3 Biggest Threats & Consequences for Kids Online

11/1/2019

Kids are practically a menace to themselves more than they are to anyone else, no matter if it’s walking down the street, cutting fabric or spending time online. Most children are not properly educated about the major threats and risks that lurk on the top popular sites and services they visit, which is why they often end up putting themselves at risk, along with their close family members.

In order to prevent kids from such risks, you need to make them more aware of their existence, and more importantly, their consequences.

After all, a child is much less likely to post a funny photo mocking some of their classmates when it knows that it would hurt their feelings, or even end with proper school and domestic sanctions. An alarming statistic shows that about 22% of children claim to have lost friends due to their online actions and posts, while up to 25% got into verbal up-front fights over such matters.

To help fight such numbers, and ultimately reduce the damaging effects of the Internet on overall kids’ safety, we’ve compiled a list of frequent threats and consequences:

# 1 – Cyberbullying
Kids are at constant risk of being picked on by bullies, both in and out of the school yard. With the mass expansion of the online community, both the court and the harm have increased proportionally. As a result, cyber bullying needs to be considered a key threat and treated accordingly.

A change in your kids’ behavior – distractedness, frequent fear, isolation – is a possible indicator to recognize presence of this threat. In order to help them overcome the difficulty, it is best to clarify the bad effects of the practice in order to prevent it from spreading or hurting your kids.

#2 – Online Trends
Trends promoted by trendsetters, vloggers and bloggers, as well as other ‘online stars’ are also threats to your kids’ safety. Sometimes, their consequences include nothing more than a risky haircut, but other times, online dares and challenges have been known to end tragically.

#3 – Sharing Personal Information
Making kids aware of the importance of private information isn’t enough; you need to inform them of all the different shapes and sizes of the threats lurking online. Sharing such data is a crucial risk for kids’ online, and physical safety, and could ultimately result in real-life consequences (kidnapping, stalking and the likes). Teach your children about phishing, malware downloads and similar scamming tactics to raise awareness and a feeling of responsibility in them.