Written by brian_houghton on Monday, July 20, 2009

Quick Link: “11 Ways to Keep Your Kids Safe on Their Cell Phone”


cellphoneorg

It’s an age old question: “how does the older generation protect their children?”.  I ask myself this all the time as presented with the challenges of trying to guide youth safely through the world we live in.  Technology, for all of it’s wonders, sometimes doesn’t help.

Lisa Anthony of Mobile Maven has just posted an article entitled “11 Ways to Keep Your Kids Safe on Their Cell Phone”.  While mostly common sense about helping children to remain safe while using their cell phone, it’s well worth a quick read to remind ourselves of what we may be forgetting when talking to children about aspects of privacy we take for granted!  Lisa covers the following eleven points in detail, while you can find the full text of the article here.

1.  Be Aware of Surroundings

2.  Parental Safety Controls

3.  Limit Internet Access

4.  Never Talk to Strangers

5.  Discuss Sexting

6.  Cell Phone Monitoring Software

7.  Keep Tabs on Cell Phone Activity

8.  Don’t Disclose Private Information

9.  Be Respectful in Public

10.  Place a Curfew on Cell Phone Usage

11.  Have a Plan for Unusual Calls or Text Messages

Share and Enjoy:
  • email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • Google Bookmarks
  • del.icio.us
  • FriendFeed
  • Posterous
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
  • Twitthis
More in General | 8 Comments


« • »

8 Comments

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


dgoldring
Jul 21, 2009

While a lot of these seem to be common sense or common courtesy, I am never at a loss for how much common sense and courtesy get ignored today. These are great rules of thumb. :)


John D. Sheridan
Jul 21, 2009

And some adults I have run into should pay attention to some (if not all) of those, as well.


dgoldring
Jul 21, 2009

Absolutely, John. Bad manners are certainly not limited to just kids, unfortunately. Nor are lack of common sense or courtesy. :( We could all pay better attention to these items.


brian_houghton
Jul 21, 2009

My thoughts exactly, John and Doug. I cringe when people pull out their cell phones in a restaurant! As for when my daughter is old enough to start carrying a phone, we’ll just where technology is at that point. Needless to say, we’ve got a while.


dgoldring
Jul 21, 2009

Yeah, my son is getting close. There were some nice phones, like the Firefly which could only call emergency numbers or home. I would consider something like that. But not until he is regularly going places without us. :)

doug


John D. Sheridan
Jul 22, 2009

You know, I survived my teens without a cell phone, as did everyone else from my generation. Same goes for internet access, too. Heck, they weren’t available until I was past 30! To me, they’re still a convenience, not a necessity. I don’t think a minor should have one until they’re old enough to be responsible for the bill.


dgoldring
Jul 22, 2009

LOL, John. Good point. Cellphones did not come around really until I was in college. And I was already working for the MAN when I got my first one. :) If I was going to get one for my son (and I am not anytime soon) I would look into a prepaid one that he could use to call home. Much better than our old trick of calling collect and not accepting the charges (secret code for come pick me up). :)

doug


Sandy
Jul 26, 2009

I think these precautions are great! i talked to my kids about most of these just the other day. Another great tip is getting your kids camera phones so that they can take photos of where they are and text it back to you. That’s why I got my kids under the Tracfone plan. Their Motorola W376 phone costs less than $30. Now, I feel much more secure about knowing where they are and what they are up to.

Leave a Reply

Comment