Keeping Your Child Safe in Online Gaming
We know for a fact that kids love to play online games. They love it so much that they spend more time playing than studying or playing outside with other kids. With this fact in mind, parents should be aware of their children’s activities online, especially when it’s gaming. Although online games for kids can be innocent enough, they still present real dangers and challenges to kids.
Here are five essential tips for parents on how you can keep your kids safe while they play games online:
1. Do Your Research
The first thing parents need to do when their children show interest in a game is research. Before giving your ‘okay’ to your child to play a game, look it up. These are a few things that you should take note of:
• The game’s ESRB rating. These ratings are designed to help parents identify age-appropriate games for their children. Be aware that interactions online are not monitored or rated by the ESRB, only the games content itself is.
• Parental Control options. Most popular children’s online games have very extensive parental controls and a section of their website devoted to parents. Games that are less family-oriented or designed for adult players may have limited or no controls. Make sure the games controls you’re concerned about.
• Community. This is a harder point to research without playing the game, although playing the game before your child does is encouraged. Take a look at the forums of the games if there are any, to see how the tone and language is. Take a look at in-game chat if you play the game before hand, and definitely judge the in-game chat wile your child is playing.
2. Set Time Limits
Once you’ve given your go signal for your child to play the game online, establish time limits with your child. Online games are very social and encourage long hours of playing, which can lead to addictive behavior, particularly among young children.
Many family-friendly games have time limit monitors built in. If the games chosen don’t have a monitor built in, TimesUpKidz or KidsWatch are programs that can help watch how long your child play. Remember that nothing is better than monitoring your child’s play time first hand, as children who are desperate to do something will do their best to find a way to do so, even if it’s behind their parent’s back.
3. Check Chat Filters
Although most online games designed for kids have very strict chat filters in place, the majority of online games available for kids lack a monitoring or filtering chat. Almost every game, however, has a chat filter.
When allowing your child to play, go to the options or settings of the games and look for chat settings. There will usually be a “profanity filter.” If exposure to profanity is a concern for your child, make sure this filter is enables. Keep in mind that unmonitored game chat will often use words more vulgar than your standard curse words.
4. Monitor Social Interactions
Even though it may annoy them, the best thing to do with your child is sit with them while they play and monitor their social interactions with other players.
Use your best judgment in monitoring your children online. Younger children do best with having parents present during their entire play sessions. However, older children and teens will require less supervision and can be left alone more often.
5. Talk to Your Child
The most important advice for any parent when dealing with online gaming is to talk to their children about their gaming habit.
This process is two-fold. Part of the process means setting limits and making your child aware of not only what their limits are, but why they have them. The other part of the process, however, is simply getting involved in your child’s gaming. Talk to them about what they did, celebrate their accomplishments and listen for clues about dangerous encounters or poor behavior during their gaming session.
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