Are Your Kids Oversharing? Social Media Can Make You a Target for Home Robbery
By Child Safety Specialist Dec 20, 2010 | 9:25:00 amPosted in: Child Safety, Family Parents, are you familiar with the social media applications that your children are using such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Foursquare, etc.? These are all applications that make it extremely easy for anyone to know where your children are and what they’re up to at any point in time. Not only that, but if your children are posting about the expensive gifts that you gave them, it could make them prime targets for thieves.
Foursquare and Facebook now have a spot where you can check into places, allowing everyone who has access to your pages to view your whereabouts. Also, with Twitter, if your children don’t have their tweets protected, anyone on the Internet can see everything that they post. It’s important that you as a parent understand how these sites work and educate your children about protecting their privacy online.
Here are some tips for keeping your family safe online:
- Be sure that settings on all social media pages are set to private and can only be viewed by people your children know.
- Don’t post public messages or out-of-office replies announcing you will be out of town. Also, don’t post or tweet about going out to parties for the evening.
- Be careful of photos your kids post online. Be sure that there are no identifying landmarks or your address visible.
- Don’t allow your kids to post photos of expensive gifts that they’ve received.
Even when taking these precautions online, be sure your home is secured. We all have the tendency to fall into a false sense of security about the safety of our home. It’s certainly not worthwhile to be paranoid but, taking a few extra precautions can make a difference.
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