Digital Citizenship

Teach your child to bookmark his or her favorite sites.  Your child will be less likely to go somewhere online that is not safe.  Use safe search options on web browsers to make sure your child can search safely.

Some parents find these tools to be useful to help protect younger children from accessing inappropriate content.  The stakes are high because our students' technical abilities can be greater than their maturity and judgment.

Let older children know that you want them to help you protect their little brothers and sisters online.  Kids can become strong digital citizens by watching strong role models.

Often, kids don't understand how their actions affect others.  We need to teach kids to choose their words carefully, play nicely with others, and respect their teachers.  Now we have to extend these lessons to a digital world.  As a parent, you can translate your values into a digital world and help kids understand.

If our kids are going to thrive with digital media, we must balance the negative with the positive, privacy with protection.  AS our children grow, they need more independence and privacy.  But parents have to be sure their kids know how to be safe and responsible before letting them loose.

We don't see the world the way our kids do.  It is important for us to understand that our kids will spend much of their lives in a connected world, where everyone creates and communicates.  We need to help them enjoy and learn from it.

Those who master these skills will benefit from the awesome power of the digital world!

Online security can prevent exposure to phishing, malware, spyware, spam, and junk. Strong passwords can prevent data and identity theft.

Identity thieves can use this information to pretend to be your child.  Thieves may gain access to email and potentially cause financial loss to the family.

Hackers use programs that will try every word in the dictionary to guess passwords.  Never provide personal information such as address or social security number. A hacker may be posing as someone else.

Strong passwords protect families from greedy little programs that pose as respectable software that can wreak havoc on computers.

Let your child know not to download free games or videos to their computer.  Teach kids how to deal with spam. Spam is internet junk and should not be opened.  The best strategy is not to open email from addresses that are not familiar.