BACK TO SCHOOL

ONLINE SAFETY
PLANNER
 Back to School
Online Safety
Planner

We’ve created three checklists to help you fortify your family's defenses against digital dangers:

1. TEACH REFUSAL SKILLS: THE BEST PROTECTION YOU CAN GIVE

Filters and parental controls help parents, but they won’t persuade a child to stay away from harmful,
inappropriate content. Only a parent’s love and mentoring can influence the minds and hearts of their
kids.

□ XXX CONTENT: No child deserves to face the porn industry alone! Talk with your young child about
what pornography is, why it is harmful, and how to reject it when they see it. Here are some tools to
help:

Good Pictures Bad Pictures: This best-selling series of read-aloud

books explains what pornography is in age appropriate ways and
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themselves safe! “What a gift to

pornography. The original version for kids ages 7 - 11 gives a simple

be able to sit
with our little
discuss together ones on our laps
a daunting topic and
in such an easy
way!”
MELODY BERGMAN
Blogger at Media
Savvy Mamas

“For the sake

of the children, A Simple Plan
I wholeheartedly to
Good Pictures recommend Protect Young
Bad Pictures Minds By Kristen A.

overview of the process of addiction so your child can protect

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pastor, I can er, father and
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JOSH MCDOWELL

JENSON/FOX
Josh McDowell
Ministries

themselves. The Jr. book protects kids ages 3 - 6. U.S.$18.95

19 hidden camer
your child to
as for
find!

Brain Defense Digital Safety: Comprehensive, video-based

curriculum to teach kids ages 9 -12 healthy screen habits,
refusal skills for pornography, and how to be a good digital
citizen. Includes student "Brain Book", Family Activity sheets
and much more!

Prepare & Prevent Page: This page of our website gives parents
the tools they need to get the conversation started. From this
page you can download our FREE Quick Start Guide.

□ APPROPRIATE VIDEO CHAT BEHAVIOR: Talk about etiquette, like muting your mic and not flooding
the chat box with memes. Also discuss what to do if someone says something mean or shares
something inappropriate. Check out our article on 11 Safe Video Chat Rules You Need to Teach Your
Kids.

□ SCREEN-TIME BALANCE: Talk with your family about the health benefits of balancing screen time
with screen free activities. Make a plan together for what will work for your family.

□ CYBERBULLYING AND SEXTORTION: These are disturbing and growing trends. Read more about
these dangers in our article 3 Scary Things Haunting Your Kids Online. Make sure your kids know
how to protect themselves by reporting bad behavior to you. Cyberbullying and sextortion thrive on
secrecy, so bring them out into the light.

1
 2. TACKLE THE TECH with FILTERS and PARENTAL CONTROLS
Use technology to make your electronics safer. Now is a great time to update your device protections.
To help you, we’ve created checklists for personal/family devices and school-issued devices.

□ INTERNET FILTER: Many routers come with their own filters, but you
can also install a filter. Don’t get caught up in selecting the best filter.
Just get one up and running as soon as possible. Here are some tips to
help you select one:
Personal Device Checklist

• Filtering 101: Protect Kids From Porn on New Devices

• 10 Easy Ways Kids Can Beat Internet Filters
TIP! Bark recently acquired Router Limits and we are excited about
how Bark will add a filter to its parent monitoring service.

□ PARENTAL CONTROLS: Most devices, even your phone, have time

limits and content limits. Make sure any devices your child might be
using have those turned on.
TIP! You can find guides to setting up parental controls on various
devices and services by doing a search for the device name plus the
phrase "parental controls".

□ SEE WHAT’S ALREADY IN PLACE: On your school district website,

search “Acceptable Use Policy” (AUP) or filtering. This should give you
an idea of what filtering is on your child’s school-provided device.
TIP! Computer/Device Level Filters: Look for a specific list of what
School Device Checklist

the filters cover. It may be different than your family expectations.

TIP! Internet Level Filters: Only applies when kids are using the device
at school.

□ FIND OUT WHAT YOU CAN ADD: If you aren’t comfortable with the
protections in place by the school, see what the policy will allow you to
add.

□ MORE ARTICLES TO HELP YOU WITH A SCHOOL-ISSUED DEVICE:

5 Troubles with Tech at School and 5 Top Ways to Keep Students Safe
Parent Alert! A Timely Tech-Check for Your Kid’s Back-to-School Safety

2
3. TRACKING: SUPERVISING YOUR CHILD’S ONLINE ACTIVITY
Regardless of the device used, your child’s online activity should be supervised. But it’s impossible for
you to be watching everything your child is doing--especially if you have more than one child, are trying to
work from home, or trying to do anything else really!

□ ALLOW DEVICES ONLY IN COMMON AREAS: Whether your kids are using devices for school or
entertainment, devices should only be used in common areas where you can see what’s on their screen
at all times. Devices should never be used in private areas like bedrooms and bathrooms.
TIP! If kids need quiet areas to study,
noise cancelling earbuds or headphones
can be very helpful!

□ CONSIDER A GABB PHONE for tweens

and teens. The look of a smartphone
without the digital dangers of apps.

□ PUT DEVICES TO BED: Have a set time

to turn off electronics at night. It’s
a good practice to collect all mobile
devices and have them re-charging in a
parent’s room at night.

□ REQUIRE ACCESS: Make sure you

have the password to any accounts
your kids are using--whether for school or for entertainment.
Parents should have access to these accounts until well into the teen years.

□ DO RANDOM CHECKS: Look at what’s on your child’s screen every so often throughout the day.
Randomly look at social media accounts, texts, emails, internet history, etc.

□ USE MONITORING TECHNOLOGY: Because it’s hard to see everything your kids are doing and many
kids know how to delete things they don’t want you to see, consider using a monitoring service like
Bark. Bark works by monitoring your child’s accounts on various apps and websites. It watches for key
words and phrases that can indicate a problem and sends you an alert. And they recently announced
they are adding a filter to their service--making them a one-stop shop for online safety.

□ LISTEN IN ON VIDEO CHATS: The live aspect of video chats within games makes it difficult to track
problems after the fact.

Join us at ProtectYoungMinds.org
and on

3 © 2020 Glen Cove Press LLC

Teach kids
refusal skills for
digital dangers.
Offer your students an engaging, video-based curriculum
to keep them safe from cyber-bullying, pornography and
internet addiction. Brain Defense arms kids with safe
technology habits to protect their growing minds.

Find out more at protectyoungminds.org/curriculum

 protecting our
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POWERFUL TOOLS TO RAISE
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Find out more at protect

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or on Amazon