Nowadays kids are being introduced to Phones in the maternity ward. New Parents have a lot of their plates having to manage their newborn, work, phones. All of which means you have to juggle how to manage work and your babies exposure to devices. Nobody said being a new parent was going to be easy. Here's a little help. A few simple guidelines will let your young family get the best from devices, the internet, devices, smartphones etc.
Big Shout to Aoife, Camilla, Dhiren & Audrey in Charing Cross Hospital, West London for their help
Protecting Babies, Toddler and very young kids online
The American Society of paediatricians suggests you learn to put down your phone when holding your baby. Don't reach for your phone immediately on picking her up. New mothers will tell you, this is much easier said than done. Article produced with thanks to Charing Cross Hospital in West London maternity section. Shout to Sharma, Audrey and Aoife.
When Baby sleeps
Find the right time to use devices, nurses always recommend putting baby down to sleep, before using a phone. Sharing pictures on a screen is a relaxing bonding experience with your new baby. The Nurses told they always reassure new mothers that newborns tend to sleep a lot meaning you have lots of time to adapt to your new life.
New Dads should make sure they put their phones away and focus on their child, they are not too small to be affected e.g. by a lack of eye contact.
Your child will be adept at it almost immediately. As a parent, you can guide your child by setting a good example. If your first reaction is to pick up a phone, that will be your child's first reaction too.
Switch off / silence notifications when you are with your baby – with so many more of us are working from home, this can be difficult.
Internet Safety is;
From speaking with internet safety talks, we estimate that fewer than 25% of parents have done so. Something that constantly amazes us.
FACT: Young children are the fastest-growing group of smartphone users.
Smartphones might impact your kid's mental health. Secondly, many people worry about predators, cyberbullying, sexting, malware, identity theft, and inappropriate content.
Toddlers don't have the ability or critical faculties to tell good from bad. So you have to protect them
Parents with older children have no choice when their youngest kids start using phones. When the eldest gets a new phone, there's a spare phone. The smart thing to do is to control the child's exposure to the phone, building good online and usage habits. As parents and child build mutual trust, there is always the option of confiscating the phone. Parental Control explained
Before your child gets their first smartphone, she’ll most likely be playing and watching videos on your phone. Here are some simple steps you can take in the next 30 seconds to protect everybody.
1. Create a Folder on your Phone to put all your kids' games and other stuff into and block the rest of the phone. 2. Switch off all debit cards, and switch off all in-game purchasing options. 3. The best person to defend your wallet/purse is you not Google
Remember its the gaming industries job to get their hands on your money, which makes you the Sheriff, protecting your kids and your money. Chopping off access to the money is your best protection to stop kids wasting/spending money on vbucks, gems, token, weapons upgrades, etc. Make it something they have to earn as a treat, building family values and developing trust. Switch Off In-App Purchasing
It doesn't matter that Apple has been fined 100's of millions for making it too easy for kids to spend their parent's money, making them and others improve their systems. The best person to defend your wallet/purse is you not Google. Do they care or are they just money-mad corporations, we think the answer is obvious, and that's why they are the world's richest organisations.
Apple and Google do not vet all games for kids perfectly, how could they? It might be an impossible task. Most of this moderation is done by machines, and it doesn't matter how smart the machine is, fully automated, self-learning, all-powerful. Machines will never replace mother, and never will.
Portals like Tiktok, and games like Roblox are being used by Predators, weirdos and halfwits to entrap children. They go where the children go, Likewise, games like 'Kick the Buddy' sport 4-5-star ratings on iTunes and Google Play while parents who bothered to check it were surprised by the explicit violence. This is not uncommon where parents view things differently to developers and providers.
The best advice for parents is to play the games yourself better still with your kids. There is a semi regulator in the game's world, you can check out www.PEGI.info which moderates and rates all published games. Their site is a source of excellent advice.
Naturally most unwanted exposure for very young children to inappropriate content happens at home. When young kids browse the Internet unsupervised, it’s only a matter of time before they see explicit material. Parental control suites can be very effective in directing children towards appropriate sites away from dangerous ones, for example, Bitdefender. Apple's new Screentime feature for iPhones is a good start, find it and switch it on, but it is only a start, you still need proper paid for protection. It's easily found on an iPhone, Settings, switch on 'Screentime' Apple Screentime on iPhone. Also available on MAC Books
Camfecting, or webcam hacking, is the reason Facebook boos Mark Zuckerberg covers his laptop’s webcam with non-transparent duct tape. Unfortunately, young children are under a far greater danger of becoming the targets of webcam hackers. More Info here.
Dozens of cheap devices entering the home have the potential to spy on you, for example, the doorbell systems that survey your front door and porch especially useful for home deliveries and unwanted callers like door-to-door salespeople.
The problem isn’t just in your laptop, smart TV, or a smartphone. Many smart toys and baby monitoring devices come with embedded webcams. Monitoring devices the primary purpose is to let you keep an eye on your baby while she sleeps. Unfortunately, developers of smart toys and baby monitoring gadgets rush to push a product onto the market ahead of the competition. Too often, they neglect security, so smart Internet-of-Things gadgets come loaded with vulnerabilities. DDoS attacks that use IoT microwaves, smart fridges, and CCTV cameras aren’t new. But predators hacking baby monitoring devices to watch young kids make for a far more sinister reality than a DDoS attack.
One American family in Washington realised their baby monitor was hacked when the hacker spoke to their son through it, saying “ Wake up little boy, daddy’s looking for you.” In Yorkshire, a mother heard “Every Breath You Take” playing through her baby monitor accompanied by “ sexual noises.” A French family in Lille, reported obscene grunting noises, with sexual expletives, following a boundary dispute with their neighbour who was fined and jailed.
Taking the router to work is so 2008. And doesn't work!
Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201357720
Apple iTunes Store: http://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT6088
Google Play: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1626831/?hl=en-GB
Microsoft: http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/security/prevent-unauthorized-purchases
Nintendo: On, Nintendo Switch, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS or Nintendo 2DS, parents can restrict the use of credit cards and online purchasing through Nintendo’s Shopping Services. It requires the entry of the PIN code to add funds with a credit card or to complete purchases.
Sony: To ensure that a child does not make unauthorised purchases on devices which are connected to Playstation Network, parents should: - Password protect their master account to prevent unauthorised access by their child and ensure the "required password for checkout" setting is also in place to prevent purchasing even if the account is left logged in; and - Create a sub-account for each child and set the parental controls to limit or prevent any spending on the parent's account: Setting spending limits on PS4.
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