Child safety advocate offers advice to protect children online during the summer

With children out of school and sometimes left home alone a child safety expert stated summertime is a time of year when predators are working hard to exploit young people online Callahan Walsh a nationally known child safety advocate and executive director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children revealed there are methods parents can keep their kids safe when they re at work or out and the child is at home by themselves Walsh is also the co-host of the long running programs America s The greater part Craved on Fox and In Pursuit on Analysis Discovery We can t raise our kids the same way our parents raised us unfortunately The internet era is here to stay Walsh revealed Walsh emphasized that parents should understand tool and have a solid working knowledge of the apps programs and games their children may be using on their laptop or smartphone The best way to figure out how an app works or social media platform works is honestly to get on it yourself and poke around he notified WTOP Have ongoing conversations with your kids about safety When a child is just getting online at a young age because children are getting online younger and younger these days it s best to make sure that you re using simple messaging something that s easy for a child to understand and easy for them to remember Make sure it s not fear-based He stated conversations need to evolve as the child becomes older and more internet savvy As the child gets older that conversation should mature as the child matures When you re talking to your youngest kids about online safety it s not going to inappropriate websites not revealing personal information But as your child matures it s talking about cyberbullying and sexting and things like this he announced Walsh declared it s critical for parents to set ground rules early on and make sure the sites that children are visiting and the apps they ve downloaded are age appropriate He explained he is also a big fan of utilizing built-in or third-party parental blockers We ve even seen these predators sharing tips on the dark web about how to groom children online Walsh disclosed They know that s where the kids are and that s where they re going to go to try and meet them It s particularly key he noted to have a regular dialogue with children about both the benefits and dangers of being online because his organization in received million tips about manageable online predatory behavior The internet has created life for the better in so plenty of means but it s also created new options to exploit our children and predators know that and use the internet use social media platforms use video games as avenues to get access to our children We see these cases all the time Walsh stated Source