7 Technology Tips for Preschool Parents

In today’s society, kids are often seen reaching for a smartphone long before they’ve even started preschool. This early and constant exposure to technology makes it critical to understand how your children are using their devices. On the upside, the advent of the digital age has brought with it many possibilities that can be used to educate your children. However, it’s still very important to monitor your child’s technological use to prevent contact with inappropriate and harmful web content.

By setting a goal to help your child use technology appropriately, you can harness the unlimited potential it has to enhance your child’s cognitive learning abilities.

Here are a few tips that are meant to help you guide your child through their technological journey:

Get involved:

Monitoring your child’s use of the computer or tablet is of utmost importance. One way you can do this is to pick an area in the house where your child is allowed to use their device. This will make it easy for you to watch them or help them if need be.

Be approachable:

Make sure your child knows that they can go to you if they see anything on the Internet that disturbs them. Encourage them to go to you if they have any questions or need help.

Lay down the law:

As tempting as it may be to let your kids spend their free-time after school on their gadgets, it’s important that you don’t let them sit there on them for hours on end. Set a time limit for how long they can spend on their computer or tablet and make sure they stick to these rules.

Teach them about privacy:

Make sure that your child knows they should never ever give out their personal information online. When they get a little older teach them to ask for your permission before they give out their name, phone number, e-mail address, password, postal address, school or picture to anyone online. You should also emphasize the privacy of passwords, and how they should never give them out to anyone, not even their friends.

Use your ISP:

Learn how your Internet service provider can be used to set up parental controls for free. You can then use these controls to block or limit access to certain websites, apps, communication features, and content that you don’t want your child seeing online.

Teach them about links:

Teach your child the basic concept of links, and explain to them which links are safe and which links may be suspicious, such as pop-ads.

Have regular checkups:

You should be checking your child’s browsing history regularly to see where your child has been going online. Familiarize yourself with the types of apps and websites that your child normally uses and visits.

At Carpe Diem Private Preschool, we believe that technology can be used to benefit your children. In our Kindergarten classrooms, we teach computer skills as part of our curriculum. We also use technology to make sure that all of our children feel safe and secure. Only staff, parents and authorized adults are permitted to enter the school’s main quarters with proper “fingerprint scan” verification. We also use technology to help us stay connected. Our advanced Web-cam technology also allows you to “sit in on the preschool classroom” and observe your child at a moment’s notice, with just a click.