Establish boundaries and family rules for technology use. Here are examples:
No technology in the bedroom after a set time.
Homework is done with an open door, or in a location that is easily monitored
No phones during homework time
Talk during dinner or family times without technology present.
Look over search history, social media pages and/or follow children on social media sites.
Passwords - Should be private and never shared with anyone (even the current BFF). One good tip is to create a password from a phrase. For example, if setting up an online password for a place I order food from, I might create a related password that is something I will remember but would be hard for others to guess. For example, "I want 3 tacos and 2 Cokes" the password would be: Iw3ta2C
WEBSITES NetSmartz - National Center for Missing and Exploited Children A great resource for children, teens, parents and educators with articles, resources, presentations http://www.netsmartz.org/Parents
Childnet International - Online resources and articles for helping families think critically about online and internet safety. http://www.childnet.com/ SafeKids.com - A digital citizenship, online safety and civility resource website. Plenty of articles, instructional information for disability location on mobile devices, identity theft and parent guides to social media sites. http://www.safekids.com/bullying-cyberbullying-resources/
Parent Guides from ConnectSafely - Links to guides for parents on understanding Snapchat, Cybersafety, Instagram, Facebook's Lifestage, Student Data Privacy and more. http://www.connectsafely.org/guides-3/
Special Appreciation: Thank you Payton for sending me the McFerrin blog post as an additional resource. I love it when young people want to help spread the word and share resources to keep others safe!