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MamaBear’s Most Popular Posts in 2014

MamaBear Most Popular 2014 Posts

2014 was the biggest year yet for kids and parents experiencing life in the digital world. To help parents navigate their families across all the challenges, MamaBear published dozens of articles for parents looking for online safety tips, teenage social media trends, and advice about digital parenting. Among all the great content, following are the 5 most popular posts our readers loved the most.

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1. MamaBear’s List of Apps Parents Should Ban

It may seem like an oxymoron, but in 2014, the big trend in social media apps was secrecy.

Multiple apps that allowed users to create anonymous accounts became popular with tweens and teens — which created a problem for parents.

The anonymity offered by apps like Whisper, Secret, Ask.fm and others put many youths at risk for being bullied, harassed, or approached by dangerous strangers. Parents used MamaBear’s List of Apps Parents Should Ban to get them in the know.

2. Top Five Messaging Apps for Tweens and Teens

The post gave parents a look at the popular apps kids are using to communicate with their friends (and possibly even strangers).

  1. WhatsApp Messenger
  2. Kik
  3. LINE
  4. SnapChat
  5. Viber

We heard a lot about SnapChat this year and most recently about a hack of third party SnapChat apps leading to hundreds of thousands of photos leaked online. We covered some highpoints about the media coined “Snappening.”

3. The Best Apps for Parents in 2014

Last year wasn’t all about apps for kids. Our MamaBear parents appreciated The Best Apps for Parents in 2014 throughout the year with helpful,  time-saving and fun apps that parents could enjoy.

  • iReward Chart
  • Evite
  • Cozi Family Organizer
  • Open Table
  • Fandango
  • Great Clips
  • Splice
  • Allrecipes Dinner Spinner
  • Fav Today
  • MamaBear

Looking for even more apps for parents? Stay tuned. MamaBear will be releasing the 2015 list of the best apps for moms in our next blog post.

4. Tips For Giving Your Child Their First Smartphone For the Holidays

Giving the responsibility of a cell phone to a child is a nerve-racking experience for most parents. So it’s no surprise that our post Tips For Giving Your Child Their First Smartphone For the Holidays was one of the year’s most popular.

The post explains how a cell phone for your child can be beneficial to both child and parent when the proper steps are followed. Read details of our recommended process to include:

  1. Setting Parental Controls
  2. Discussing Usage and Set Limits
  3. Reviewing Social Media Guidelines, Privacy, and Rules
  4. Creating Your Own Cell Phone Contract
  5. Installing an App that Connects and Protects

This article isn’t just a holiday read. It’s an excellent resource for parents who are about to give phones to their kids any time of the year.

5. Dangers of Talking to Strangers Online

Learning that nearly 60% of teens have received an email or instant message from a stranger online made the Dangers of Talking to Strangers Online an important topic for 2014.

Parents used the article to learn about a new list of chat apps and common chat slang that kids use to hide the meaning of their messages from their parents.

These are just a few of the family safety and digital parenting resources MamaBear created this year. We have way more where that came from!

Check out archived posts, look out for new ones, and download the MamaBear Family Safety App (available for both iPhones and Androids) so we can help make protecting and parenting your family easier in 2015.

 

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Dangers of Talking to Strangers Online

Dangers of Talking to Strangers Online

When you see your child texting or chatting online, you may assume they are communicating with friends and family. But that may not always be the case.

A study from Cox Communications found that 69% of teens regularly receive personal messages online from strangers. Many parents may be unaware of this because only 21% of teens who receive messages from strangers tell a trusted adult.

Kids aren’t talking about encounters with online strangers, but parents need to.

Know the Facts

If you think your child is safe from online stranger solicitation, you are wrong. The San Diego District Attorney (SDDA) reported that over 45 million children ages 10-17 use the Internet, and among them:

  • close to 60% of teens have received an e-mail or instant message from a stranger, and half have communicated back
  • one in five has been sexually solicited

The odds that your child or teen has encountered a solicitation from a stranger online are high, and there is also a chance that those messages were inappropriate or lewd.

Restrict Stranger Chat Sites

There are a few social sites that promote chatting with strangers. Parents should familiarize themselves with those sites so they can recognize if their children are using them.

  • Omegle – Randomly connects users with strangers and allows them to chat via text or video chat. It is known to often include sexual material.
  • Imeetzu – Randomly connects users with strangers, requires no registration, and permits text, video, and group chats.
  • Tohla – Opens chat windows within the site for chatting one-on-one with strangers.
  • Bazoocam – Is an international chat site that pairs users with strangers for video chat sessions.

Parents should consider banning these sites, so their children fully understand the danger associated with communicating through these channels.

Educate Yourself on Chat Lingo

Because some kids and teens don’t fully understand the dangers of talking to strangers online, they may engage in this behavior. If they know you disapprove, they may attempt to hide it. So educate yourself on the chat lingo they may use to hide their conversations.

ChatSlang has a full list of terms that parents should recognize. Among them:

  • 9 or C9 – Parent in room
  • CD9 – Parents are watching
  • SPROS – Stop parents reading over shoulder
  • KPC – Keeping parents clueless
  • ASLP – Age/Sex/Location/Picture

These are only a few of the acronyms kids use to attempt to keep their parents in the dark. So keep an eye out for any unusual acronyms and question your child if you don’t understand their messages.

Take Safety Precautions

Educating yourself on the dangers of online stranger encounters is the first step in protecting you kids. The next step is educating your kids, and that means talking to them about it.

Related: Protecting Kids from Internet Stranger Danger

The SDDA reports that, “71% of parents stop supervising Internet use by their children after the age of 14, yet 72% of all Internet-related missing children cases involve children who are 15 years of age or older.”

It’s important to continue to protect and educate your children even into their teens. Keep lines of communication open so they feel comfortable coming to you in the event a stranger contacts them online, and stay connect with apps like MamaBear Family Safety (available for iPhones and Andriods) that helps you see who is talking to your kids in social media environments.

 

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8 Back to School Internet Safety Tips for Kids

Internet Safety Tips for Kids. Here are eight important online safety conversations to have with your child before the first bell rings. | MamaBear

As students head back to school, many will take their own smartphones for the first time. Others will enter classrooms where they will start regularly using the internet for school projects. So this year, it’s time to add one more item to your back to school checklist — discussing internet safety tips for kids.

Here are eight important online safety conversations to have with your child before the first bell rings.

1. Use the privacy settings to keep your account private.

Each social media account has their own features for keeping your account private. Go through each account to make sure you are only sharing information with close friends and family and that all personal information is hidden.

2. Don’t give your password to anyone but your parents or primary caregiver.

If a friend, teacher, or babysitter asks for your password, say no. If an adult insists, tell them you need a parent present before you can share access to your account. Friends don’t need your password, and no adult should request it without a parent’s consent.

3. Don’t share sensitive information about yourself or your family online.

Sensitive information includes your: address, name of your school, phone number, and age. If someone repeatedly asks for such information, tell a parent or adult.

4. Don’t share photos or posts that would embarrass or expose you or anyone else.

If you can’t tell what is embarrassing or racy, ask yourself, “Would it be okay if this was shown on television news or attached to a job resume?” If the answer is no, then don’t post it. Images and words create a lasting digital footprint that can be hard to delete, so always think before you post.

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5. Don’t accept requests from anyone you don’t know in real life, even if you have multiple mutual friends.

Only accept people that you personally know, and don’t accept someone just because many of your friends have.

6. Never agree to meet in-person with someone that you met online.

People that you know online are strangers in real life, and they are just as dangerous as any other stranger. If someone asks you to meet them, remember the stranger danger rule — say no and immediately tell an adult.

Related: Protecting Kids from Internet Stranger Danger

7. If you see any type of cyberbullying, don’t respond or participate.

Go tell a parent immediately. Even if you are trying to stop someone from bullying, it is better to not get involved. Instead, notify a parent or adult so they can address and help solve the problem.

8. Talk to an adult if you encounter anything that makes you uncomfortable.

Cyberbullying may be easy to spot and identify, but there are other internet dangers that may not be as obvious. If you have any internet encounters that feels weird or unusual or awkward, tell an adult.

It’s important to have open communication about social media and online safety with your child. In the real world, have regular conversations that discuss both the upsides and the downsides of the internet. Then connect through MamaBear Family Safety app to stay connected in the digital world. The free app is available for both Androids and iPhones.

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MamaBear Family Safety App Now Includes Twitter Monitoring

twitter monitoring

Parents with kids that use Twitter to follow celebrities and tweet to their friends (and strangers) now have a tool to help them know more about their kid’s activity on the popular social network.

MamaBear Family Safety App’s new version 2.8 for iOS and 2.5 for Android  features a new update offering parents the ability to monitor their children’s activity on Twitter.

Popular with people of all ages and especially with celebrities and their fans, Twitter is a social “microblogging” app through which users can write, read and share 140-character “tweets” on any subject. While Twitter offers privacy settings that allow users the option to approve follow requests, the default setting allows anyone can follow and see what a person tweets. So a child who uses Twitter without setting the account to private is sharing his or her messages with millions of Twitter users around the world.

See Also: Protecting Kids from Internet Stranger Danger

This can be unnerving for parents worried about who can see what their kids share via twitter – especially if they use hashtags with certain words (e.g. “Headed to #MainStreetMall 2day with my gurls”), because a hashtag before a word makes that word/phrase searchable by any Twitter user as a common filtering option.

The new MamaBear Twitter update allows parents to monitor their child’s Twitter account for restricted words, who’s following them and who they’re following.

By using all social monitoring features on MamaBear 2.8 for iOS and 2.5 for Android, parents will save time and keep their children safe staying “in the know” with information from their child’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all at once.

Stay in touch and let us know what you think of MamaBear by emailing us at info@localhost.  Your feedback is critical in our mission to protect children.