You don’t have to go far to find shocking statistics about kids and the internet!
- 82% of children are exposed to inappropriate content before age 11
- 43% of teens were victims of cyberbullying in the past year
- Over 50% off kids, between the age of 10-17, have posted risky comments or photos online
- 8 out of 10 teens had friends who tempted them to share inappropriate content of pictures on social media
- 82% of online sex crimes originated from social networking sites that predators use to gain insight into their victim’s habits and likes []
If that doesn’t scare you, I recently read that “American teenagers aged 13-18 consume an average of nine hours of entertainment media per day. This figure drops to six hours a day among US tweens (children aged 8-12).” Seriously! For my tween daughters, that would be almost all of their waking hours outside school!
Honestly, sometimes it feels that way.
Between their school work (a lot of which is done on the computer) and chatting with friends and listening to music… We set time limits, but are they enforced when I’m not looking? I mean, working in social media, I feel like I should have a good grasp on all this!
But, the fact is, I still feel overwhelmed and unprepared for this world of digital parenting!
How do we keep track of what they’re doing? Who they’re talking to? What they’re watching and posting?
My daughter was recently contacted by strangers online asking for her name (and they asked for her Mom’s credit card number! WHAT?) Things can slip through even when we’re doing our best. Here’s what we’re doing in our home:
So, basically we have extra precautions in place in our house. allows me to monitor what my kids are doing online. You can block what needs to be blocked (porn, adult content) and you can manage their online time. You can limit their computer or device to only work at certain times of day and you can track what sites they are using the most. It even offers protection from online threats and monitors activities related to your child’s “friends,” cyberbullying, sexual predators, privacy concerns, and reputation-damaging pictures or videos
Net Nanny is an online monitoring tool that you set up with parental controls:
-Set filtering for 18 categories of online content (such as drugs, alcohol or nudity)
-Block websites with inappropriate content (More than half of all children are accidentally exposed to pornography each year. YIKES.)
-manage the amount of time they spend online (and set limits)
-get an understanding of where and what they are doing online
-monitor their social media interaction (Facebook, Instagram, etc. – to check for cyber-bullying and (I can’t even write it) sexting)
-receive alerts and reports via email on their activity
-customize for each of your kids (This is the best! With such an age gap, our kids have very different needs!)
It all runs silently in the background of your child’s computer, smartphone or tablet. Perfect!
If you are interested in checking out NetNanny, I have a special trial available only to our readers – you’ll have 14 days to play with it and see what you think!. Personally – after my trial, I’m pretty sure we will have this in place until the last one goes to college. Maybe even after!
Disclaimer: This has been a sponsored post. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
About Melissa
What a great idea!! We aren’t here yet but I assume my kids will eventually ask to use the internet so I have to keep this in mind.
With 3 teenagers — I need this!!!
Very interesting and now that the 7 year old is asking for a computer it is getting real.
We found out that my 10 year old was doing chatrooms in Minecraft. I got so nervous that I forbade wifi use indefinitely. I need this Net Nanny!