Keeping Kids Safe Today
The internet poses new challenges for parents. Keeping kids safe from identity thieves, predators, and role playing strangers has to be part of our education on defensive strategy, particularly social media.
When my children were small, I stayed away from cameras because I was afraid that our lives might be in danger. I had faked an abortion to get out of sex trafficking. He said he’s kill me and I believed him. One beautiful spring day, a lifestyle reporter saw my toddler and me sitting beside a lovely old church. The grass was green, the sun was bright, the daffodils were displaying their gold, and my daughter was dressed up and super cute. He was shocked when I said he could not take our picture.
My reasons for not allowing pictures then were understandable, but what about today? Today, I am concerned for parents and children for other reasons. Today, there are so many ways of gathering information. Where and when a photo is taken is relatively easy. Downloading someone else’s photos is a piece of cake. They can be used in nefarious ways.
Let’s face it, there are bad people in this world. Scripture tells us that in the last days, we must recognize them.
2nd Timothy 3 says, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. 6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” This short passage says so much.
There are people who are designing apps for kids that put them in immediate danger too. They espouse anonymity, but they can have sinister users. Check out some here and here. Young teens and children engaging on these apps are in real danger. The parents of Nicole Lovell know this all too well. Their 13 year old daughter was kidnapped and killed after predators found her on kik. Lots of these apps have settings that allow other users to find each other.
Thankfully, there are many good people too. People who work to keep others safe come from all kinds of backgrounds. They work in many different ways too. From advocate bloggers to FBI agents, and there is loads of info on the internet to help us keep kids safe today.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Turn of the geotagging on your device
- Don’t fall for the phishing games on social media sites that ask for actually details about your life
- Put private photo settings on your social media accounts
- Be mindful about poses, locations and identifying information used when posting
- Monitor kids devices constantly looking for the dangerous apps and keep abreast of new tech
- Remember that absolutely nothing posted is truly private
- Your children will have to live with the consequences of everything you post about them
- Consider the implications and potential, unintended consequences of announcements and accolades
- Don’t use full names and change names occasionally, especially children’s names
- Mix up birthday announcements, use alternate dates to keep identity thieves off base
- Never share embarrassing or compromising posts about children, no matter how playful
- Remember, it’s out there forever
- Teach them that posting online is the same as standing in a room full of strangers, anyone could share anything
Parents have so many more concerns today, than I had bringing up my kids. There are so many things I wish I’d known. I used to say that you’re only responsible for what you know, but that isn’t really true. Nicole Lovell may not have known about 2nd Tim. 3:3-6, but she suffered the consequences.