How can I protect my child from online predators and bullies?

Teaching your kid how to make safe choices online is key to protecting them from online bullies. Watch this video to learn what psychologist Dr. Jennifer Hartstein suggests you do to keep your child safe on the Internet.

Transcript

00:00

Online predators and bullies exist. We know this is true. It's so important to teach your child from a very early age

00:07

and in an ongoing way how to weed out different people. [LIGHTHEARTED MUSIC]

00:22

Teens have this funny way of wanting to see who can have the most friends on Facebook, and they will just accept any friendship that gets their way.

00:30

Teach them that they need to only have friends who they know, be aware of who's on their friends list, ask them questions about it,

00:38

be their friend on Facebook even when they don't want to. And let's also be aware that they may make a profile

00:46

that you don't know about. But let them know that you're going to be watching. You're going to be checking their usage. You're going to be checking the computer

00:52

to see what's going on. Teens are always going to be one step ahead of you on how they use social media.

01:00

So you need to be educated as much as possible, and you need to teach them how to the most educated consumer, that if someone's giving them a creepy vibe,

01:07

they need to trust that too and come ask you about it and talk to you about it so they know how to protect themselves.

01:15

If they're being bullied, they can come ask for help. The less judgmental you can be about it, the more they'll come to you and ask you for support.

01:22

[LIGHTHEARTED MUSIC] [HEART BEAT THUMPS, BEEPS]