How to Use Kidswirl

Searching for a social networking site that is safe from online predators and identity theft experts can be a challenge. KidSwirl was created by a father of two that felt his children and others needed a social networking site to interact with their friends. Facebook and many other social networking sites do not allow children under the age of thirteen to join. Due to this, he created KidSwirl for his children and built it based upon the same platform as Facebook. Any Facebook user will be able to immediately see that KidSwirl is very similar to it and it is quite easy to navigate. KidSwirl is relatively new, founded in February 2009, but it is starting to grow in popularity.

In order to get started with KidSwirl, you will need your parent’s email address along with your own personal email account. There are six categories you can create an account under:

Kids 2-12
Parent
Grandparent
Teacher
Teens 13-18
Pastor

Once you sign up for the account, you will be taken through a series of different questions like ‘what are your hobbies, likes/dislikes, etc.’ After you finish filling in all the information about yourself, you can upload some pictures of yourself and then you can start adding friends and begin the social networking process. KidSwirl also includes a chat room and instant messaging feature. It’s a wonderful way to help your children learn about social networking, especially if they have friends that are involved on Facebook and other social networking sites. They can still stay up with technology while staying safe.

Before you can officially use KidSwirl, you need to read through the privacy policy and terms of service. These aggrements simply discuss that your email address will be used to send correspondence and alerts from KidSwirl.com if there is a concern with your child’s account.

Why is KidSwirl such a great social networking site for parents and children? The main reason why more people are starting to be drawn to this site is for the parental control. Parents and all the users have the ability to make suggestions that will help to improve the site and to keep it safe. The parental control panel is perhaps one of the tools that completely sets this site apart from so many others out there. The parental control panel gives parents complete control over their children’s social networking profile. This means they can see everything their child is doing online including messages they are sending, who they are talking to, groups they are participating in, and who their friends are. Having parental control tools makes many parents feel that their children can be safe and protected from many of the online predators.

Of course like any other social networking site, you are always taking on some risk when you start posting your personal information. There is not a formal background screening process so you don’t always know the true identity of every user.

Like Facebook, once you set your profile to be private, no one else is allowed access to see your profile without your approval. This is one of the great safety features of KidSwirl. Many parents not only like KidSwirl for the ability to have control over the friends and things their child can see, they also like it for it’s cleanliness. KidSwirl doesn’t allow foul language, suggestive phrases, inappropriate conversations, and other things that are not appropriate for children. Due to the intense monitoring of the site, KidSwirl is the only web site of this kind. Now parents can finally feel safe about their children interacting with social networking sites.