Did you know that up to 42% of kids report having been bullied online? After quite a bit of time where cyberbullying and cyber-predators had been in the headlines, there are now companies making it their business to help parents protect their children from just that. These new companies are subscription services and can also help a parent monitor their tween or teen’s activity on social-networking sites. Let’s take a look at three of them.
SafetyWeb
SafetyWeb is designed to defend against many online threats — cyber bullying being one of them — SafetyWeb offers:
- Instant alerts as threats occur, including an analysis of threats and ongoing activity.
- An easy-to-use interface, making a complex task (for those who lack the time or web-savvy) more manageable.
The ability to scan all the top social-networking sites.
It’s a web-based service, so there’s no software to download. They have a staff that has worked with law enforcement agencies, so they have the expertise to know what to look for in your child’s online account(s).
SocialShield
A product very similar to SafetyWeb, SocialShield claims to tell you all about your children’s accounts, even ones that are harder to find. Ideally, this makes it easier to spot troubling behavior in places that might not be so obvious. They show you the child’s friends and if they do or do not have any mutual friends in common. If they appear to be an adult, they will tell you that, too. SocialShield:
- Uses a tool called SafetyEngine to monitor your child’s profile on social networks.
- Monitors all their conversations, activities, and photos posted on these sites.
- Allows you to view a “gallery” of the new “friends” your child has connected with.
- Also gives helpful tips from parents and offers advice from a national expert on bullying.
MyChild
MyChild is a program that searches over 40 of the biggest social networks for any reference of your kids. They monitor their collection of web sources once a month and provide a summary report of the results. MyChild:
- Provides a personal agent who advises you and your teenager about the status of their online reputation.
- Removes unwanted references for a set fee.
- No software involved, it is strictly a monthly service, which can be added if you already have a Reputation Defender account.
Unlike SafetyWeb and SocialShield, which monitor your child’s online activity, MyChild scours the web and the information on it about your child. So rather than keeping tabs on what your child is doing on the web, it tracks what the web says about your child.
So, whether or not you already have been monitoring your child or teenager’s online activity/reputation, these are some tools that can either enhance that or take over for you where you may no longer have the time to do it extensively. There are different price points, as well as different depth/levels of search, depending on what you are comfortable with and what you can afford. When it comes to your child’s safety, these services are well worth looking into!
For more about kids and internet safety, check out 5 kid-friendly internet browsers from our friends at Cozi!
Photo by fd.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for this info! Gracie is more and more wanting to be on the internet!
Hi Christine,
Everyone says that when an online predator is soliciting a child he's getting to be his/her real friend and all the interesting conversations are taking place privately. Can these tools/service help to stop this solicitation or are they looking for public information only?
J. T., NH
This is a subject that really touches home for me. My 13 year old son is going through something like this right now. Some of his classmates are threatening him on facebook about they're going to beat him up when he returns to school. We had him "unfriend" them and we made copies to show the school if needed. I love the defenses that you listed here. I'm going to check into them more.
Very useful article. Thanks.
It is a shame that cyber bullying happens. I really feel that we should stress to our children that thier self worth is more important than what someone says. Getting them in sports and self defense classes can be a real boost to thier spirits and a confidence builder.
There is no doubt that we need these services to many of our kids are being harassed by so called online friends and these friends "bullies" think this is just fun, not worrying about the long effects or consequences their actions online have. Monitoring our kids activities online is good responsible parenting.
I'm just happy social Networking websites are adjusting privacy settings!
Kids AND adults should look into how to Block users who are doing this verbal harm.
I don't have to worry about this (YET), and I am afraid to think of what it will be like in 10-15 years when my kids are on the computer. In a prefect world I would like to think that things will become more advanced…but then again- kids advance too.
My daughter is still young but I've heard so many horror stories in the news about this topic that I'm already paranoid. It's gotten so bad that a young girl actually commited suicide over cyber bullying. So heartbreaking. I'm bookmarking these sites and preparing in advance in order to protect my daughter.
It's a shame that these sites even have to be around. I say severe punishments for cyberbullies, like no internet. I think that would make them think twice.
None of my 9 grandchildren have encountered cyberbullying but their parents monitor closely what they do on line. And when they are with me, I do also. It is so sad that something like that even takes place.
One observation I made while working in the high school- is that kids overcame the firewalls that stopped them from getting to the social networking sites- or even youtube. Sadly, I worry that even with great technology- they are savvy enough to overcome it.
Thanks–this is a great resource!
I am glad there's protection out there. Facebook has some privacy stuff that helps.
Sigh. As with most everything in the modern world, avoidance is NOT the best option. If your kid gets picked on at school, do you pull him out of school? NO! You teach him to deal with the problem. You can't avoid everything for the rest of your life… bullying has always happened and will always happen, the only difference nowadays is the format and how parents, teachers, cops, and kids deal with the problem… they don't. Its sad. Just like alot of other avoidance behaviors that kids are being taught these days. Someday when our children rule the world, its going to be a much more dangerous place then it is now because they will have no idea how to handle adversity.
Wow, I am amazed. I was not aware that it could be so simple to track all that information over all those sites.
Great Subject and great info that you listed. I may take a look at MyChild to see what it offers. I have a teenager who was severely taken advantage of on facebook. She was a bit new to facebook and had some friends on there from her old school in addition to friends and a cousin from a new school she just moved to. My daughter mentioned that she didn’t care for a band that a girlfriend liked on her fb. and the girl lashed out. The girl who lashed out was friends w/ a cousin that had my daughter’s password. They got into my daughter’s act. and acted like it was her – and was completely vulgar to all her friends from her old school. NOT only that the girl went as far as to tell my daughter to sit on a toaster and go **** herself. She also was very destructive in so many other ways and thought my daughter may get beat up while in school – I printed the letter. My daughter cried for weeks because she couldn’t believe she went off like that over the fact that she didn’t care for an Emo band that the other girl liked. My daughter isn’t into the “dark” side and obviously the girl took issue with that. Facebook is extremely distractive and there are so many problems w/ it from a social level. I have reconnected w/ old friends from school and there are over 300 of us that are in the same social network and I always see people’s feeling getting hurt ALL the time because one person goes out w/ another and doesn’t ask another or someone writes too much on one friends fb and the other doesn’t get as much attention. Oh the drama. Plus, then there is the married husband’s that were x-boyfriends – UGH – that’s a whole other mess and trust me – Facebook has opened a HUGE can of worms with sooooo many people. Then on the flip side – the questionable adults – OH YES PARENTS – there are some VERY ODD individuals on facebook and twitter and all other social networks. Trust me, I’m on the internet about 7 hrs a day and I have heard ALOT of stories and I have encountered some real odd balls. One story, a friend off twitter had a man from twitter come to her home and is now stalking her and her husband is going insane with this and the cops are involved – they are considering moving. Here is a facebook story, my own encounter – A guy asked to be my friend and mentioned that he was friends w/ a guy I knew – I asked the guy he supposedly knew – GUESS WHAT? – The guy did not know him and when I went to the guy’s profile that wanted to be my friend – he had ALL PRETTY WOMAN listed there. It immediately clued me in that this was some weirdo. I always make sure I know who I add. I get nervous though about kids because they sometimes don’t know enough just to SAY NO to adding people they don’t know. That can be very harmful and can even be problematic because they could post on your wall something made up and not so appealing! UGH.
I wii be using one of these pretty soon, thank you !!
thank you for the info cyber bullying goes on way too much and we need to protect our kids