe today is very difficult.

The “Living Room” Paradox

We live in a time where the concept of “safety” has fundamentally shifted. In the past, if our children were sitting on the sofa next to us, we knew they were safe. Today, that physical proximity is an illusion.

A child can be sitting two feet away from their parents, safely inside their home, yet be virtually transported to a dangerous environment. They could be dealing with cyberbullying, exposed to toxic trends, or, as in the recent news story, being groomed by a predator.

The scary reality is that for every parent who manages to catch that one suspicious message in time, there are countless others who might miss it. And it isn’t their fault.

The Data Overload Challenge

Let’s be realistic about the digital landscape our children inhabit. The average child receives and sends hundreds of messages a day across WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and gaming chats.

Expecting a parent to manually read through every single line of text to find a potential threat is not only invasive to the child’s privacy, but it is also practically impossible. It is like trying to find a specific grain of sand on a beach.

If we rely solely on manual checks or “lucky” intuition, we are leaving our children’s safety to chance.

Bridging the Gap with AI

This specific challenge is the driving force behind PureSight and our solution, Surfie. We realized early on that parents don’t need to see everything; they need to see what matters.

We developed Surfie to act as a smart digital filter. Using advanced Artificial Intelligence, the system monitors social platforms and messaging apps, but it doesn’t just record text, it analyzes context.

Event Detection: The AI is trained to recognize the distinct patterns of cyberbullying, predatory grooming (pedophiles), and distress.
Contextual Awareness: It distinguishes between friendly banter and dangerous interactions.
Real-Time Alerts: Instead of handing the parent a transcript of 500 messages, Surfie stays silent until a red line is crossed.

How Technology Could Have Changed the Narrative

Returning to the story of the 10-year-old boy: Had a solution like Surfie been active on his device, the outcome wouldn’t have depended on the mother noticing a late-night notification.

The system would have analyzed the content of the conversation. It would have flagged the inappropriate language and the suspicious nature of the dialogue coming from an adult figure. The mother would have received an immediate alert on her phone, showing her the specific problematic exchange, allowing her to intervene instantly, perhaps even weeks before she eventually did.

Moving From Reaction to Prevention

As parents, we provide our children with smartphones to keep them connected and safe. Yet, without the right tools, those same devices open a door we cannot easily close.

We need to normalize the use of digital parenting tools not as “spying,” but as essential safety gear, like a seatbelt or a bicycle helmet. Solutions like Surfie are designed to respect the child’s privacy while ensuring that when a threat arises, the parent is the first to know.

We cannot control the internet, but we can control how we equip ourselves to handle it. Let’s take the burden of “luck” out of the equation.

Tags: cyberbulllying, Digital Parenting, online child safety, prevention, regulation, safe internet use

The iPhone vs. Android Debate: It’s Not Just About Preference, It’s About Our Children’s Safety

December 24, 2025

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At the Cohen household, there is a long-running debate about the “supreme” mobile operating system. My wife is a devout iPhone user, while I am firmly in the Android camp. Neither of us has successfully converted the other.

These differences are reinforced daily by the distinct User Interfaces of each platform. I find it just as difficult to operate her device as she does mine. It’s a friendly disagreement, and truthfully, we manage to live in peace despite this technological divide.

However, when we shift the context from adults to children, the differences between these two platforms stop being a matter of taste and start being a matter of safety.

As the CEO of PureSight , where we specialize in protecting children online, I see a fundamental contrast in philosophy between the two giants:

Apple prioritizes a “walled garden” approach to privacy. While noble in theory, this policy severely limits third-party applications’ ability to provide robust child protection services.
Google, on the other hand, adopts a policy that balances privacy with parental choice. They have established strict guidelines: apps can request monitoring permissions, but they must transparently explain what is being accessed and why. If a parent chooses to grant those permissions to protect their child, the OS allows it.

The Result: On an Android device, we can run child protection services that are significantly more effective, practical, and deep than what is possible on an iPhone. The proof is in the market – virtually all dedicated “safe phones” for kids available today are built on the Android platform, not iOS.

The Social Pressure vs. Online Child Safety

This creates a massive challenge for parents, particularly in markets like the US where the iPhone is a status symbol. Parents face immense pressure to provide their children with iPhones to avoid social exclusion (the “Green Bubble” stigma). Yet, by doing so, they inadvertently back themselves into a corner with very limited tools to monitor and protect their children in the digital social sphere.

A Regulatory Blind Spot

Current regulatory discussions on child safety are heavily focused on blocking access to social platforms. While well-intentioned, I believe this misses a crucial opportunity.

Instead of just trying to ban usage, regulators should demand that OS providers (specifically Apple) open up their APIs to legitimate child safety vendors. We need the ability to monitor and protect children on the device level – capabilities that the OS providers themselves are not fully offering.

The Privacy Paradox: The Life360 Example

Critics often cite strict privacy as the reason for locking down devices. But do parents actually prefer total privacy over safety?

Look at Life360, a location service with over 90 million users, mostly families. As a public company, they have disclosed that the data collected from their free-tier users (about 97% of their base) is sold to third parties to fund the operation. Despite the known trade-off between privacy and utility, millions of families use it daily.

The lesson? Parents are willing to share data if it means keeping their children safe.

Driving Change: The “First Phone” Opportunity

Let’s be realistic: attempting to switch a teenager from an iPhone to an Android is virtually a “mission impossible” due to social dynamics. However, parents hold the power when purchasing the very first smartphone, typically around age 10.

This is the precise moment when children take their first steps into the digital world, a critical stage where deep parental involvement and guidance are essential, not optional. Therefore, I strongly recommend utilizing this window of opportunity to ensure their first device is Android-based. It is the most effective way to guarantee you have the necessary tools to guide and protect them during these formative years.

Let’s prioritize safety over status.

Tags: Digital Parenting, online child safety, safe internet use, social media

Jonathan Haidt, Pac-Man, and What Parents Are Missing

December 21, 2025

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Like many parents, I recently received a message from my wife with a link to a podcast by Jonathan Haidt. She sent it with a note of deep concern about how the digital world is affecting our young daughters.

It was ironic. Why? Because I am the CEO of PureSight, a company that builds tools to help parents navigate exactly these challenges.

Haidt himself notes that most of his book’s buyers are mothers. They are often the first to spot these behavioral changes in children and bring this critical discussion to the family table.

The “Kids These Days” Trap

I agree with Haidt on one fundamental point: our kids are behaving differently because of screens and social media. These are challenges that previous generations never faced.

However, I believe his analysis is missing something.

Older generations always complain about “the youth of today.” I am Gen X, and there is a famous joke about my generation:

“If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.”

Technically? Maybe it was true. We played video games, and later we went to dark clubs. But in the end, we turned out okay.

I believe our kids will be okay too. The digital world gives them amazing advantages we never had. Yes, there are new challenges, but we need to adapt, not panic.

Don’t Blame the Government, Empower the Parents

The biggest piece missing from Haidt’s view is the role of the family.

He focuses heavily on tech giants and asks the government for more regulations. He implies that parents are helpless against these companies.

But history shows that bans don’t really work. When Facebook required users to be 13+, it didn’t stop children. It just taught them to lie about their age to open an account.

Guidance over Bans

I believe it is safer for us to know where our kids are online. If we simply ban platforms, children will move to “underground” apps where we cannot help them.

Our job as parents is to educate, guide, and protect, just like we teach them to cross a busy street.

Digital life is here to stay. Our kids are not ready to face it alone; they need our compass. I believe in a balanced approach:

Allow them to enter the digital world.
Equip parents with tools to monitor activity and get alerts if the kids encounter dangerous content.

Looking to the Future

Serious incidents do happen online, and we must remain alert. But we should not try to turn back time.

I am confident that in a few years, we will look at this generation’s achievements with pride. And inevitably, they will grow up to stress about the changes facing their own children. 😊

Tags: online child safety, parenting, safe internet use

Why “Parental Control” Is No Longer Enough – And Why We Must Shift to Online Child Safety

November 17, 2025

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In marketing, we know that when a product enters a new market first, its name often becomes the name of the entire category. Think of Zoom, it became the generic term for video conferencing, even when people were actually using Teams, Google Meet, or another platform.

In the world of child protection online, a similar thing happened. For many years, the category has been known as “Parental Control.” It’s a term born in the early days of the industry, when solutions focused mainly on web content filtering.

But after more than a decade in this field, and as a father of four (not so little) kids. I’ve never truly connected to the idea that a parent’s role is to control their children.

Our children are not robots. And I don’t believe that controlling them is the goal. Our role as parents is to educate, guide, and protect, while helping them gradually grow into independent, responsible digital citizens.

We Chose a New Term: “Online Child Safety Service”

At PureSight, we have chosen to move away from the old terminology. We refer to our solution as an Online Child Safety Service, because it reflects what modern families actually need today:

Not control.
Not restriction for the sake of restriction.
But involvement, awareness, and timely guidance.

The digital world has changed dramatically. If once the main risk was inappropriate websites, today the challenge is very different:

📱 Kids spend far less time “browsing the internet.”
📲 And significantly more time inside dedicated social, gaming, and messaging platforms.

This shift created an entirely new reality for parents.

The New Parenting Challenge

Every parent knows this moment:

You’re sitting in the living room with your child. They are next to you, holding a smartphone. Yet you have no idea:

Who they are talking to
What content they’re seeing
What conversations they are involved in
Or what is happening inside those apps

This lack of parental visibility is not a small issue. It removes a parent’s ability to guide, support, and protect. And that is a fundamental problem.

Regulation Is Coming – But Often Focused on Yesterday’s Problems

Across the world, more governments are realizing their responsibility to protect children online. This is encouraging, but many of these regulatory efforts still focus on yesterday’s challenges:

Traditional content filtering
Age-based blocking of entire platforms
Attempts to isolate children from digital life altogether

But as I’ve said before: I don’t believe full isolation is the answer.

Social platforms are the “digital roads” of our time. Just like real roads, we can’t keep children away from them forever.

We don’t ban kids from crossing the street.
We teachthem how to cross safely.
We hold their handwhen they’re young.
And gradually, as they mature, they learn to navigate it on their own.

The digital world demands the same approach.

Modern Child Safety Must Focus on Social Platforms

To truly protect children today, safety solutions must be able to:

✔️ Monitor online interactions in social platforms
✔️ Detect risks early
✔️ Alert parents when intervention is needed

Because the real threats today are:

Cyberbullying
Predators initiating contact with children
Harmful content and dangerous trends
Emotional pressure or manipulation
Exposure to age-inappropriate material

Parents don’t need to “control” their kids.

They need awareness.
They need timely information.
They need the ability to remain involved, without intruding, and without breaking trust.

Our Mission at PureSight

At PureSight , this has been our mission from day one:

To empower parents with the right insights at the right time , so they can protect, guide, and support their children in the digital world.

Not through control. But through smart, AI-driven, respectful, and age-appropriate guidance.

As the digital world continues to evolve, so must the tools and language we use to keep our children safe.

And it starts by letting go of old terminology, and embracing the real challenge of our time: Online Child Safety.

If you’d like to explore how we support millions of families worldwide with AI-powered child protection, I’d be happy to connect.

Royi Cohen

CEO @ PureSight | Global expert on Online Child Safety, developing platforms and services for the global market.

Tags: Cyberbullying, Digital Parenting, online child safety, Online predators, safe internet use

What is the “Ghostlighting” Dating Trend?

August 20, 2025

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The “Ghostlighting” Dating Trend

A concerning new dating behavior called “Ghostlighting” is emerging in online relationship culture. The term blends ghosting, which means cutting off contact without explanation, with gaslighting, which means manipulating someone into doubting their own perception of reality. In ghostlighting, a partner suddenly disappears from communication, only to later return and deny any wrongdoing, often suggesting the other person misunderstood or overreacted.

Experts warn that ghostlighting can be emotionally damaging, leaving individuals confused, anxious, and questioning their own memory or judgment. This tactic can erode self-esteem, create distrust in future relationships, and in some cases be part of a broader pattern of emotional manipulation.

The trend is reportedly being amplified by dating apps and social media. Disappearing and reappearing in someone’s life can be done with minimal effort and little accountability in these digital spaces. The casual nature of online connections makes it easier for ghostlighters to avoid confrontation while still keeping someone emotionally tethered.

How Teens Can Be Influenced?

Teens who are new to dating, particularly in the fast-paced and always-connected world of messaging apps and social media, may be especially vulnerable to ghostlighting. Many are still developing the emotional resilience, communication skills, and self-worth needed to navigate relationships. Experiencing ghostlighting at a young age can:

Normalize unhealthy relationship patterns and lower expectations for respect and clear communication.
Distort self-image by making teens doubt their instincts and judgment when told they overreacted.
Create emotional dependency, as the unpredictable cycle of disappearance and return fuels a craving for the ghostlighter’s validation.
Increase social stress, since online platforms can make these dynamics public, which may lead to embarrassment or peer pressure.

For impressionable teens, the mix of romantic interest, online visibility, and emotional manipulation can create a lasting impact on how they view trust, boundaries, and self-worth in future relationships.

Protecting Against Ghostlighting

At PureSight, we use advanced AI tools to detect manipulative text and recognize ghostlighting behaviors in real time. We track activity across social media, messaging apps, and gaming platforms, identifying new and disturbing trends as they emerge.

When signs of toxic behavior appear—such as sudden disappearance followed by denial or blame-shifting—we send timely alerts to parents. This allows families to step in, support their teen, and address the issue before it escalates.

By combining early detection with practical guidance, PureSight helps parents safeguard their children’s emotional well-being and teach them what healthy relationships should look like, both online and offline.

David Gil,

Research team lead at PureSight

Tags: Gaslighting, Ghosting, online child safety, prevention

Who Will Take on This Global Mission to Protect Our Children Online?

August 19, 2025

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Who Will Take on This Global Mission to Protect Our Children Online?

Recently, two young girls in Israel, just 7 and 10 years old, were rushed to the hospital after swallowing coins. One of them even required surgery to remove the coin from her airway. The reason? A viral TikTok challenge where children attempt to “make a coin disappear” and pull it out of their mouths.

Following these incidents, a hospital doctor issued a warning to parents: “We discovered a TikTok challenge caused this. Parents, especially now during the summer vacation, please pay close attention to what your children are doing online, and explain the risks to them.”

The Age Factor Matters

The critical point here is age. Social media trends and pressures are already influencing children as young as 7.

These platforms don’t just affect teens; they shape behaviors at even younger ages, when kids are most vulnerable.

Australia has already taken bold action, passing legislation that bans children under 16 from using platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and, more recently, YouTube. While I’m not sure how practical or enforceable such laws will be, I also don’t believe in completely blocking platforms that have become deeply embedded in modern life. Social media can carry risks—but it also provides opportunities and benefits.

A Balanced Approach: Delay, Then Guide

What I do believe in is delaying exposure. Parents and communities should work together to postpone the age at which children join digital platforms, helping reduce social pressure on any single child. And when the time comes for them to enter the digital world, they must not walk in alone.

Just as we guide our kids in the physical world, teaching them how to cross the street safely or how to handle difficult social situations, we must also guide them in the digital world. Sitting on the couch while your child scrolls on their phone, with no idea who they’re talking to, what they’re watching, or what challenges they’re trying, is no longer acceptable.

Parents Must Step In

The first generation of parents largely dismissed this responsibility, saying, “There’s nothing we can do.” But today, an increasing number of parents understand that digital safety is our responsibility. And thankfully, there are services and technologies available that allow parents to be informed and provide guidance, even when their children are using personal devices and social media platforms.

Regulation: Privacy vs. Protection

Here lies one of the greatest challenges of our time: balancing children’s right to privacy with the need for protective monitoring. To keep kids safe, we must allow authorized services to collect limited, transparent data on children’s online activities, not to sell, not to exploit, but to alert parents when risks arise and intervention is needed.

This is a complex challenge, but solvable. A global standard can be created: when a child’s profile is active on a device, authorized safety services should be able to monitor activity, while ensuring data is shared only with the parents, in a transparent and regulated way.

A Call to Action

This, in my view, should be the mission of global regulation. Not just banning access. Not just turning a blind eye. But creating a structured, transparent framework where parents can fulfill their duty to guide and protect their children in the digital world.

So I ask: Who will take on this global mission?

Royi Cohen

CEO @ PureSight | Global expert on Online Child Safety, developing platforms and services for the global market.

Tags: online child safety, prevention, regulation, safe internet use

🎮 Games, Manipulation, and Our Role as Digital Parents

July 13, 2025

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🎮 Games, Manipulation, and Our Role as Digital Parents

In 2024, over 3.3 billion people around the world played video games. Games have become one of the most dominant entertainment platforms globally — enjoyed by children, teens, and adults alike. They are exciting, interactive, and often social. But beneath the fun, there’s a serious problem that many parents, and even regulators, are only beginning to truly understand.

Earlier this year, between March 31 and April 11, 2025, the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN) conducted a global sweep of 439 mobile and online games. The results were alarming.

🧠 What They Found: Games Use Manipulation by Design

ICPEN’s sweep revealed that many games use manipulative design techniques – psychological tactics built into the game experience to keep players engaged longer and spending more. These methods are used on all players, but they’re especially dangerous for children.

The most common tactics included:

Sneaking – hiding critical information from players (like costs or limits).
Nagging – constant reminders or pressure to make in-game purchases.
Obstruction – making it hard to skip or avoid certain actions unless you pay or wait.

In addition, many games use “urgency tricks”, messages like “Limited Time Offer” or “Only 2 Left!” to make players feel like they have to act fast. ICPEN found that some of these offers were not even real; they were just pressure tactics.

🎮 Even Games for 3-Year-Olds Use These Tricks

What’s perhaps most disturbing is that these manipulative techniques aren’t just in games for teenagers or adults. ICPEN found that:

Loot boxes, in-game purchases, and ads are just as common in games rated for ages 3 and up as in other games.
Only 30% of games that included loot boxes actually disclosed this in the game’s download page or description.

So not only are our kids exposed to this, we often don’t even know it’s happening.

👨👩👧👦 Our Kids Are Up Against Experts. They Need Us.

As parents, we must face a difficult truth: When our children play these games, they are not just having fun. They are being influenced by teams of professionals, game designers, behavioral scientists, and monetization experts, all working to keep them playing and spending.

It’s not a fair fight. Our kids are just kids. They don’t know how to resist these tactics, and why should they? Even adults often fall into the same traps.

That’s why we, the parents, need to step in.

We must:

Know how much time our children spend on screens.
Understand what they’re doing during that time.
Talk to them openly about what’s okay and what’s not.
Help them break habits that lead to addiction or overspending.

🧭 But That’s Easier Said Than Done

The truth is, today’s parents are dealing with challenges that didn’t exist a generation ago. Give a child a smartphone, and in seconds, they can access games, chat with strangers, or be exposed to content we wouldn’t approve of, all from the safety of the living room couch.

You don’t see who they’re talking to. You don’t hear what they’re seeing. And unless you have tools in place, you may not even know how much time they’re online.

🛡️ Digital Parenting Tools Are No Longer Optional

At PureSight , we’ve made it our mission to help families take back control. Not by spying on children, but by giving parents real visibility and the ability to have open, meaningful conversations with their kids.

We believe that:

Screen time tracking should be standard in every household.
Parents should be able to see what their kids are exposed to, and decide what’s appropriate.
And most of all, children deserve to be protected, not manipulated.

This is not about control. It’s about guidance, responsibility, and care.

🔚 We Can’t Change the Whole Digital World – But We Can Change How We Parent in It

The digital world isn’t going away. If anything, it’s only becoming more immersive, more targeted, and more complex.

But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless. It means we must adapt, as parents, as educators, and as a society.

Let’s stop pretending that a simple parental warning or a 3+ age rating is enough. Let’s give our children the tools, support, and protection they need to grow up safe and strong in the digital world.

And let’s start today.

Royi Cohen

CEO @ PureSight | Global expert on Online Child Safety, developing platforms and services for the global market.

Tags: Digital Parenting, online child safety, prevention, screen addiction, time limits

Social Media Usage Amongst Teens 2023

March 12, 2023

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In the most-used social media platforms ranking, Facebook has still managed to maintain itself at the top for the past 14 years, but does that mean it is still the most used amongst tweens and teens?

According to recent research, Facebook continues to lead the rank of most used social media platforms, with 2.9 billion monthly active users as of October 2022, which represents 36.8% of all people on earth. This information has been accurate even after acknowledging the decrease of roughly 2 million users per month in the first half of 2022. Facebook is still the most popular network in the world. This data is indeed impressive, but when it comes to tweens and teens it might not be as relevant as we may think, given that only 5.6% of Facebook users are 17 years old and under.

When focusing on which social media platforms parents should not only be aware, but also wary at times, we must turn our attention to the list bellow with the most popular social media apps and platforms kids and teens spend most of their time on:

YOUTUBE

In contradiction of what many may think, YouTube is the most used social media amongst kids between the ages of 13 to 17 years old, according to the Pew Research Center’s survey 95% of teenagers listed YouTube as their preferred platform.

TIKTOK

This is the platform to be watched since its popularity growth between teenagers in the past few years has been exponential. In addition, due to its smart algorithms, that could quickly cause social media addiction, as kids spend an average of 102 minutes per day only on TikTok. 67% of teens have elected it as their one of their top platforms, this represents 32,5% of TikTok’s users.

INSTAGRAM

Instagram is very popular because it is a mainly visual platform, that started focusing mainly on pictures and now added the “Reels” feature that is very similar to TikTok, the “Instagram Stories” and “Live” features that can get very similar to the YouTube lives that are so popular. Even though it is in third place, most of its users are between the ages of 25 and 34 years old, 31.7% of its users. Teenagers between 13-17 years old are 8.9% of Instagram users.

SNAPCHAT

Snapchat is also a mostly visual platform that is very popular among the young generations. Even though around 2015 its growth appeared to reach a stagnated stage, around mid 2021 it came back with a significant growth and by the beginning of 2022 it had 332 million daily highly active users.

FACEBOOK

As mentioned before, Facebook is indeed the largest social media in the world currently, but this number does not impress when we focus on the younger generations.

Bonus: WHATSAPP

WhatsApp messaging app became the main channel of communication amongst all ages, nowadays from 10 years old kids up to 70 years old adults, not only most have their WhatsApp accounts but are also active users. As of April 2022, WhatsApp has 2.44 billion monthly users, and it keeps growing.

Why is this subject more important now than it has been up until this point?

The use of the Internet, apps and social media keeps changing as the generations grow and evolve, and as the time goes by, more and more generations are born into a world of technology where likes and shares have an ongoing growing importance on their lives and wellbeing. According to FameMass, teens in the ages between 13 and 18 years old have an average of 3 hours a day on social media nonetheless, some teens spend up to 9 hours a day on it. This is longer than the time they spend on school, if you worry about what your child is learning on school shouldn’t you also be aware of what they are being exposed throughout most of their days as well?

https://famemass.com/social-media-addiction-statistics/https://statusbrew.com/insights/social-media-statistics/https://www.thehealthyjournal.com/faq/how-many-kids-under-13-are-using-social-media https://laughingsquid.com/most-popular-social-media-networks-2003-2022/

Tags: online child safety, social media apps, teens

Back to School? Tips on keeping your kids safe!

July 13, 2020

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Summer vacation is over and your kids are back in school, facing the threats of cyberbullying, sexting and other online safety dangers. According to a recent poll in the UK, 35% of 11- to 17-year-olds reported being bullied online and four in 10 said they had witnessed others being picked on online.

And according to a study from December 2013, 473,000 6-17 year olds visited an adult website from a PC or laptop, of which 44,000 children were aged 6-11 years old!
And what about Secret, Whisper, Tinder and all the other new anonymous messaging apps that kids are using these days? There’ve been a lot of stories recently in the media about how these apps are being used for anonymous cyberbullying…

So, there is no better time to review online safety practices and tips!

Educate yourself!

Know what is happening online, where your kids go and what they do when they are online. Learn about the possible dangers – cyberbullying, sexting, online predators, and inappropriate content. Understand how these could occur, what warning signs to watch out for, and what the possible consequences could be. Remember that sometimes familiar “frenemies” who use the Internet as a weapon, may be more threatening than strangers.

Communicate with your kids

Explain about the dangers possibly awaiting them online. Tell them they should feel free to come to you whenever they feel uncomfortable – whether they “accidentally” see inappropriate content, receive a request from a stranger or feel threatened by a bully.

Review basic online safety rules

Remind your kids of these basic online safety rules:

Avoid posting of photos online!Avoid giving out names, addresses, phone numbers, schools, banking information or other similar informationNever meet someone you only know onlineDo not share your password!Do not believe everything you read. If it’s online, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is trueAvoid “checking-in” and geo tagging

For older kids that use social networks, remind them that everything online is permanent. Screenshots, caches and other tools mean that even deleting a post or comment won’t make it go away. Tell them to pause and think through every post.

Did you get them a new laptop, tablet, or smartphone?

Here are some things you should do to keep your kids safer when online:

Review your family online use rules.
Did you decide on different rules for the summer? This is a good time to rethink your family’s rules, and explain that these should be followed even if they are using the Internet from a friend’s house, at the library or from a mobile device. If you don’t already have one, consider creating a family online safety contract.Make sure you have an online safety program installed.
PureSight can assist you in monitoring your children’s online behavior on several devices (tablet, smartphone, laptop) on Facebook too! PureSight can also help you in setting time limits and in blocking offensive and hateful content, even in instant messaging programs. And you can set up individual, age-appropriate profiles to help all of your children. Learn more about PureSight.

Dying to share those “back to school” photos on Facebook? Think again…

It’s fun to share your children’s first day of school photos for all your relatives and friends to see. But here are a few things to consider before you do so:

“Unfriendly” people may find/download your child’s picture – in order to use, abuse or even try to pursue your child. To prevent this from happening you may want to think carefully about the type of images you post — for example, posting nude images should be avoided.Someone may misappropriate your child’s picture/identity, and pass your child as someone else’s or even worse – use their identity for fraudulent purposes. To avoid this, tweak Facebook’s privacy settings so that only friends and family can see the photos, and never share any of your child’s private info, such as social security or phone numbersWhen your child grows up, he will have an entire online history he never made/wanted. College admission boards, future employers now look routinely at Facebook profiles as part of their screening process. Will your child really6 want them be able to see him boarding the school bus in third grade? To avoid this either refrain from posting under your/their full name or avoid posting pictures that show his/her face clearly.

Is your kid a victim of cyberbullying?

Behavioral changes, trouble sleeping, and closing computer windows when you enter the room are some of the signs. Click this link Is my child a victim of cyberbullying? to learn the signs that may indicate your child is a cyberbullying victim or that he may be cyberbullying others.If you have come to the conclusion that your kid is a victim of cyberbullying, there are things you can do. Not responding, documenting the evidence and contacting authorities are examples. Check out our What should I do if my child has been bullied? page for other things you can do.

And what about their time at school? Are they safe? .

Here some questions to look into with your child’s teachers and administrators:

What are the rules regarding mobile devices at school?
Are children allowed to use mobile devices for calculating and research? Is there a punishment for texting in class? Or, are mobile devices not allowed in the classroom at all?Are there social-networking rules regarding student/teacher interaction?
Many teachers use Facebook and other social networks to connect to students and make themselves available for questions, while others do not. Ask your child’s teacher what their rules are, and make sure you feel comfortable with any social-networking requirements.Does your school have a Cyberbullying policy?
What is expected from both the parents and student when it comes to dealing with cyberbullying incidents? Many schools have recently implemented harsher penalties for cyberbullies, including suspension and even expulsion.Does your school use filtering software?
What is your school doing to protect your child from harmful online content and contacts while they are at school, and what happens to a student who tries to access inappropriate material.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/14/35pc-children-teenagers-victims-cyberbullying-fears-grooming-tinder-snapchat http://www.nspcc.org.uk/news-and-views/latest-news/2014/online-pornography/online-pornography_wda101910.html

Tags: back to school, online child safety, safe internet use

Tag: online child safety

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Back to School? Tips on keeping your kids safe!

So, there is no better time to review online safety practices and tips!

Educate yourself!

Communicate with your kids

Review basic online safety rules

Here are some things you should do to keep your kids safer when online:

Dying to share those “back to school” photos on Facebook? Think again…

Is your kid a victim of cyberbullying?

And what about their time at school? Are they safe? .

Don’t wait, Schedule Puresight demo today!