Protecting yourself and your identity are of little value if your children don’t follow the same guidelines. But if your child is using an unprotected computer to post family travel details and other inappropriate personal information, to a social media site, all your efforts may be in vain.
For instance, you may be responsible by:
- Using strong passwords
- Using anti-virus software
- Reading the Fine Print
- Shredding documents, CD’s and credit cards
- Using a credit monitoring service
- Using credit cards more than debit cards
But, without teaching your children these strategies (and ensuring they use them), your efforts may be in vain.
What’s sensitive information?
Imagine your address (or even just your town) is listed on Facebook, and your son updates his friends (and their friends and friends of friends) that your family is leaving for a 7-day vacation to Mexico.
It wouldn’t take much for someone to locate your home and rob you.
Sound far fetched?
There’s a whole website dedicated to raising this awareness. It was created by people helping to raise awareness.
Check out: http://pleaserobme.com/ to open your eyes a little more.
Whether using easy-to-remember passwords, throwing away statements in the mail (without shredding) or joining the latest fad site without understanding the terms and conditions for use; your children can expose your information quickly and easily, despite all your caution.
What to do…
- Click on the “Personal Protection” category of this blog and review some of the strategies with your children.
- Have them share the sites their visiting and then monitor their ongoing actions.
- Set parental controls on their computer or use other software designed that allows you to monitor their activities.
Final Note: While this last suggestion may sound challenging, understand that supervising your children is a parental responsibility. Familiarize yourself with the parental controls on their computers and exercise appropriate supervision.
And be sure to speak with them about it. You don’t want to appear to be spying on them and having a heart-to-heart can be a good thing.
