Take Inventory

If you’ve read our Safer Internet Day blogs in past years, a lot of this may sound familiar. But that doesn’t mean you should skip it! As your kids get older, they’ll naturally want to experience the internet differently. This is especially true as kids use video games and online platforms to socialize, as much as play. You may be finding that your kids want to build friendships by chatting on Discord, dropping into a Fortnite: Battle Royale session, or exploring what Roblox has to offer.

Nurturing an ongoing, judgement-free conversation with your kids about the games they are playing and friendships they are making helps you stay informed about what they’re doing online and why.  Coming across as judgmental or unaccepting of your kids’ love of video games discourages them from coming to you when they’re having trouble with something or somebody online out of fear that you’ll take them away!

It’s “safety first” of course!

Age and maturity play a big role in establishing appropriate online safety rules. Your 5th grader may not need or want as much access to playing games online. But jump to 6th grade and you may see your kid’s social circle regularly gather in a certain game or platform… and telling them they can’t means they’re cut off from their friends. Accordingly, you may feel more comfortable limiting your kids’ access to playing games online with strangers, and instead opting to only allow communications with people they know in real life (or even friends of friends). Checking in on a regular basis about the games they’re playing and with whom goes a long way to identifying potential issues and addressing them as a family.

Showing interest will also make it easier to reinforce household rules around online video game play, including with whom your kids can play, when and for how long they can play, and more.

Setting Appropriate Household Rules and Taking Advantage of Parental Controls

ESRB’s Family Gaming Guide provides actionable tips to help get started with managing your kids’ online communications. Once you and your family have established some household rules, visit ParentalTools.org for step-by-step parental controls guides. These include settings to manage with whom your kids can communicate online. In some cases, you can even curate your kids’ friends lists to make sure they’re only directly communicating with people they know in real life (if those are part of your rules). These guides can also give you a rundown of how to set up child accounts on their device(s) of choice. Child accounts often come with automated settings to help protect kids online, so it’s vital that when setting up a child account and registering a new device that an accurate age is entered for each child’s account.

Most game devices have parental controls that can help enforce household rules when you’re not around, like managing which games your kids can play based on the assigned ESRB age rating, when and for how long they can play, and whether they can spend real money on new games and/or in-game purchases.

Sharing is (Not Always) Caring

One of the most important things to discuss with your kids is what they can and cannot share with others when playing games online. This may not be an issue for kids that are only allowed to communicate with friends, family and classmates when playing online, but regardless of age they should always know what personal information they should keep to themselves no matter what, such as:

• Their real name
• Where/when they were born
• Their location (state, town, street name, etc.)
• Where they go to school
• Anything else that can be traced directly to them

As innocent and normal it is to share personal stories or details about your life with new friends, people can sometimes guess passwords and usernames or other personal information based on what is shared. Here again, it’s critical that child accounts are set up with an accurate age, as federal and state laws limit the amount of personal data a game or service can collect without your consent!

ESRB’s Family Gaming Guide also includes helpful tips about protecting your kids’ online privacy here.

Manners Matter

It may go without saying, but your kids’ online presence is a reflection of their in-person presence. And just like in real life it’s important to impress upon kids that if they don’t have anything nice to say, then saying nothing is usually a better option.

While your kids will probably heed this advice, not everyone does! If your kids ever encounter someone that is behaving inappropriately, there are several measures your kids can take to make sure they don’t encounter that individual in the future. First and foremost, virtually every console, platform, and service that enables people to communicate has mute and block features. Activating mute will allow your kids to continue playing, but without commentary ruining the fun. Blocking a player will prevent any contact.

It’s critical that child accounts are set up with an accurate age!

For particularly offensive people your kids can also report bad actors to whomever manages the community, be it a platform or video game publisher. Companies have community guidelines which dictate what is and what is not permitted. If a player violates community guidelines and is reported, the publisher or platform holder in question can take various measures to prevent that player from continuing to negatively impact other players’ experiences. Depending on the company and the severity of the situation, this may be a warning, a suspension, or a permanent ban.

Think Outside the Game

The measures you and your family take to build safer video game experiences can easily translate to the internet as a whole (and maybe even real life). Our lives are increasingly more connected, and this can be doubly true for children – especially after so many experienced full-time remote school during the pandemic. Many of the tips we’ve discussed in this blog about video games can be applied to other types of online activity. Platforms like YouTube, Discord, and Twitch all enable users to communicate with others and offer settings to help you manage how your kids communicate. Meanwhile, social media platforms are frequently updating and expanding tools to help parents manage how their kids share and see.

The key is this: Stay involved! You know what’s best for your kids, and the simplest way to keep up is to manage internet safety as a team.

Patricia E. Vance is the president of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). In her position, she leads the teams responsible for assigning age and content ratings to video games and apps, enforcing marketing guidelines adopted by the video game industry, and operating ESRB Privacy Certified, an FTC-sanctioned COPPA Safe Harbor Privacy seal certification program.

The post Put Safety First this Safer Internet Day appeared first on ESRB Ratings.

Take Inventory

If you’ve read our Safer Internet Day blogs in past years, a lot of this may sound familiar. But that doesn’t mean you should skip it! As your kids get older, they’ll naturally want to experience the internet differently. This is especially true as kids use video games and online platforms to socialize, as much as play. You may be finding that your kids want to build friendships by chatting on Discord, dropping into a Fortnite: Battle Royale session, or exploring what Roblox has to offer.

Nurturing an ongoing, judgement-free conversation with your kids about the games they are playing and friendships they are making helps you stay informed about what they’re doing online and why.  Coming across as judgmental or unaccepting of your kids’ love of video games discourages them from coming to you when they’re having trouble with something or somebody online out of fear that you’ll take them away!

It’s “safety first” of course!

Age and maturity play a big role in establishing appropriate online safety rules. Your 5th grader may not need or want as much access to playing games online. But jump to 6th grade and you may see your kid’s social circle regularly gather in a certain game or platform… and telling them they can’t means they’re cut off from their friends. Accordingly, you may feel more comfortable limiting your kids’ access to playing games online with strangers, and instead opting to only allow communications with people they know in real life (or even friends of friends). Checking in on a regular basis about the games they’re playing and with whom goes a long way to identifying potential issues and addressing them as a family.

Showing interest will also make it easier to reinforce household rules around online video game play, including with whom your kids can play, when and for how long they can play, and more.

Setting Appropriate Household Rules and Taking Advantage of Parental Controls

ESRB’s Family Gaming Guide provides actionable tips to help get started with managing your kids’ online communications. Once you and your family have established some household rules, visit ParentalTools.org for step-by-step parental controls guides. These include settings to manage with whom your kids can communicate online. In some cases, you can even curate your kids’ friends lists to make sure they’re only directly communicating with people they know in real life (if those are part of your rules). These guides can also give you a rundown of how to set up child accounts on their device(s) of choice. Child accounts often come with automated settings to help protect kids online, so it’s vital that when setting up a child account and registering a new device that an accurate age is entered for each child’s account.

Most game devices have parental controls that can help enforce household rules when you’re not around, like managing which games your kids can play based on the assigned ESRB age rating, when and for how long they can play, and whether they can spend real money on new games and/or in-game purchases.

Sharing is (Not Always) Caring

One of the most important things to discuss with your kids is what they can and cannot share with others when playing games online. This may not be an issue for kids that are only allowed to communicate with friends, family and classmates when playing online, but regardless of age they should always know what personal information they should keep to themselves no matter what, such as:

• Their real name
• Where/when they were born
• Their location (state, town, street name, etc.)
• Where they go to school
• Anything else that can be traced directly to them

As innocent and normal it is to share personal stories or details about your life with new friends, people can sometimes guess passwords and usernames or other personal information based on what is shared. Here again, it’s critical that child accounts are set up with an accurate age, as federal and state laws limit the amount of personal data a game or service can collect without your consent!

ESRB’s Family Gaming Guide also includes helpful tips about protecting your kids’ online privacy here.

Manners Matter

It may go without saying, but your kids’ online presence is a reflection of their in-person presence. And just like in real life it’s important to impress upon kids that if they don’t have anything nice to say, then saying nothing is usually a better option.

While your kids will probably heed this advice, not everyone does! If your kids ever encounter someone that is behaving inappropriately, there are several measures your kids can take to make sure they don’t encounter that individual in the future. First and foremost, virtually every console, platform, and service that enables people to communicate has mute and block features. Activating mute will allow your kids to continue playing, but without commentary ruining the fun. Blocking a player will prevent any contact.

It’s critical that child accounts are set up with an accurate age!

For particularly offensive people your kids can also report bad actors to whomever manages the community, be it a platform or video game publisher. Companies have community guidelines which dictate what is and what is not permitted. If a player violates community guidelines and is reported, the publisher or platform holder in question can take various measures to prevent that player from continuing to negatively impact other players’ experiences. Depending on the company and the severity of the situation, this may be a warning, a suspension, or a permanent ban.

Think Outside the Game

The measures you and your family take to build safer video game experiences can easily translate to the internet as a whole (and maybe even real life). Our lives are increasingly more connected, and this can be doubly true for children – especially after so many experienced full-time remote school during the pandemic. Many of the tips we’ve discussed in this blog about video games can be applied to other types of online activity. Platforms like YouTube, Discord, and Twitch all enable users to communicate with others and offer settings to help you manage how your kids communicate. Meanwhile, social media platforms are frequently updating and expanding tools to help parents manage how their kids share and see.

The key is this: Stay involved! You know what’s best for your kids, and the simplest way to keep up is to manage internet safety as a team.

Patricia E. Vance is the president of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). In her position, she leads the teams responsible for assigning age and content ratings to video games and apps, enforcing marketing guidelines adopted by the video game industry, and operating ESRB Privacy Certified, an FTC-sanctioned COPPA Safe Harbor Privacy seal certification program.

The post Put Safety First this Safer Internet Day appeared first on ESRB Ratings.

Keep reading for some tips to help make every day Safer Internet Day.

Keeping it Positive

It’s important to keep conversations with your kids around online safety positive and proactive. Focusing on what they can do to keep the experience fun, rather than fearmongering, will make your child more apt to come to you when and if things take a wrong turn. The reality is that being able to communicate with other players during the game can make it that much more fun. Some gamers have made lifelong friends, met their spouses, and launched their careers through online gameplay. Remember: You’re not out to scare them, but to help equip them with essential skills for navigating life. And threatening to take away the game or device will make your child less likely to come to you if there is a problem.

Household Rules Around Online Communication

The online world is a lot like the real world. Many of the household rules you have for your kids in everyday life can translate to their online behavior.

ESRB’s Family Gaming Guide is a great resource to help you get started with managing online gameplay. First and foremost, it’s important to establish some boundaries for online communications. This will be different depending upon the age and maturity of your kids, so it’s something to revisit often. Some parents may want to limit interactions to friends or classmates only. Or you may be comfortable with allowing friends of friends to communicate with your kids. You can even block all direct online communication until they’re a little older. At the end of the day, as a parent or caregiver, you know best what and how much your child can handle.

Keep conversations with your kids around online safety positive and proactive.

Whatever rules you have in place can be backed up with parental controls, which are available for virtually every device on which your kids can play games. Visit ParentalTools.org for step-by-step guides to help you limit and/or block online communications with others. These guides can also help you manage what your kids play, when and for how long, and how much money they can spend (if any!) on new games or in-game purchases. These guides can also walk you through creating a child account for your kids on their device of choice, which comes with several automatic checks to protect your kids’ online. That’s why it’s so important to provide an accurate age when registering your child on a device or online service.

What To Share and What Not To Share

One of the most important parts of internet safety is explaining to your kids what they can and cannot share about themselves online. If your kids are only permitted to play with friends, odds are they’ll know who your child is by name. Should your kids have the ability to chat with friends of friends and/or strangers, they should know to clamp down on sharing personal information with other players, such as:

• Their real name
• When they were born
• Their location (state, town, street name, etc.)
• Where they go to school
• Anything else that can be traced directly to them

Sharing some of this information may seem innocent – and in most cases it is! But sometimes it can be used to guess usernames, passwords, and other important life details. Remind your kids that they can come to you for advice if they’re ever inclined to share a detail with someone they don’t know in real life.

Our Family Gaming Guide is another great resource to check for family-focused privacy tips.

The Golden Rule

It’s a good idea to impress upon your kids that what you say and do online reflects the real you. Mantras like “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all”, and “treat others how you like to be treated” can go a long way to helping your kids set a baseline of how to be a responsible community member in an online game.

The vast majority of people that play online just want to have a good time, but unfortunately there will be some that simply do not know how to behave appropriately. Safer Internet Day is a great time to discuss what your kids should do if they encounter someone behaving inappropriately. Many online video games have official community guidelines that can be found on the game’s website. These outline some general rules of behavior for the community, and what you can do should someone step over the line.

Regardless of the guidelines, all platforms allow players to mute, block, and/or report other players. In most cases a simple mute (silencing an individual so you can’t hear them), or block (making it so the individual can’t see, play, or communicate with you) is sufficient. In particularly egregious situations, you can report an offender to the developer or publisher, which can result in suspensions or bans. Most importantly, impress upon your kids that they can always come to you if they’re concerned about another player’s behavior and you can decide what to do together!

Beyond the Game

Internet safety doesn’t begin and end with video games. We live in an increasingly connected world, and these tips extend to other means of online communication, as well as social media, search engines, commenting on articles, and more. In fact, platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and Discord are deeply entrenched in the video game space, so there tends to be a lot of community crossover. As such, many of your household rules you create this Safer Internet Day may extend to those platforms, too.

Most of all: Stay involved! You know what’s best for your kids and the best way to stay in the loop is to maintain an ongoing, judgement-free conversation about video games, online communication, and more.

Patricia E. Vance is the president of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). In her position, she leads the teams responsible for assigning age and content ratings to video games and apps, enforcing marketing guidelines adopted by the video game industry, and operating ESRB Privacy Certified, an FTC-sanctioned COPPA Safe Harbor Privacy seal certification program.

The post How Parents Can Make Every Day Safer Internet Day appeared first on ESRB Ratings.