Protect your child Online,

How you can protect your child online,

“I think the best thing you can do is hold off as long as possible because once they have access, they’re out there and their information’s out there,” said Jen Jencks, assistant director of Lifespan’s Pediatric Behavioral Health Emergency Services.

“It’s already going to have a number of minutes in it,” Twomey added. “The really basic phones, for example, a flip phone like this one, you’re not going to be having any data, this is just going to be calls in or out.”

“Anytime something seems to be free, we often say that if it seems too good to be true – it probably is,” he said. “Quite often, there’s a little bit more to it than a child might expect. They could accidentally download things that are bad for computer, things that we call malware.”

“It’s impossible to delete it once its out there,” said cyber-security expert Patrick Laverty. “And it’s going to be available for your lifetime once it’s out there, and you don’t have any control of it,”

Children nowadays often take a lot of pictures and videos and they want to share them on websites such as YouTube. But even if your child thinks their content is only being seen by people they want to see it, Laverty says private things can sometimes become public.

Another thing to look out for is your kids’ photos. Make sure that location services for photos are disabled on their phone so that they’re not revealing where they are each time they post a picture.

Simply making calls may not be enough for your child, but with smartphones sometimes come not-so-smart decisions. Posts, pictures, and videos live online forever and your child could be putting themselves in a dangerous situation without even knowing it.