THE COMPASSION CLUB

Digging the Digital Moat: A Multifaceted Approach to Internet Safety for Kids by Kevin Ball

Your son is headed into middle school: time to get him his first Playboy Magazine!

Wait…What?!?

While this certainly isn’t the thought process of most parents, giving your child his or her first smartphone can be akin to this very scenario. And yet, mobile technology is becoming an integral part of our world. The solution? A well-thought-out system of digital safety.

Along with the dangers of inappropriate websites, young Internet users need to beware of viruses, malware, phishing, wasted screen time, online bullying, and SPAM. The list goes on. How is a parent supposed to handle all of this? Rather than unrealistically shutting your child out of the online world altogether, I’ve outlined a proven approach that won’t take endless hours to manage.

Like a medieval castle, you want to protect yourself with dynamic & strategic buffers: moats, walls, towers, drawbridges, archers, etc. A multi-layered approach is essential so that if (and when) one layer fails, another is there as a safeguard.

Perimeter security

Keep 24/7 protection around the perimeter of what matters most to you. My recommended approach is to use a free service like OpenDNS. In short, OpenDNS provides web-based filtering at the point your Internet enters the home (on the router or modem) and ensures that any device on the Internet on your home network has a first-line defense of filtering. It filters access to the Internet by categories and also provides some defense against viruses and phishing.

Strong and high protection

Just like the castles of old, a single barrier isn’t going to stop an aggressive intruder. You need high, strong (and thick) walls. As with most everything in life, high-quality comes with a price. And my recommendation on this one is well worth it. I recommend using Disney Circle for your comprehensive device management. Not only does it filter every device on your home network, but it gives you easy-to-use controls for time management and reporting. It also closes several of the critical gaps in OpenDNS (can force safe search in search engines, more user friendly, OUTSTANDING customer service). My favorite: you can pause the Internet for the whole home or for a specific person and his or her associated devices.

Note: Disney Circle only provides outstanding protection for your home network. All someone would need to do to bypass that is to jump on their cellular network and you lose all of the protections. That’s where Circle Go comes into play. For $5 / month, you get all the benefits of Disney Circle on your family’s mobile devices, anywhere in the world. This is probably the best protection tool I’ve found.

Towers

Old castles had towers because being higher up and having a better view was crucial for defense. Review reports and logs from above tools to understand what’s happening in your home. Disney Circle offers user data reports. Add another layer of protection for Windows PCs with Microsoft Family. Track screen time on any Windows device. Get weekly reports from Microsoft to know what your kids search, their most visited websites, and their Xbox usage. Scanning emails takes less than 30 seconds and gives you an understanding of how your loved ones use your home computers. Note: Microsoft Family doesn’t cover mobile devices. Apple also offers a similar screen time product.

Places of refuge

You’d never think of setting your house keys outside on the front porch when you leave home each day, but many of us do just that with our passwords! I highly recommend subscribing to a password management tool, like LastPass. There are free & paid versions available. I personally don’t mind paying a few dollars a month to support businesses who are making our world safer! Convey to your family that their passwords are personal and not to be shared. Otherwise, they can simply login to their sibling’s account and do whatever they want. If I were to share my password at work, I’d be fired immediately. Instill in your family the same sense of urgency around guarding passwords and keys.

Relationships

While the above tools are important and well worth the time and cost, nothing is more important than fostering a relationship of trust within our families. At the end of the day, everyone wants to have a happy, successful life. Sit down with your spouse and children individually and open a talk about your shared goals and priorities. Get vulnerable. Share your fears and reasoning behind wanting to safeguard their digital access. Then open a discussion about appropriate amounts of screen time, use of devices during that screen time, and how—together—you can help achieve those ends. Then, together, setup the filters, screen times, etc. When I did this, my children actually thanked me! And because they understood why we were implementing security measures, when we needed to make tweaks to behavior or filters, the entire family was more on board.

Disclaimer: there are a LOT of tools out there that provide protection, and their capabilities are changing regularly. I am not endorsing any specific product, but I am sharing what has worked well for me after looking at quite a few products. At the end of the day, the key is ensuring you have multiple layers of effective protection.

MEET THE BLOGGER

In the heart of our digital universe, building a fortress of security measures around our family’s online presence is critical, but the true cornerstone is trust. Imagine wrapping up the technical know-how with a ribbon of heartfelt talks; we’ve got to make password protection feel like second nature for our children, not a restriction. Engaging in open and honest discussions about shared goals and priorities can pave the way for building trust while setting up digital safety measures. By involving them in the process, we enable understanding and cooperation when making adjustments to filters or behaviors. Ultimately, multiple layers of effective protection are essential in navigating this ever-changing online landscape.