As adults, we have learned throughout the years how important it is to practice cyber safety whenever we are video conferencing. We have come to recognize suspicious happenings, as well as how to deal with them. Kids, however, do not – they just get excited about having video chats with friends and family.
If your child has gotten to the age where they want to regularly use an online meeting platform, you need to be a diligent digital world tour guide for them. In addition to any cyber security measures you already have in place at home, it is your responsibility to educate and supervise. Here's how to do that:
Set Parameters for Who They Can Speak With
From a young age, children are told not to talk to strangers. Just like in the physical world, the online world is filled with individuals who prey on the most vulnerable and impressionable – especially kids.
With this being an unfortunate reality, you must impress upon your child that they only have online video chat sessions with people they know. If a random, unrecognized person hacks into a video call, instruct your child to exit immediately and inform you about it.
Have Time Limits
Video chats for kids could last a long, long while if you allow them to. Just like you would put a limit on your child’s video game, TV, or mobile phone time, such a rule should also be put in place for video chats.
Even though a personal video call is a wonderfully social activity for your child to participate in, moderation should also be kept in mind. Having this in place teaches your child boundaries, while protecting them from conversations that could devolve into questionable subject matter.
Find a Safe Virtual Meeting Service
A video chat service like Banty focuses a lot on implementing cyber security measures to keep all users safe when using its online meeting platform. However, not all services who allow kids video chat gatherings are as rigorous about their security practices as they should be.
If Banty – despite its strong end-to-end encryption technology – is not your speed, research any video call service you consider signing your child up to. Take a close look at their online security reputation and see that it meets your standards.
Know their Username and Password
While some kids could be hugely unimpressed with you having access to their video chat username or password, it is for their own safety.
If you have this information available to you – and receive account-related alerts to your device – this will help you monitor your child’s video call activity. You could keep track of how many calls they’re making each day; how long they are; plus have an eye out for any suspicious activity that may put your child in a bad situation.
Supervise their Activity
Outside of having the username and password at your fingertips, how to be safe online also means being in the room with your child during a video chat. (Of course, this is more a measure you would take with younger kids).
This will help you enforce any rules/boundaries you’ve put in place, as well as to see conversations are not going sideways. For instance, cyberbullying. Sadly, this happens a lot nowadays. If you’re in the room, you can help curb this behaviour in your child, or get them away from someone bullying them.
Talk to Your Kids About Their Video Conferencing Experiences
Video chats for kids can be very exciting, but they can also lead to conversations or experiences that your child didn’t understand, or felt weird to be a part of.
By having regular talks about the virtual meetings your children are participating in with their peers, you can help them get past what may have been a negative, or confusing encounter. Better yet, if your child had a great time on a video chat, you want them to feel empowered to share their enthusiasm about it with you.
Banty places a huge emphasis on its cyber security practices, making it a place parents can always trust. Click here to learn more about the features of a Banty Personal account.
Also, check out some of our most popular features:
Custom URL: Every Banty user gets to create a unique, permanent URL (i.e., Banty.com/MyVideoChat). This is the link you will forward to anyone you invite to an online video call.
Amazing Security: In addition to end-to-end encryption, Banty meeting rooms also have a door lock feature. When enabled, this tool makes it so no unwanted visitors interrupt a call.
No More Dropped Calls: You can manually adjust the quality of your video feed. This is ideal if someone on your call has a poor Internet reception and that causes a lag in the video they’re seeing.
