One thing that you as a parent are probably aware of is that the entire concept of video games has actually changed a lot in the past few years. It used to be that video games were something that were played at home with one or two people and it hooked up directly to your television set. Basically if your child wanted to play a game with a friend that friend had to come over to actually play the game, but now with the introduction of the Internet, video games have taken on a whole new life. Nowadays children can play video games in real time by simply logging onto a website or turning on the video game console because of something called online gaming. And like anything that has to do with the Internet there are dangers lurking around various corners; you as a parent need to know certain things about online gaming so that you can keep your child safe.
Here are some things that every parent should know about their children’s online gaming.
Number One:
The first thing that you should know is that before you allow your child to play games online you should actually teach them about the basics of online safety. The reason for this is that there are numerous dangers that children are going to be facing while surfing the Internet or just playing games online. So if they know the basics about online safety, including not giving out personal information, they will be better protected from strangers and the numerous dangers that they will face online.
Number Two:
The next thing that you need to know about online gaming is what websites your child is using to play online games. Basically as a parent you always know what your child is doing in the physical world so the online world shouldn’t be any different. You are going to want to know who your child’s online friends are, what games they are playing, what websites they are playing on, how long they are playing, etc. But not only do you want to know basic stuff like that but you are also going to want to monitor any kind of conversations that your children are having with people they are playing games online with.
Number Three:
Something else that you need to know about as a parent is that when playing games online your children are going to come across cyberbullies, or griefers as they are sometimes called. As a parent, you must know what to teach your children about what to look for and how to react to these types of people. Most of the time cyberbullies are best dealt with by ignoring them because most of the time these people are actually looking for responses from people and if they don’t get one they tend to move on.
Number Four:
Another thing that you need to know is that even though there are not a lot of predators on online gaming sites, that doesn’t mean that they won’t be logging on soon. The reason there are not a lot of predators yet is that most people who play online games are serious gamers and are there for the game, but as more and more young children are playing online games the world of the predators is going to increase to include the online websites. But something interesting to note is that there are voice masks that you can get for your children. What these things do is they disguise your voice so people can’t tell if you are a child, adult, male or female. But keep in mind anybody can use these voice masks so people might not always be who they say they are online.