Growing Together: Plugging In to Your Child's Digital World Rendell Bradley, MS Program Analyst, Adolescent Team Nemours Health & Prevention Services

 According to Consumer Reports an estimated 7.5 million pre-teens –including 5 million under the age of 10 are on a social network sites like Facebook At what age should my child start using social media?

Up to age 10  It's never too early to foster open and positive communication with children. It's a good idea to talk with them about computers and to stay open to their questions and curiosity.  Always sit with your kids at this age when they're online.  Set clear rules for Internet use.  Insist that your children not share personal information such as their real name, address, phone number, or passwords with people they meet online. Source:

Up to age 10  Use family safety tools to create appropriate profiles for each family member and to help filter the Internet.  For more information, see Windows Live Family Safety, Windows 7 Parental Controls, or Windows Vista Parental Controls.  Help protect your children from offensive pop-up windows by using the pop-up blocker that's built in to Internet Explorer.  All family members should act as role models for young children who are just starting to use the Internet. Source:

Start a Conversation with Your Teen  Do you feel like you can tell me if you ever have a problem at school or online?  Help me understand why Facebook is important to you.  Can you help me set up a Facebook profile?  Who are your friends on Facebook?  I want to be your friend on Facebook. Would that be OK with you? What would make it OK? Source:

Ages 11 to 14  It's a good idea to foster open and positive communication with your children. Talk with them about computers and stay open to their questions and curiosity. (i.e. chat rooms & online predators)  Set clear rules  Set clear rules for Internet use.  Insist that your children not share personal information ( i.e. real name, address, phone number, or passwords) with people they meet online.  Help your kids create online nicknames that give away no personal information. Source:

Ages 11 to 14  Use family safety tools to help filter the Internet.  Keep Internet-connected computers in an open area where you can easily supervise your kids' activities.  Help protect your children from offensive pop-up windows by using the pop-up blocker that's built in to Internet Explorer.  Encourage your children to tell you if something or someone online makes them feel uncomfortable or threatened. Source:

Ages 15 to 18 Internet house rules guidelines for communicating with others online  Create a list of Internet house rules as a family. Establish guidelines for communicating with others online, including social networking.  Know which websites your teens visit, and whom they talk to. Insist they stay in public chat room area.  Insist that they never agree to meet an online friend. Source:

Ages 15 to 18 online adult content  Talk to your teenagers about online adult content and pornography, and direct them to positive sites about health and sexuality. (i.e. Sexting)  Make sure your kids are not visiting sites with offensive content, or posting personal information. Be aware of the photos that teens post of themselves and their friends.  Teach your kids responsible, ethical, online behavior. They should not be using the Internet to spread gossip, bully, or threaten others. (i.e. Cyber Bullying ) Source:

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Drawing by Laura Reyome

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Texting While Driving Photo by :Chris Usher for TIME  About 6,000 deaths and a half a million injuries are caused by distracted drivers every year.  Talking on a cell phone while driving can make a young driver’s reaction time as slow as that of a 70-year-old.  Answering a text takes away your attention for about five seconds. That is enough time to travel the length of a football field Source:

 Two-thirds of teens who have witnessed online cruelty have also witnessed others joining in – and 21% say they have also joined in the harassment.  88% of social media-using teens have witnessed other people be mean or cruel on social network sites.  19% of teens have been bullied in the past year in some form – either in person, online, by text, or by phone. Source:

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1. Group your Friends List 2. Remove Yourself From Facebook Search Results 3. Remove Yourself From Google 4. Avoid the Infamous Photo/Video Tag Mistake 5. Protect Your Albums Source:

6. Prevent Stories From Showing Up in Your Friends’ News Feeds 7. Protect Against Published Application Stories 8. Make Your Contact Information Private 9. Avoid Embarrassing Wall Posts 10. Keep Your Friendships Private Source:

Ensure your child avoids announcing his/her location via status updates of GPS-enabled applications.

Parenting Tips  Consider creating your own account on Facebook so you can “friend” your child. That’s probably the best “monitoring tool” you could use.  You can establish a family rule that says something like, “No one can block other family members from content any of us posts on Facebook.”  With your child, go over their friends list. Make sure your child hasn’t accepted any friend requests from total strangers. Source:

Parenting Tips  Install a reliable Internet filter and enable parental controls where available.  Talk to your child about Internet safety and appropriate vs. inappropriate online behavior.  Stay calm

Parenting Tips Source: Monitor your child, their access to electronic communications and their activities online. An Internet monitoring software can help you with this.

Parenting Tips  Be wary of identifiable information in your child’s profile. (i.e. school mascot & name of town where they live in)  Google your child’s name. Set up a Google alert to notify you every time your child’s name appears in a blog post or online comment anywhere on the Internet. Visit Google.com/alerts and enter your child’s name as a search term to begin. Source:

Parenting Tips photographs personal information.  Check your child’s privacy settings. Limit the amount of people who can see photographs and other personal information. Every time your teenager ends a relationship, make sure the privacy settings are checked again. Source:

Parent Resources  A Parent’s Guide to Facebook  Quest to Learn -School for Digital Kids  Recommended Facebook Privacy Setting for Teens chart-for-teens.html chart-for-teens.html  NannyNet.com  McAfee Safe Eyes  Web Watcher 7 gclid=CJ2Tmbqer64CFQnd4AodSEm2Sw gclid=CJ2Tmbqer64CFQnd4AodSEm2Sw  DriveSafe.ly  Phone Guard

Thank you Rendell Bradley, MS Phone: