Family and Homeschool Activities: Internet Safety

These family and homeschool activities are designed to complement the Internet Safety topic on BrainPOP Jr.

Safety Rules

Discuss safety rules for meeting strangers on the street and surfing the Internet with your child. How are the rules alike? How are they different? Together draft a list of rules and Internet safety tips that your child can follow. You may want to set aside a specific time each day or week when your child can browse the Internet under supervision. Also teach your child how to block e-mails and chats from people they do not know and trust. This will empower your child to be help be responsible for his or her own safety. You may also wish to set the homepage of your family computer to a kid-friendly site or your child’s favorite site. Remember set your family’s e-mail spam filter to the highest level of security.

E-Directory

Put together a directory of e-mail addresses and chat usernames of your child’s friends and family members. Explain that these are safe people they can correspond with via chat or e-mail. Tell your child to only correspond with those in the directory and continue to add more names.

Keeping It Personal

What is personal information? Discuss with your child. Full names, addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, passwords, and pictures are all pieces of personal information. Remind your child that they should never share personal information with strangers on the Internet. You and your child may wish to create a sign to warn against sharing personal information and post it near the computer. Also review how to create strong passwords with your child. Remind them to change their passwords every so often in order to stay safe.