Parenting tweens, teens and young adults.
According to the FBI, sextortion cases are up 60 percent in the last five years.
It can happen in a matter of minutes, but the trauma can stay with victims forever.
Unlike cyberbullying, which most parents know about and discuss with their teens, sextortion isn’t on a lot of parents’ radars, leaving kids unguarded and vulnerable to attacks.
When people talk about toxic family members, they usually speak about a dad they don’t get along with, or a mom who is too controlling. But toxic family members can include siblings too.
Siblings should be friends to lean on, shoulders to cry on, and occasionally scapegoats to put the blame on. However, if you’re now an adult and your relationship growing up harbored more bad than good, such as constant arguments, emotional/verbal abuse, or never-ending competition; you may want to take a step back and ask if it’s worth it to repair the sibling relationship you’ve been dealing with since childhood.
The following six signs will help you determine if it was more than meaningless sibling fights.
Abuse comes in many forms — from name calling, endless insults, hitting, to sexual harassment and more. If you find that your sibling grew up constantly belittling you with harsh words, that’s verbal abuse.
When a married couple argue constantly and rarely have a calm, loving moment, it often ends in divorce. But when siblings fight on a regular basis, too many times it’s dismissed as innocent sibling rivalry.
2. Majority of arguments were over insignificant topics.
If you fought daily, even over something as little as the TV remote, that is a sign of an unhealthy relationship. Not every little thing should cause a fight.
For young girls, when one of the first male relationships in her life (with a father or brother) is toxic, it can be devastating. Name-calling and making negative comments about her physical appearance can cause her to have poor body image and low self-esteem.
This type of sibling rivalry can have long-term effects on your mental and physical health.
3. You constantly felt controlled or manipulated
It’s common for an older sibling to manipulate a younger one. It gives them a sense of power.
This control could have been used for the better, like encouraging the younger sibling to try the same sport as, but more often than not it’s used for sinister reasons.
4. Lack of Trust
Could you trust your sibling with your secrets? If not, the “sibling bond” was never there.
You may have wanted to confide in your sibling as opposed to a parent. But they waited for the perfect time to spill the beans to the rest of the family or embarrass you in front of friends.
If you couldn’t count on your sibling to keep it a secret, it wasn’t a trustworthy relationship.
5. You stressed about your toxic sibling even when they weren’t around
It’s common to think about a blowout fight the day after it happens; however, if you constantly carried negative thoughts when your sister or brother weren’t around, that’s a different story.
Our family and friends should bring out the “best” side of us. But if bad thoughts of your sibling outweigh the good and negatively affected your schoolwork or job performance, it’s likely you had a toxic sibling relationship.
6. Interactions are still forced
It’s not a good sign if you’re all grown-up and you still prefer to stay away during the holidays.
If you only run into them at family gatherings and have no desire to make plans with them any other time, it’s likely your relationship never outgrew a toxic stage.
Just because they are a family member doesn’t mean that it’s a relationship built on mutual love, respect and support for one another.
You are family by blood and that may be the only connection your relationship is thread together by.
It’s completely normal to want to know “why” the relationship was so toxic. But be empowered with the knowledge that you may never understand why.
“When you are living in constant anxiety never knowing or being able to predict how any engagement is going to turn out, it is time to love yourself enough to let go.”
~Genevieve Shaw Brown, ABCnews.Go.com
“Silence”, it is said, ‘speaks a thousand words’. But to some people, silence can be downright scary. There is a term for this phobia: Sedatephobia. People suffering from Sedatephobia cannot withstand silence; they constantly need noise and human interaction.
The word originates from Greek ‘Sedate’ meaning ‘silent or sleeping or dead’ and Phobos meaning the Greek God of fear, or dread or aversion.
Sedatephobia was relatively unheard of 50 years ago. However, today, it is a fairly common phobia. Expert hypnotists and psychotherapists are seeing large numbers of Sedatephobic individuals in their offices and they believe that these numbers will continue to rise in the coming decades.
For Sedatephobic individuals, darkness might not be scary, but the silence and lack of noise can bring on a full blown panic attack. This constant neediness can be very harmful to the individual.
Excessive noise can be debilitating and can bring on headaches. However, it is silence that can cause various symptoms in a Sedatephobe. Power cuts can be especially trying to such people, since they are left without technology, noise, music or movies around to comfort them.
When left in silence, the phobic might have a full blown panic attack which may be characterized by following symptoms:
Sometimes, a person with Sedatephobia can also feel afraid in a group when people stop talking or there is a lull in the conversation.
Exam times can be especially hard for these individuals. Spending time in a library or even trying to sleep alone can be a scary time for the sufferers of fear of silence phobia.
Like all other specific phobias, the fear of silence is usually caused by a traumatic or negative episode in the phobic’s life. Some phobics, for example might have been locked up or abused by an adult,(some having been kept in basements or closets for punishment where no outside sound reaches them).
The feelings the child has experienced then can get permanently etched on his/her mind. News of a loved one’s death or other traumatic/negative episode associated with silence can also bring on this phobia.
Many experts believe that technology has also given rise to the constant need for sounds around humans.
For some people, it is impossible to meditate or sit in a quiet room for even a few minutes as they always need their phone, music, TV, or the noise of traffic around them.
To be left in silence can mean being “hunted down by supernatural beings or things that go bump into the night”. It also brings the fear of the unknown.
Most sufferers of Sedatephobia also tend to have inherent anxieties. They may inherently have monophobia (the fear of being left alone). The fear of ghosts is also associated with this phobia.
Other causes of the fear of silence phobia include adrenal insufficiencies, depression, hormonal imbalances, and delusional paranoia.
Family members can play an important role in helping an individual overcome his/her fear of silence.
Talking about the fear to a loved one (or in group therapy) can provide relief to some extent. Else it is best to seek professional help from a professional Therapist or Psychiatrist.
Today, many modern therapies like CBT (or cognitive behavior therapy), NLP or neurolinguistics programming and systematic desensitization therapies are known to help reduce anxiety experienced by Sedatephobia.
All these treatments can help one get to the root of the fear of silence phobia and help the sufferer overcome it once and for all.
Source and original article by: Jacob Olesen. https://www.fearof.net/fear-of-silence-phobia-sedatephobia/
By Caroline Knorr
How Girls Are Seeking (and Subverting) Approval OnlineFrom selfies to shout-outs, girls are using social media both to build up and break down their self-image.
It’s not a law that you have to post a selfie before, during, and after every activity. But for kids, it’s pretty much mandatory. The resulting likes, thumbs-ups, and other ratings all get tallied, both in the stark arithmetic of the Internet and in kids’ own minds.
For some — especially girls — what starts as a fun way to document and share experiences can turn into an obsession about approval that can wreak havoc on self-image.
That kids have been comparing themselves to popular images in traditional media — and coming up short — is a well-researched phenomenon. But new studies are just beginning to determine the effects of social media — which is arguably more immediate and intimate — on the way kids view themselves.
A Common Sense survey called Children, Teens, Media, and Body Image found that many teens who are active online fret about how they’re perceived, and that girls are particularly vulnerable:
– 35% are worried about people tagging them in unattractive photos.
– 27% feel stressed about how they look in posted photos.
– 22% felt bad about themselves if their photos were ignored.
How Kids Get Feedback
You probably know about popular apps such as Instagram and Snapchat. But the specific ways kids use these tools to get — and give — feedback can be troubling. Here are a few examples:
Instagram. The number of followers, likes, and emojis kids can collect gets competitive, with users often begging for them. Instagram “beauty pageants” and other photo-comparison activities crop up, with losers earning a big red X on their pics.
Snapchat. Numerical scores display the total number of sent and received chats. You can view your friends’ scores to keep tabs on who’s racking up the most views.
Lipsi. This anonymous question-and-answer app lets kids find out what others think of them.
“Am I pretty or ugly?” YouTube videos. Kids — mostly girls — post videos of themselves asking if other users think they’re pretty or ugly. These videos are typically public, allowing anyone — from kids at school to random strangers — to post a comment.
The Good News
Although approval-seeking and self-doubt continue to plague girls both privately and publicly, there are signs of fatigue. The “no-filter” trend is prompting girls to share their true selves and accept (and even challenge) whatever feedback they receive.
Under hashtags such as “uglyselfie,” and “nomakeup” girls post pics of their unadorned selves, funny faces, unretouched images, and “epic fails” (attempts at perfect selfies that went wrong).
Given that adolescents are naturally eager for peer validation — precisely when they begin to use social tools that provide it — it’s encouraging to see kids having fun with the notion of perfection.
As a matter of fact, one of the Common Sense study’s most welcome findings is that social media has the potential to combat unrealistic appearance ideals and stereotypes. And, after all, kids use social media to be, well, social, and constant rejection and pressure is no fun at all.
It makes you realize just how powerful social media tools can be. While they foster relationships and engagement — and can even bolster self-esteem — they can be both constructive and destructive. That’s why you can’t leave it all up to kids to find their way.
Whether your kids are just getting into social media or are seasoned posters, it’s critical to help guide them to use Snapchat, Instagram, and other networking apps for fun and connection and not as fuel for self-doubt.
What You Can Do
Talk about the pictures they post. Experimenting with identity is natural, and it’s very common for kids to adopt provocative stances in cell phone pictures, on their social network pages, and in YouTube videos. But are they doing it only because they think others expect it of them? What pose would they strike if they could do anything they wanted?
Ask how feedback makes them feel. Are they stressed out by others’ comments and feedback? Does it make them feel better to be “liked?” Why is external approval important? How do negative comments make them feel?
Help them develop a healthy self-image. Body image is developed early in childhood, and the family environment is very influential on how kids view themselves. Emphasize what the body can do instead of what it looks like. Also, be careful of criticizing your own looks and weight.
Rely on role models. Positive role models have an enormous effect on kids. Cultivate relationships with women your daughter can look up to. Also, point out celebrities and other famous folks who challenge stereotypes about size and beauty and seem comfortable in their own skins.
Help them stop the cycle. Urge them to post constructive comments that support their friends for who they are, not what they look like.
Help them view media critically. Talk about over-sexualized images or unrealistic body ideals of girls in the media.
Explore websites such as the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media and the Representation Project that promote the importance of positive body image and valuing women for their contributions to society.
Original Source: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/how-girls-are-seeking-and-subverting-approval-
As parents we want to keep our children safe but it’s impossible to watch over them 24/7. Where do we draw the line between good-parenting and outright paranoia?
Let’s chat about the innocent slumber party… the one night parents finally get a break!
When my daughter hit the 3rd grade she had a new-found interest in sleepovers. She was more than ready to take a break from her older brother and spread her social-butterfly wings. I had my apprehensions but didn’t want to rain on her little parade.
It can be a delicate task explaining to a 3rd grader why they can’t participate in something everyone else seems to be doing. It felt like saying “no” would make her an outcast amongst the school’s “inner circle”.
Despite my reservations, I allowed her to participate in two sleepovers that year. After the second one (which included 13 girls), she and I both knew accepting the invite wasn’t a good decision.
Let’s just say, there was a lot of turmoil, gossip, mini-arguments and boys, yes BOYS (the birthday girl’s older brother plus his friends)!
Five reasons why I banned sleepovers:
1. Vulnerability. A sleeping child is in their most vulnerable state. Some children are naturally hard sleepers and if anyone wanted to harm them, they’d be an easy target.
2. Sedatives. We’ve all heard of parents giving a child cough syrup or other sedatives for them to fall asleep faster and/or stay asleep longer. It happens.
Same thing with adults. If it makes sense for grown-ups to be cautious of someone slipping something into their drink, wouldn’t it makes more sense to prepare children for the same possibility.
It’s unfortunate to have to prepare a child for something so sinister, but children are naturally unsuspecting. We may as well add this to the life-skill training right along with active-shooter preparedness.
3. Just how well do you know the family? We get the sleepover invite and initially have no reservations. But take a pause to think about how well you really know everyone who lives in the home.
We know the mom, but how familiar are we with dad, siblings and anyone else living in the home. Hi and bye at school functions doesn’t count.
When it comes to abuse, the adult-male in the home shouldn’t automatically be the prime suspect. Is sibling sexual abuse on your radar?
Social Work Today sites sibling abuse as the least recognized form of abuse, while sexual abuse by related adults in a family receives the most attention.
Also consider… Is it a single-parent home? Who visits at night? Is there drug or alcohol use? Will the kids have access to it? What about weapons?
4. Can’t judge a book by its cover. Don’t be naïve.
A pedophile can be very kind and have a conservative, clean-cut appearance. Draw a mental picture of a Catholic Priest, Coach, Scout Leader, Sunday School Teacher or friendly neighbor, they rarely look creepy.
We’ve always put so much focus on protecting our daughters from pedophiles, but all along, our sons have been in an equal amount of danger.
Without completely “sheltering” our children and painting the world as all rainbows and roses, serious discussions regarding abuse require more than just one conversation.
5. Finding a way to make it real. Young children need to understand that sexual assault isn’t just something that happened “in the old days” or something that happens to “other people”.
The Truth…
Healing from gossip and petty girl-fights is much easier to deal with than the life-long psychological damage of sexual assault.
Source, modified: ** https://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/111312p18.shtml
At least 1 in 6 men and boys have been sexually abused or assaulted.
Talking about any type of abuse takes a lot of strength. Today, female victims of sexual assault and abuse may be more comfortable speaking publicly about their experiences and because of that, we’re having the conversation more often. But is it the same for male survivors?
Being a male survivor of child sex abuse is still very taboo and greatly under-reported.
According to 1in6.org and the Center for Disease Control, At least 1 in 6 men and boys have been sexually abused or assaulted.
I’m embarrassed to say that the assault of men and boys, honestly wasn’t on my radar as much as the abuse of girls. Now, I’m laser-focused on prevention so that parents (especially single-moms) aren’t blind-sided.
Four practical ways to help protect your child from pedophiles:
#1 – Have the conversation more than once
Sexual abuse may be an uncomfortable subject for many parents but its literally a matter of life or death. Just because you had ‘the talk’ with your son when he was eight, don’t assume he’d be completely comfortable telling you right away if something happened.
For males, the shame can be unbearable and not worth being judged or not believed.
Keep talking about it! Use various resources if you have to, educational videos and books are still a thing.
The purpose of having the conversation several times, is to make it a familiar, common subject in your household. If something ever happened, your son will know that it’s not his fault, which will help him get past the shame and disclose an incident sooner than later.
#2 – Beware of misconceptions
I was always concerned that while teaching my children to respect their elders, they might perceive that rule as; never question an authority figure or adults are always right. Which we all know is definitely not true!
Psychologists say, the abuser/predator is usually someone close to the family. Help your child understand that not all adults mean them well.
#3 – Don’t ignore red-flags
It can be easy to miss typical warning signs because depressed individuals are great at hiding their feelings.
Parents, if you have a fleeting thought or inkling that something could be wrong… GO WITH THAT. Get nosey, don’t wait until something happens to comb through your child’s phone and tablet.
It may be helpful to teach your child (of any age), that whenever a person says, “don’t tell anyone“; they’re either about to do something wrong or have already done something wrong.
When it comes to our children, it’s better safe than sorry. No one gets an automatic “trust badge” just because they’re in a noble profession.
Remember, no one is a pedophile until they’re caught and convicted.
#4 – Never judge a book by its cover
Don’t be caught off guard! Just because someone has a noble title such as; Bishop, Doctor or Police Officer doesn’t automatically make them trustworthy. We would like to think-so, but we don’t live in a perfect world.There are good and bad people in every city, country, religion, ethnicity, and so-on.
Let’s forget credentials, forget the squeaky clean background check, forget that he was once voted mentor-of-the-year, never mind that he’s a former NFL player and now coaches your son.
I’m not saying you should be paranoid, but realistically, things can happen when we least expect it.
Here’s a quick reminder of a few abuse cases that made headline news:
FACT: At least 1 in 6 men have experienced sexual abuse or assault, according to leading research. Read about the statistic, find helpful information, chat with a trained advocate through the 24/7 national helpline, join a weekly online support group, view male survivors’ stories, etc. You’re not alone. Visit: https://1in6.org/
Millennials are getting a hard time right now. Barely a day passes without some reference to young people having a sense of entitlement and lacking in life skills.
Cooking, managing your money, and being able to change a tyre are just some of the basic skills many young folk aren’t armed with when they enter adulthood.
But one council is looking to change all that by offering millennials a crash course in adulting. Read more…
Here is a list of tactics that your kids have done, attempted to do, and will do in the future, all in order to get to content that you don’t want them to see!
-Long-read
You trust your kids, but you also know that with kids you need to take the proper precautions at home and away, to make sure that they stay safe and do not venture into the seedy world of internet porn and other dangerous or inappropriate social media.
Now, you may be an IT guru – and even work as a software engineer knowing network routing, DNS, IP encryption, and you may have even built your own router at home so you can have full control over what happens. If you are OR you are a Parent with little technical ability, this is for you!
Netsanity, for example, makes the process much easier with point and click Apple iOS parental controls, and Android parental controls along with knowledgeable support and a cloud-based, easy to use parental dashboard, built for new “tech parents.”
Do you sleep well at night knowing that your 14 or 16 year old is on their tablets or iPhones, safely surfing ESPN and looking at cute YouTube videos of dancing monkeys and the latest teen bands?
Do you worry that the safe browser you installed is actually being used to surf the Internet (it’s not!)
Are you confident that your teen will never go into chat rooms, attempt to surf pornography, or engage in very inappropriate social media apps that shield them from parents? Are you wondering how to track text messages on their devices?
You have prevented them from bypassing texts and have controls that prevent them from snapping pictures of themselves and sharing that on the internet? Well of course you did all that, right?
If that sounds like you, or someone close to you and your kids, read on!
First let us preface the following, and state for the record – most kids are great kids and most listen to mom and dad.
They want to please us and don’t intend to get in trouble. They test our boundaries but when push comes to shove, they are a true blessing.
A good analogy we give parents is this: imagine your 16 or 17 year old driving a car. They are perfect drivers; they follow the speed limit, don’t text and drive, and never speed. They are the model of perfection behind the wheel. So what happens when a drunk driver comes around a corner and hits them broadside? They can end up in the ER and they were completely innocent?
Well online, we face that every second of everyday. While you kids may use good practices and follow your rules, they can still get hurt – very hurt. So it is very important that you know as much as you can and what can happen when curiosity turns into danger.
Unlike the example of the other driver who is drunk, you can take common sense steps to remove many tactics your teens will try to get behind the wheel.
Kids are as viral as a cool YouTube video. Once one finds a new app or cool site, it spreads instantly – around the world. Kik, MeetMe, and Snapchat are just a few examples.
When we were young, instantly meant 6 months – LOL! Now, within seconds, kids can get access to anything before you even knew what happened.
Which brings us back to topic at hand – how do stay ahead of them, at least long enough to get through important years until they go away and learn all those great things in college!
Your teen has a lot more time to thwart your efforts and circumvent your parental controls. So while you work and do “life”, they are like beavers building a dam, one step at a time until they have won!
The first thing to note is nothing is 100% foolproof with electronic devices and the internet. If you want 100%, here is free advice: sell all of your internet devices and phones, grab your kids and head to a quiet ranch in Montana or Wyoming – I hear its beautiful there! Stay there until their age of majority and you will be all set! Now, if that is not YOUR plan, let’s proceed.
Here is a very small list of tactics that your kids and teens have done, attempted to do, and will do in the future, all in order to get to content that they don’t want you to know they saw! These are not in any particular order but over many years of observations, interviews, and learning the hard way, these are certainly ones to be aware of. Many are Apple iOS specific, since they are very popular, but many apply generically to any home.
What: You installed Norton/Symantec/Microsoft parental controls on their Laptops. Your teen can’t go to websites that you filter and you get a nice report saying how responsible they truly are, while they Google search for football and how to clean my room better!
They will/can: Dual boot your laptop and install whatever operating system they want. So when they use the computer they are using their version and do whatever they want. Any 14+ teen can and have done this.
Prevent By: Be vigilant and get access to PC regularly. Don’t assume anything. Add a password to BIOS so you control what happens. Watch your reports. If the reports say they were on it for 30 minutes a day, and little Johnny was surfing all weekend, you may have an issue. Force PC to be used in a public place like the kitchen
What: You go to Best Buy and buy a shiny $200 router with fancy parental controls. You click a few green buttons and it says you are all set! Now the kids can’t get to anywhere bad because the green lights told you that!
They will/can: Laugh at you first! Then, they will google the default password for that router. There is an 80% chance that you left it default and hence they will quickly have admin access to it.
Once there, they will create a 2nd admin account so they can use that one moving forward. If you happen to realize your mistake and set the admin password, too late as they have already built a back door! Game, Set and Match. Now, they will create a new hidden SSID for Wi-Fi that only they know.
They will set their laptops and smartphones to connect to that Wi-Fi SSID and surf away unrestricted while you and spouse, are filtered by your $200 router. Oh, if you are the 20%, don’t pat yourself on the back just yet 😉 They can install a 2nd Wi-Fi router, behind your cable modem; set a hidden SSID and do same thing again. They can buy one on EBay for $10 and hide it in the closet where you will never see it!
Prevent By: If going the router way, make sure you use strong passwords and get daily/weekly reporting on activity – some will email you if there are changes. Get rid of or change the main cable company Wi-Fi so all internet flows through the new router and not the one Time Warner, AT&T, Comcast, or Verizon dropped off!
Also, for the little hackers in your life, make sure that nothing is plugged in to the Ethernet port on your hub or cable modem that you did not put in there yourself.
What: OpenDNS is a great and free service that allows you to point your DNS to their DNS for the entire home so regardless of the internet-connected devices in home, all is safe.
DNS stands for Domain Name Service and if you are not technical, think of it as the old white pages. Simply, when you request to go to Google.com or Yahoo.com, DNS will lookup that domain and give your computer the corresponding IP address for that website so your computer or iPhone can find it.
When you use OpenDNS, your home will use their DNS to find sites and since you as a parent can edit which websites belong to which categories and you can filter your home based on that. Using OpenDNS is a good first step, but not a panacea. Read on.
Your teen will/can bypass OpenDNS: Simply use other public DNS servers on their iPhone, iPad, iTouch, XBOX 360, Nintendo DS, PC, Mac, etc. and bypass OpenDNS. Also, as mentioned before, they can install their router unbeknownst to you, and bypass it that way.
Prevent by: Secure their physical devices by making sure devices that can be secured from network changes are secured via a strong password.
Watch the reports closely to make sure that traffic patterns for your house make sense and if your teens are on Instagram 24/7 and there is no Instagram domains in your reports, that is an indication that your DNS is being bypassed.
For Apple mobile devices, you can install a service like Netsanity which will force all traffic through their service and prevent from configuration changes from being changed.
What: Teens completely bypass Wi-Fi and access the internet via their iPhones or smartphones with a carrier data plan
Your teen will/can: Who needs Wi-Fi anyway! If your teen has a smartphone with a data plan, all of your fancy footwork above trying to secure your internet Wi-Fi is irrelevant. They will just turn off Wi-Fi and surf the web and use apps that you disallow by going over their carrier 3G or 4G/LTE network. They won’t do it all the time so you don’t catch them, but they will be able to use apps that you pretend to block or websites and chat rooms that you filter.
Prevent by: Your options are severely limited at this point. First, know if they have a data plan and watch the usage via your carrier’s site. Verizon, AT&T and others allow you to watch data used. If the kids are at home and they are eating the data while they should be using free Wi-Fi, you know why.
Again, installing a parental control profile from Netsanity will protect the device regardless if it’s on Wi-Fi or the carrier’s network. Lastly, physically grab the device and educate your teen that the use of internet enabled devices is a privilege and not a right so abuse will lee dot them potentially losing their device!
What: Teens don’t use the traditional SMS/Texting that has been around for 20 years. There are hundreds of free texting apps, many are crafty and are designed to be hidden from parents.
Your teen will/can: Download a free internet-based texting app. That app will assign a random telephone number and they will give that out to their friends. Then, the teen can text without ever using the carrier’s SMS. Also, with an Apple iOS device, they can use iMessage which is built in and free, and does not come from your carrier. Their texting targets also need to be on an iOS platform, but it’s fairly common.
Prevent by: If using a home router or OpenDNS, make sure you block as many of those domains as you can. Make sure you have access to your child device(s) 24/7 and know their passcodes. Occasionally checking their phones will give you some indication of what they are doing for texting alternatives. On an Apple iOS device, have them use your iCloud account. That will allow you to see each iMessage to come in and out from their devices.
What: Lately everything is being connected to the net. So one must be even more vigilant to make sure your most precious ones are protected. Nowhere is this most true than game consoles and portable game players.
Your teen will/can: Bypass your parental controls. Almost all have browsers and ways to access the net. If you lock down the PC but forget to do same with the XBOX, you have not secured anything. We have seen many teens pretend they are playing Animal Crossing, but really they are on the web in a chat room.
Prevent By: Making sure that the parental controls are enabled and you restrict any changes via the console. Make sure notifications are enabled as well so you know when changes are attempted.
To summarize, the above is a tiny fraction of what kids routinely do to bypass parental controls. There are many more which are much more technical. Certainly to avoid giving them any more ideas, we will not write about them here. However, do not be laissez-faire about their safety and be proactive.
Allowing unfiltered internet in your home and on your kid’s smartphone and other mobile devices can be dangerous and its their job to test the limits and be curious.
Our job is to make sure they stay safe and don’t make bad choices which can harm them for years to come.
The Youth Advocate 