Deciding whether or not to setup email for your kids is a hard decision. My kids (8 and 9) have been saving and just got their first iPod Touch. With security in mind, I researched and did some testing to try to decide what to do about email.  There are some paid services that give your children accounts where you can control who they send to, no spam etc.  These seemed like good options but I wasn’t very excited about adding a monthly charge to my expenses.  There are also a few free ones, however in my testing these weren’t helpful because most of them you could only send to others using the same email accounts or for a fee, upgrade the services to send to anyone.

Gmail?

I had set up a gmail account and had good luck and not much spam so I looked into that.  I found that I could set my kids up with a gmail account on their iPods and change the settings so I would be cc’d on all emails received or sent. This gave me some ease of mind. I’m not sure how long this will be appropriate but for now, it seems like a good fit.  In addition, I then was able to give them an itunes account where I could still see their activity/purchases etc.  I set these accounts up with an itunes card so they are not linked to any bank account and when there balances are depleted, no risk.

Steps to set up Gmail for kids on iPad or iPod

1. Go to www.gmail.com  and click on Create a New Account
   
2. Fill out the Account Information page. Note you will be filling this out as yourself since technically your child can’t have an email account. So be sure to fill out your birthday etc.  For more information see Children’s Online Privacy.
   
3. Then go into the email settings for the new account and add a forwarding address (this will be your parent account). You will need to enter in a verification code during this process. Quite simple.
   
4. The account needs to have IMAP enabled in order to set it up on iPhone, iPod, iPad. Select enable IMAP.
   
5. Now go to your iPod, iPad, or iPhone and in the Mail Settings add a Gmail Account.
   
6. In General Settings…Mail, Contacts, Calendar, select Always Bcc Myself. This will ensure that you will get all incoming and outgoing emails.

One of the places kids can be most vulnerable on their iPod or iPhone is the internet.  By providing your kids with a safe browser, this risk can be minimized.

There are several browsers that can be used for kids. The trick is to turn off the safari browser and have your kids use a safe one instead.

In General – steps to keep kids safe on iPods, iPhones and iPads see my prior post at

http://safetech4kids.com/2010/11/22/keep-your-kids-safe-on-iphone-and-ipod-touch/ 

Steps to Use.

1. Go to the App Store (you may need to enable this if you have turned off the ability for your child to purchase apps).
2. Find one of the browser apps listed below and install.
3. Go to Settings.
   .
4. Select General.
   
5. Select Restrictions.
   
   
6. Then click Off next to Safari.
   

Here are a couple of the browsers I found:

K9  Web Protection Browser – free

KidsWWW – free

WebiPot Lite Browser for Kids – free

Surf Balance – $4.99

Use these tips to help protect your kids while using YouTube. In general, keep in mind YouTube isn’t recommended for users under age 13 and I wouldn’t probably let my kids browse around YouTube unless they were close to that age or within an eye’s reach of me.

For starters, there is a pretty good YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkI3e0P3S5E which shows how to utilize safety mode. This is something that can be turned on for your browser. It does need to be turned on for each browser and each computer your child might use.

You need to however, understand the limitations of this feature.  You can turn it on, but to prevent it from being turned off, you need to setup a YouTube account. Also, keep that in mind even with this security turned on, your child still may end up viewing inappropriate content. It’s definitely not 100% guarantee.

So in a nutshell, we can prevent the accidental browsing and especially for the younger children, but if they are trying to find a way around it, they probably will.  Nothing substitutes parental supervision and checking in on what your kids are doing.

The YouTube security doesn’t work on the iPhone/iPod.  Some parents choose to completely remove YouTube from their childs iPhone or iPod. Even if this is the case, remember they can still get to it through the browser. You can enable the same safety mode through the browser on the iPhone or iPod.

1. Go to www.youtube.com and sign in with YOUR log-in.  If you don’t already have one, making one is free and only takes a few seconds. BE SURE TO CHECK THE BOX KEEP SIGNED IN. Otherwise the security can simply be turned off.
   
2. Scroll to the bottom and view the safety mode which will say OFF. Click on Off.
   
3. Then select On and click Save and lock Safety Mode on this browser. This will require your password to unlock the safety mode.
   

Good luck and have fun.

The accesibility kids have to unsafe and inappropriate sites online is scarey.  There are some simple things you can do to help keep your kids from accidently ending up somewhere they shouldn’t. These are simple settings to help keep your kids safe on these devices.

1. From the main screen, go to Settings. 
    
2. Then go to General
   
3. From the General screen scroll down to Restrictions.
   
   
4. In the Restrictions window, select Enable Restrictions at the top.
   
5. You will then  be prompted for a passcode (do not forget it and make sure your kids can’t figure it out). You will need to enter it twice.
   
6. Then you will be able to set various resctrictions pictured in the screen below.
   
7. Notice if you go into Movies or TV Shows you will see a screen where you can set ratings.
   
8. You can also set age restrictions for apps from the App Store.  Note, it only prevents downloading, not seeing the information about the app. 

Things you may want to consider when setting the restrictions:

• You may want to turn off the  Location app—do you want people to know where your child is via their GPS locator. Most likely not.
• You may want to turn off the YouTube app since there’s no way to set a filter there and I would have to rely on YouTube via Safari. Will cover this next week.
• You may want to turn off the permission to install apps without your permission. Turning this “off” removes the App Store button from the Touch entirely. I figure that they could just come up to me and ask me if he wanted to install an app since he would need my iTunes password anyway. In my opinion, the App Store is still a little too much of a free market, and because of this, there are far too many apps on there that kids shouldn’t be exposed to.

By setting your home page as iGoogle, you can control that all searches that are done will typically be done from your home page.

Many people already use iGoogle.  This is a customized Google page where you can setup your preferences.  Mine looks like this:

If you make this your home page, you can also setup some security so when kids are searching on this site, it can be secured.

Setup an iGoogle Page:

1. Go to www.Google.com
2. Click on iGoogle link in the upper right hand corner.
   
3. If you have a gmail account, Sign In.  Then click on Get Started.
   
4. Select interests, a theme etc and click See your page.
        

5. To futher customize your page, click Settings…iGoogle settings
   

Change the Security Settings for iGoogle Page

1. From your iGoogle page, select Settings…Search settings
        

2. There are various search settings, scroll down to SafeSearch Filtering, select Use strict filtering.
        

3. Then select Lock SafeSearch.  This will prompt you for your password.     

4. Then the following window will appear. Click Lock SafeSearch. This restricts users to change the filtering and prevents all explicit words and images from appearing in search results.
   
5. You can tell from across the room if this is turned on since you will see the colored circles appear on the right hand side of the screen as pictured below.
   

Unlock SafeSearch

Return to the Search settings page and click unlock. (You’ll need to sign in to the Google Account that was used to lock SafeSearch.)