Protecting Your Children While Playing Games Online

Our parents had a different set of problem. When we were young and we were playing outside of the house, they were most likely worried that we could get hurt while playing, either scrape our knees or get sprained or they were worried that a stranger might talk to us and we will reply. These are just some of the issues or parents used to face. Now that we are parents ourselves, on top of these run of the mill problems, we now face additional worries whenever our children play online games. Online gaming usually offer two things that you might need to protect your child from. One is that some online games, since they offer anonymity, can be accessed by pedophiles and can talk to your child. Second is that griefers, also known as cyber bullies, can target and can make your chilled extremely miserable.

Online gaming usually has a chatting option wherein our little one can chat wit others. It is usually used to talk about strategy or barter items in the game but it can also be used to talk about non-game related stuff like TV or even about personal life.

To protect your child form pedophiles and griefers lurking in online gaming sites here are some tips that you can follow:

Make sure your child understands – If you are about to set rules or boundaries, make sure you set some time for you to explain why you are doing this. Explain that its not that you do not trust him, its just that you are not very trusting when it comes to other people

Relocate the computer – Make sure that the computer is in the kitchen or the living room area. This will ensure that you can check up on the gaming activities of your child once in a while. Also, if the computer is in a well trafficked area, your child will also be able to interact with people in the real world.

Educate – Tell your child to never give out the following information to people online:

1. Real name
2. Contact details like address and phone number
3. State
4. Passwords
5. Credit Card Numbers
6. Make sure that they use a pseudonym as a log in ID.

Ignore – Ignore both strangers and bullies online. Because if there are no responses, no matter how persuasive the stranger is, they will usually become bored and leave you

Do not stoop to their level – Tell your child that if a griefer is very persistent to never attack him the way they tried to attack your child. This will only make matters worse.

Ask help – Tell your child that when in doubt, when they do not know what to do and when they are scared, to ask help from you. Tell them that even if you are busy, even if you are not even at home, that they can call you up in the office or in your cell phone to ask help or to let you know what scared them.