As a parent one of the most important things that you are going to need to realize is that video games have actually changed. Basically what this means is that once upon a time video games were something that children played by themselves or with a friend over to visit. Then it changed to where children called up a friend and played computer games with their friends while talking to them on the phone. And none of these things were too bad for parents because parents were still in control of what their kids were doing and who they were talking to. But just recently things have changed yet again and this is because of online gaming. Basically what has now happened is that with the help of a headset and a microphone children are able to play games and chat with people from anywhere in the world in real time. And because of this newest addition, things have also changed in what parents have to do to keep their kids safe.
As a parent you need to know that currently most people who are playing these kinds of online games are serious gamers. What this means is that these people are actually logging on to the game to actually play the game, the last thing that they are interested in is talking to children or obtaining information from your children. But unfortunately because of how easy it is for children to access these online games, as time goes on more predators and hackers are going to be logging on to these same games in an attempt to steal information or harass and abuse your children. So you as a parent need to be aware of what is going on in the online gaming world and make sure that your child is prepared.
Here are some things that you can to do to help protect your child and ensure that they are being smart about online gaming.
Number One:
The first thing that you are going to need to do is to teach your child about the dangers of online gaming. This doesn’t mean scare your child half to death but make sure that they understand that giving out information over a headset or computer can be dangerous and that bad things can and do happen. This should be no different then your child learning about strangers in school.
Number Two:
The next thing that you need to do is to make sure that your child is ready for online gaming and the best way to do this is to make sure they understand the dangers of talking to people online and the fact that giving out information is never a good idea because even a phone number can lead to finding out more information. You want your child to be knowledgeable about this because even if they are not doing online gaming at home you never know what happens at their friend’s house.
Number Three:
Something else that you can do is to teach your child about how to deal with people who are harassing them. Basically what you are going to want to do is to teach your child to report them to the administration and to block and ignore those people while playing online games. Many times these people are looking for a response and if you ignore them they will soon go away to somebody else. But you also need to report them to the administration so they can be banned if they are breaking the terms of use and conditions agreement.