Instagram, Facebook, YouTube – How to Protect your Child

Before the internet and snail mail, before Morse Code and carrier doves; sending a message to someone in another country was as reliable as sending a message in a bottle. The song was more successful than the method of communication. Online bullying and manipulation, as well as other new dangers exist today. These dangers are new to all of us; even those committing crimes through online portals such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and more. I experienced my own challenge with an Instagram Stalker and it was so much more subtle than I imagined it would be. Danger didn’t seem apparent until I was quite deep in. Social media has made it imperative that we take measures to protect our children.

It isn’t that social media and the online world is bad; it has brought possibility, different connections and more information about the world around us that we’ve ever had access to. For this reason, parents of today have challenges that the past generations didn’t. We don’t have historical lessons to draw on or scientific information to guide our practices. It is up to each and every one of us to utilize our skills to protect the children of today.

Information Overdose

We aren’t in the message in a bottle stage anymore. We’re overdosed with information. Concerns about screen time continue to arise and correlations related to development are being hypothesized by scientists all of the world. We need to learn to how identify unsafe or potentially unsafe situations by using an entirely new set of tools. The advice “don’t talk to strangers” has entered a new realm of reality.

Right now you have many options at your disposal for helping your children stay safe while using technology. I will discuss a few of my recommendations, however, we need to keep in mind that as technological advances are released to the public, parents need to be the first to understand them. If your child is playing with artificial intelligence and video games that are so real, it’s almost a training camp; you need to understand how to manage that with and for them. If your child is watching YouTube, they may not be talking to strangers but strangers are surely talking to them.

Protect your child

It may seem daunting, but it’s important to understand as much (or more) about the online world than your child. If you sent your child on a trip to Europe without you, imagine how much information you’d want to know. As I mentioned in my article about my own Instagram stalking experience, the online world is just as real as the physical world. There is no manual on how technology will progress. Your best protective measure for your child is to educate yourself.

Let’s dive into each of these topics and explore how they can benefit our children by providing you with educational resources to see, learn and implement as you see fit.

• Lingo
• Parent access
• Find My iPhone
• Screen Time
• Access Control from your modem/router
• MAC addresses and Wifi systems
• Family Sharing

Lingo

Learning the lingo is critical; teenagers always have language for conveying things they don’t want their parents to understand. In my life hacks section, I have a list of online acronyms. This is in no way exhaustive. Do you know what a Finsta account is? Do you know what the word Bae means? What does it mean if your child is spilling tea about someone? Or looking snatched? Throwing shade? Tiktoc?

Language is always changing and it has moved way beyond simple acronyms. What used to be PIR (parent in room) is now sexting, coded messages and hidden accounts. Children are amazing with technology. We need to be as well.

Parent access

This may seem obvious, however, I will state it anyway. Do not allow your child to set a passcode for their phone that you don’t know. If you cannot access everything in your child’s phone, you have a big problem on your hands.

It is not showing your child that you trust them by letting them have a private code to their phone. It may seem that way to them. A better method of trust is talking through the access controls you’re implementing and ensuring your child is made aware of what you’re doing, why and that there is a mutual understanding of boundaries.

I will explain later in this article how to prevent your child from changing the passcode. You should be able to get into your child’s phone, into any app and have a complete understanding of their online activity, habits, online friendships and any accounts they have.

Find my iPhone

If you have an Apple computer or another device, install Find my iPhone. This app typically comes with new iPhones but you may need to download it on various other devices if they are older. Find my iPhone can be used from a device by opening the app or from ANY computer. It shows the geographical location of a phone and allows you to send an alert (a ring) or reset the phone. Location services needs to be on for this specific app (you can specify which apps use location services as outlined in this guide to iPhone storage).

Give it a try once you install it. Login on any computer to icloud.com/find and all devices connected to that iCloud account will appear. You will immediately see the geographical location of the phone on a map and can watch in real time as it moves.  You can add family members to your Find my iPhone and if your child is supposed to be home and isn’t, it will take you less than 1 minute to find out where they are (as long as they have their phone on them…which they will).

Becoming a tech boss

As a method of ensuring your child does not turn off this service or try to trick you, there is a button called ‘Erase Phone’ that you will see on the map. This button will terrify your child. Here is how you make this work like a complete tech boss.

Take your child’s phone and back it up. You can do this on iCloud or manually by plugging it into a computer, opening iTunes and selecting Back Up. iCloud allows you to set up regular backups so that you won’t lose any data. For this example, we will use the instructions “be home at 10pm”.

If they miss that time, perhaps send a friendly message. If they still do not return, go into Find my iPhone, note where they are (so you can go get them) and select Erase Phone. Right in front of your sweet little delinquent’s eyes, their phone will begin wiping itself and return to factory settings. Then it will begin the reel of “Hello” in every language Apple has translated. It will be like Dori from Finding Nemo. Hello… I have no idea who you are… data lost… Bonjour.

Aftermath recovery efforts

Goodbye messages.

Goodbye contacts.

Goodbye phone.

As long as you’ve set the phone up with YOUR Apple ID, they cannot set the phone up again without your password. After they freak right out that you erased everything they had, are unable to use their phone for anything other than a paper weight and you’ve had a nice, respectful chat with them about online usage; working with and not against you; and the importance of the agreed upon boundaries then you can install the back up from iCloud (or your computer).

So you did erase everything. You just backed it up so that it wasn’t permanent. But it could be…. don’t forget to tell them that. It could be all gone, anytime you want it to. You’re the parent; their apps and photos are not nearly as important as their safety. Case closed.

Screen Time

If you have an iPhone with the newest update on it then you have 100% control. You have so much control that you won’t even know what to do with it.

Under Settings, go to Screen Time. On your child’s phone, select Turn on Screen Time.  The phone will ask you if this is your phone or your child’s phone. Select This is My Child’s iPhone. You will be prompted to create a passcode. This is ONLY for you to know and not the same one that unlocks the phone. If you child has an Apple ID, you will enter it during the set up process. If not, you can skip that step.

As an aside, I do recommend giving your child their own Apple ID (without adding a credit card to it). The reason is that Screen Time access controls impact all devices on an iCloud account. Your Apple ID is your username and password to iCloud. Most likely the access control you set up for your child won’t be applicable to every member of your family with a device. For that reason, create an Apple ID for them and set up Family Sharing (more on this later).

Settings in Screen Time

The first thing you will see is a graph of all screen time activity; the amount of time on the phone, per application, per hour. You can view reports of usage and see every website that was visited.

Downtime – this allows you to set a scheduled time that is away from the screen. You can select apps that bypass the downtime rule (such as Phone or text). Downtown means the phone is not available. It is asleep and your child will be unable to wake it. Just like they are in the morning when you wake them for school. Unshakeable.

App Limits – This allows you to set time limits on individual apps or groups of apps. A series of categories will appear and you’ll select a category and make a specific amount of time per day (under Time). Then turn on ‘block at End of Limit’. Under each category, you can keep the whole category selected or expand it to see which apps are in which category. This gives you the ability to create multiple app limits. Select Edit List to choose what apps you want within the limit you’ve created. App limits reset every 24 hours. Here is an example of how you can use app limits for your child.

Let’s say you selected social networking as the category. You set a limit of 60 minutes per day. You then open the category by selecting the right hand arrow or drop-down menu and choose what social media sites you want in this limit. Apps from multiple categories can be put into one time limit; select Edit List to add more. Perhaps you want all social media apps, as well as YouTube. Open the Entertainment category and select YouTube.

Then you put another app limit on games. Perhaps you have a child that loves playing online games. You can select all the games, create a limit and save that as another App Limit. For every new limit, you’ll need to enter your passcode. This is so that your child cannot change the limits you set.

Success tip

One important factor to explain to your child is turning off apps when they’re done (life lessons). If they have 1 hour a day of a special game and they play in the morning for 10 seconds and don’t shut off the game (swiping up on it and closing it), then it continues to run. That eats up their allowable time. They get home from school and there 1 hour is up because it was used running the app in the background.   You can always edit a time limit or delete a limit.

To chat or not to chat

Communication Limits – This gives you the choice of selecting who (from the Contact list) can call, text, Facetime, or message the phone during allowable hours and downtime hours. If you don’t want your child’s friends calling or texting during school hours, turn off communication for everyone other than you (safety) during that time. You have access to their full contact list and can edit it; you can add people to allowable communication times and configure the settings so that you know who is calling, texting or messaging during certain hours of the day. And who is not.

Returning to your main screen, below Communication you can select ‘always use’ apps. This may be for phone or Google Maps or any other app that you feel your child always needs access to.

The grand finale of Screen Time is Content and Privacy Restrictions.

This is where you can control even more. For example if you select allowed apps, you can permanently disable an app. There are certain apps come with the phone, such as the News. Perhaps you don’t want your child reading the news – it’s kind of a downer. Turn it off completely. This can be applied to any app.

Web Content (under Content restrictions) is where you can select allowable websites – Screen Time offers a series of child-friendly websites and the choice of adding your own. You can limit adult websites which allows you to specifically add a website under ‘never allow’ or ‘always allow’. You can turn off ‘web search’ so that your child cannot freely roam the internet. You can turn off movies/TV shows of various ratings or turn them off completely. These would be TV shows and movies from iTunes.

Instagram tricks and sneaky tips

There have been a few glitches with the new Screen Time feature and one of them is not filtering out certain websites. If you select Limit Adult Websites, the following sites will still appear. That is why for the following sites, parents should select “Never Allow” or set a designated amount of time.

These are sites and not apps. For example, the Instagram website is different from the app. Even if they can’t access the app because you put a limit on it, they can access the same platform online. Tricky.

• Imgur.com
• Reddit.com
• Giribu.com (search engine)
• Ecosia.com (search engine)
• Yandex.com (search engine)
• Yandex.ru
• Yandex.com.tr
• Yandex.ua
• Dogpile.com
• Flickr (inappropriate content)
• Excite.com (search engine)
• Instagram.com
• Tumblr.com
• https://www.youtube.com (if you want to completely limit YouTube access, even if someone sends a video link in an iMessage). You have to type it in exactly how it is here.

Another great feature is that if you select Limit Adult Websites, you cannot delete Safari’s search history (which is a simple click of a button in Settings). Parents can view the search history and websites viewed by their child.

Allowable Changes

Content and Privacy restrictions allow you to configure what your child can and cannot do to the phone. For example: making passcode changes. Don’t allow your child to change the passcode on their phone or you can’t get in. Simply selecting Not Allow turns a function off completely.

You can enable ‘share across devices’ or set up screen time for family. Do you have multiple kids? Set it up so that you can use your screen time settings on multiple devices. All of your kids are online at the same time. You may notice the sound of silence. It will be weird. You’ll get through it.

To turn off Screen Time, the passcode is required. In fact, to make any change at all the passcode is required. That’s why you will configure your child’s entire phone, access controls and allowable screen time and they cannot change it. Never disclose your passcode.

Permissions for protecting children

Another feature of content and privacy settings is ensuring that your child needs you to put in your code to download anything so that they cannot download an app even if it’s free. They need YOUR permission (your code) to do so. They won’t be able to download anything without your passcode.

Data plans

If your child has a data plan, they can use data (which you likely pay for) to access the online world as well. Restrictions need to put on data. If you choose to allow your child to have a data plan, don’t let them rack up hundreds of dollars of overage charges.

Perhaps choose a small data plan, such as 500mb per month, which will give them some time online outside of your wireless zone. Ensure you receive a message when they are close to reaching their limit (a data provider typically sends a text when you reach 90%). You can also limit data in the settings of the phone so that no further data can be used once the maximum is reached. In the older versions of iPhone, this function is under Settings, General and then Restrictions.

If you have Screen Time on your phone, you can set this up easily. Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions once you’ve entered Screen Time (and entered your passcode for it that your child does not know), scroll until you see Cellular Data Changes and tap ‘Don’t Allow Changes’.

Additional safety features

In the new iOS system on iPhones, you can select a photo in the same way as you would to text it to someone and it will say ‘location included’ with an Options link beside it. Selecting this will allow you to turn off location services for that photo. That means if your child shares the photo with someone, they cannot tell where it was taken. This data is called metadata.

Family Sharing will allow you to create a Child Account. You create an apple id for your child and the system will guide you through setting up an ‘ask to buy’ approval for iTunes, app stores purchases, etc. When you do this, you have to set up a birthday. Apple does this to ensure that no one under 13 years old can make purchases, etc.

Router options

One of the functions a modem/router comes with is an online portal for configuring devices. The Screen Time functionality will only work for iPhone users (unless there is a comparable program on other smartphones). If you don’t have an iPhone, fear not! You can still set up parental controls using your router. If you have the internet at home, you have a modem and router or a combination of both.

Depending on your service provider for the internet, you will have one or two boxes. You might have a box near your electric panel. It likely has a cable plugged into one of its ports (openings); if you also have a small device in another location with an antenna on it, you have a separate modem (near electric panel) and router (small device with antenna).

Recently, many combination devices are available that are modems and routers in one box. This would mean no device with an antenna; everything is connected to the magical box near your electric panel, which we will call the Internet Box (bonus points for anyone who knows this reference).

Parental controls

The internet box comes with parental controls. When you sign up with an internet provider, they rent you a modem/router. You can always purchase your own and call up the provider to ensure they will connect properly. Why would you want to buy your own router? Because some of them come with simple parental controls and some are more challenging to figure out. If you need additional parental controls, you can buy a router from Amazon that has all of the features you need.

Most internet boxes will come with a URL on it. It might look something like https://123.567.891.234.com. Your internet box will also have a password on it; both will be visible on the device itself. I will use an excellent router by Arris as an example.

Your first step will be investigating what information comes with your internet box. Find the address on it, as well as the password, and enter it on a computer while you’re on your wireless network. You will be taken to a type of homepage that displays all options for your personal network. The number you’ve entered is your IP address. That’s your Internet Box address.

Blocking

Once you’ve logged in on a computer, most internet boxes allow you to block a device and unblock it. Some have more advanced parental controls however the basics are typically block and unblock. Somewhere on your Internet Box homepage, you’ll see a list of all devices that access your wireless network. That means the computer you’re using, your child’s device and any other devices (so you may see a computer, an iPhone or a tablet and each will have their own identification number and the type of device it is).

You will need to enter the MAC address of the device in order to set up your controls. MAC in this case is not Macintosh (or Macbook); a MAC address is a Media Access Control address.

– iPhones, iPads, iPod touch (all Apple devices): Settings, General, About, Wifi Address.

– Android phone or tablet: Settings, About (device), Status, Wi-Fi MAC address

– Windows phone or tablet: Settings > About > More Info > MAC address

If you have a gaming console, such as PlayStation, or a computer then you will simply need to search how to find the MAC address of (then enter your computer model). Here is a great article on how to find your MAC address:

https://www.wikihow.com/Find-the-MAC-Address-of-Your-Computer

You can use this address in order to set up access control, as well as block or limit specific devices. I checked my router this morning (Arris) and the URL, password and MAC address were all written right on it.

Wireless limits

One method of controlling online access is simply by either blocking your child’s device (unblocking when you want) or setting up a time that the device is allowed to access Wi-Fi. That means as long as your child does not have their own unlimited data plan, they can only access the internet wirelessly.

Using the Arris model, a parent has the ability to restrict client devices (computer, phone, tablet, gaming console, anything that uses wireless internet) from accessing specific websites based on URLs OR keywords. I love that feature. You can enter a series of keywords and, as an example, if your child stumbles upon a page that contains the word ‘porn’, they won’t be able to access it. Websites can be blocked for certain times of the day, certain days of the week or all times. Do you want your child to have access to YouTube all the time or for 2 hours on Saturday? That’s your choice.

You can do this

These parental  control features will be automatically disabled so you’ll need to enable them first. The biggest obstacle of this method is likely feeling overwhelmed by technology. Fear not, you can do this. All internet boxes have a URL associated with them so your first step is to find it. The password will be right on your device or in the packaging (or you can call your service provider). Once you login, you will immediately see your options.

This is where you need to avoid panic.

You will see many features, options and tabs that you don’t need and never will. Parental controls may be on the homepage or you may need to select a button or tab.

What you’ll see

A few internet boxes will list every online location a device has accessed, what time and for how long. This might be a good indicator as to where you need to help your child set up boundaries. These days, it is typically social media and Youtube that captivate the attention of most children. It’s unlikely you’ll need to block CBC news or CNN. Give them a specific allowable time frame and let the internet box take care of the rest. Once they reach their maximum time, the internet box goes off and they have no access to the online world.

Family Sharing

If your whole family shares one Apple ID (instead of creating one for your child), then certain settings will impact all devices using that Apple ID. This could be a major limitation if one member of your family doesn’t need downtime or whatever settings you’ve applied. Apple has stated that all devices connected to iCloud (which you access via Apple ID) will inherit the Screen Time restrictions.

The way around this is to give your child their own Apple ID that you set up on their phone (Screen Time allows you to do this) and not add a credit card to the account. This will give them a little bit of freedom and perhaps a chance to see how responsible they can be with it.

Genius children

Your child can get around all of these settings by restoring their phone to factory settings. That means erasing all of the data. If you have a tech savvy child, they could figure this out. In order to mitigate your genius child circumventing your boundaries, make sure you set the Apple ID for the phone when it is first set up.

The Apple ID that was put in place originally will be required to initiate the device after rebooting it. Basically, your genius child will try to reset their phone and will be prompted to enter their Apple ID (which is yours and they don’t have that information). They will go nowhere from here, except home to you, so they can get their phone back. They will also likely reflect on their intellect and recognize it is genetic.

Keep learning, stay connected

I hope these recommendations help. I have heard many other suggestions that I think are very reasonable; keeping all devices in the living room (or room visible to parents), limiting entertainment to weekends, screen time is only for educational purposes during the week and/or limiting your own time on your device particularly in front of your child.

Eat your meals with them and make sure no one has a phone out. If they are speaking to you, don’t answer your text message. Teach them that the text will wait because you’re having a conversation with them. It is so important to embody the behaviors we want to see in our children.

Instagram, Facebook, YouTube balance

Instafacetube. There is a balance we need to find. Technology is not going to disappear. Restricting all technology from your children won’t give them as many tools as teaching them how to be responsible, check in with you about something uncertain and how to navigate a technological world. For a parent, this requires building trust with your child, teaching them how to protect themselves so they feel empowered and constantly educating yourself.

Build trust for online success

Being a dedicated learner and then teaching your children will not only keep them safe but will help to foster a trusting relationship. Talk to them about these restrictions. Ask what they need, what they don’t need; learn to understand their online world. Work together to make strategic decisions that they can understand and respect the boundaries. Children don’t want to alienate themselves from their parents, even though teenagers (like I was) go out of their way to send that message. They want to connect. They do that through online portals (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube) and those needs are amplified when they don’t have connection and understanding at home.

Be the example for them. Spend time with them. Teach them about online safety. Ask questions.

I hope these protective measures help you and your children to establish safe boundaries and healthy online usage. I believe these measures can be successful when children are made aware of the importance of vigilance and being cognizant of online dangers. Phone restrictions should be explained in a way that doesn’t send the message ‘I don’t trust you’; they send the message ‘we can’t trust everyone out there. Let’s learn together how we can use this tool safely’.