Online Safety Tips to keep 3rd and 4th Grade kids safe while Online Schooling and Surfing

 The coronavirus pandemic has forced children to spend a large part of their working day on the computer and online.  Our young kids are embracing the Internet at an accelerated pace.  Today’s essentials like online schooling and virtual friends’ meetings cannot be regulated based on the screen time norms of the past. The one- or two-hour screen time limit rule has fallen apart, as children are on the Internet for almost 6-8 hours a day.

At the age of 7 to 9, logic and critical reasoning are still in the formative stages.  It becomes difficult to explain to kids what Internet risks are and how to avoid them. While instructions and advice must be given, and continually reinforced, it would be unwise to believe that your child would be safe all the time, simply based on the instructions you once gave.

At this age, a child is usually not on social media or email or uses a personal mobile phone. This is a good thing because it avoids your child becoming a target for pedophiles who normally target children after viewing their online photos and videos, and trolls or surprisingly even jealous colleagues and their parents, for what they post online.

What the child is a master off is the use of collaboration technology (video and chat) like Zoom, playing online games like Minecraft and surfing the Internet. At this age an interested child has already mastered how to learn from online instructional videos on YouTube or to research the Internet for topics of Interest. 

Cyber risk must be assessed based on how the child uses the Internet. The child digital assets normally are a computer and an email id. The child may not use the email id, but it is usually needed to access online portals, such as for schoolwork. 

The three main risks faced by children in these grades are from:

Malware: Cyber criminals embed malware in pirated or specifically prepared copies of games or software or images that children download. The malware would exfiltrate data such as pictures or files from the computer drive, and passwords for online accounts. Compromise of online account passwords would allow a cyber criminal to send emails using your id or use other types of service accounts. If multiple family members share the computer, then there is a risk of their accounts being compromised. 

Content Exposure:  Surfing online would expose a child to objectionable content. Objectionable content is available easily if the right search words are entered. It may be unlikely that your child deliberates searches for such content but there is a high possibility that they may stumble on it. 

Online Strangers: When children use YouTube tutorials to learn how to do things, for example to play games, they come across links and game servers for multi-player gaming. Children are adept at understanding how to click on these links which may have malicious content or to connect to game servers which may expose the child to other players with harmful intent.

Three Sets of Countermeasures to protect you child from online Harm

Prevention from Internet Risks requires a combination of security countermeasures. All these together form the basis of a secure experience. There are three main set of security controls:

1. Secure the Computer

2. Secure User Environment

3. Parental Involvement

Secure the Computer

Each computer must be protected from security risks that it is exposed to when connected to external networks and through it use

Use a supported version of Windows:  Win 10, 1909 is the least version supported for Home, Pro, Pro Education, and Pro for Workstations editions until May 2021. To check the Windows Version Select the Start button > Settings > System > About

Use an Antivirus Plus Product: Installing an antivirus plus product offers different types of protection by scanning files for malware and adware, restricting (firewalling) risky network connections and avoiding risky websites.  Besides these, there are other features which would be useful for older children or adults.  

Use Automatic Updates to ensure that your software is always patched: When a new vulnerability has been discovered, software companies release a patch. It’s simpler to set the Auto Update feature to ensure that computer software is always patched to the latest version. By using Automatic Updates, you do not have to visit the software vendors Update Web site to scan for updates. Instead, the software automatically delivers them to your computer. You should check the patch status regularly to ensure that the auto update mechanism works perfectly.  All software needs to be patched whether it is the operating system, collaboration software like ZOOM or tools provided by the school.

To check for the Window Update Setting - select the Start >Windows logo Start button, and then go to Settings (Gear-shaped Settings icon) > Update & Security > Windows Update

Secure User Environment 

Computer software configuration must tailor user security controls for the child’s use. 

Create an Independent Child Account on Windows:  Microsoft allows the creation of a family account. The family account enables the linking and control of multiple profiles.  A child profile allows a parent the following benefits: 

• Set Screen time

• Require parent permission before buying stuff or downloading applications

• Filter content (applicable for only Microsoft Products)

• Get reports of online activity

• Monitor Activity on the Computer

• Parent Supervised Downloads

• Set Parental Controls

Use PIN not Password: Windows Hello in Windows 10 enables users to sign in to their device using a PIN. A numeric PIN is easy for a child to remember without writing it down. A Hello PIN is tied to the specific device on which it was set up. That PIN is useless to anyone without physical access to the computer. If the PIN was shared with anyone else, they would not be able to sign in to any account from anywhere.  When you create your child account, you would first have to create a password. This password can be written down and stored safely. You child does not need to know or use it once a PIN has been set-up.

Create a Child Email Account: Parents should set-up an independent email id for their children rather than use their own.  Children would not normally use email. However, all online applications require an email account to sign in. Parents should keep the password secret and operate the account. 

Set Parental controls:  Most antivirus software’s and browsers have parental controls. Parents need to research how to set age restrictions on browsers and the operating systems.  It is important to note that you would need to set controls on every browser you use and the operating system. Parental controls allow restriction on screen time, buying online, surfing age appropriate sites, blocking or explicitly allowing certain applications to run on the computer, and usage reporting

Parental Involvement

The role of parents is largely to curate and keep safe the experience the child has on the Internet. It is similar to the physical world where a parent ensures that their child is not harmed or bullied on the playground. Parents provide advice on Internet safety and etiquettes and help children understand their online experiences and interactions. Children of this age seek clarifications from their parents as they learn or are excited to talk about their online discoveries. These conversations must be encouraged for the valuable insights they provide on a child’s online behavior and experience.  More so because parents are often unfamiliar with the games played or applications used by their children. 

Protecting Children from Strangers:  To protect children from meeting strangers online, it is important to know where children can meet with and chat with strangers.  Normally, the opportunity would arise on social media or multiplayer gaming. It is therefore important for a parent to evaluate the stranger meeting potential for every online interaction your child has. All children should use an anonymous profile which should not give away their age, sex, real name, and location. You child should be made aware that they should never share real life information online. Children love play acting and if you successfully convinced them to play the role of “ShootDragon60” they will easily make up a play character of their own.

Protecting you Child from Age Inappropriate Content: The parental settings on the search engine or antivirus suite or Microsoft family account will help restrict adult sites.  This is a must. It will prevent your child from visiting inappropriate sites. However, despite content filtering there may be content that may be borderline and allowed. For example, if your child loved to read the Percy Jackson series based on Greek Mythology, and later proceeds to research the topic online, it is likely that the Greek God images would be depicted as nude or seminude sculptures.  

At this age, we teach our children how to cover up to protect them from child abuse and the sight of these images pique their curiosity as they are contrary to their parents instructions.  Another example are advertisements targeting children for lingerie and make-up products shown on channels which children watch. Parents need to explain or reason out these topics with a child, otherwise they may form their own narrative.

Following these risk mitigation tips would ensure that the Internet risks to your 7-9-year-olds would reduce and their Internet experiences are safe ones