Monitoring Your Children’s Social Media Activity

In a previous post I discussed how important it is to monitor your child’s activity on social media. In this post I want to get specific and list some of the sites/apps that should be monitored closely if used by your child/teen. To start this post off I wanted to offer some scary statistics:

1. 42.1% of kids admit they have seen online porn. One in 16 have been exposed to hardcore pornography.

2. One in 12 have exchanged messages with sexual content to other people, while one in 25 have sent graphic photos of themselves.
3. 25% of children get away with pretending to be older to get an account online.
4. One in 20 children admitted arranging a secret meeting with someone they met online.
5. Almost three in 10 parents (29%) let their kids use the internet without any restrictions or supervision.
6. Some resources parents can access are: Sharedhope.org, NetSmartz4121 or Netsmartzkids.org. You can also google any of these and get to the sites. There is also a parental control software available that allows parents to limit or remove access to online content. This software offers a wide range of protections and is worth a look. It is called: Sheild Genie.

As promised here is a brief listing of popular apps/sites you should be aware of.

Ask.fm – Listed as one of the most dangerous sites for teens.

Calculator%, Backpage.com, Liveme, Bumble, tik tok, snapchat, Afterschool, Bitlife, Discord, Holla, Houseparty, Tinder, Grindr, Periscope, kik, Hot or Not, Whisper, Badoo, Skout.

This is only a small list of the site/apps available today. I’m not saying they are all bad but I am saying you should be aware of what your child/teen is accessing for their own safety and your piece of mind. Online predator’s work hard to gain someone’s trust and then the manipulating begins. For much more details and reliable information I refer you to Shared Hope International. They have an awesome site with a ton of educational information on it. They specialize in child sex trafficking and protecting children from predator’s whether online or in person. Check them out. You won’t be disappointed.

I hope this information will be useful to you and promote awareness of the dangers of unsupervised online activity of our youth. Feel free to share this with others in hopes that they too will become aware of these dangers and continue sharing. If we don’t protect our children, who will? Our schools won’t, society won’t and the government won’t. It’s up to us as parents and a community to do this. It all starts with awareness. This post is a start in the awareness process. Now you have to do your homework.